Re: Re?Locate

hlg@pacbell.net
Sat, 11 Dec 1999 13:50:53 -0800


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West Wight Potter Website at URL
http://www.lesbois.com/wwpotter/
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Geoff reportedly wrote:

>I have extended my business and now have an office and second home in
>Monterey, California. My new digs are about three blocks from the boat ramp
>at the wharf at Monterey! Lollipop is already there, although I have not had
>time to put her in the water yet.
>
>I am maintaining my main office and home at Incline Village on the North
>shore of Lake Tahoe. I am spending the first two weeks of every month in
>Monterey and the last two weeks at Lake Tahoe. Thus, during the winter I
>will be able to sail and scuba for two weeks and then ski for the last two
>weeks. You can see where my priorities are. Ahhh! The tough life of a
>sailor.
>
>I am looking forward to boating with some of you folks who are in the
>Monterey, Salinas and Carmel areas. If any of you are scuba divers as well,
>I'd love to hear from you. I will be taking my dive gear down on my next
>trip to Monterey, right before New Year's.

What a life, and what a location! That's good news that you will be down
here in the lowlands half the time. Hope we can get together occasionally.
Monterey is only about a hundred miles from Mountain View.

>The time and effort it has taken to set this up, as well as helping a very
>ill mother in Carmel, has kept me busy enough that I have not had enough time
>to participate in the list, although I do read most of the posts, except the
>stuff about riots in Seattle. I always knew I didn't want to live there
>anyway.

I'm very sorry your mother is ill. I wish the best for her.

>I do have a question: I don't know if there was ever a consensus as to
>whether you have to rinse a Honda 2 out after using it in salt water. I have
>never had my boat in salt water and am not at all familiar with what I am
>going to have to face. It will be trailered when I'm not using it. Do I need
>to run the motor in fresh water every time I use it? That sounds like a
>total pain in the butt. Do I need to think about bottom paint or doing
>anything to the centerboard to protect it? Will Otters eat me? They are
>totally cool with those big eyes. The seals remind me of sea dogs. They
>bark just like them. Any particular suggestions to sailing in waters with
>lots of kelp?

Someone else will answer your question about your Honda. My Seagull and my
MinnKota Riptide are both designed for saltwater use and don't require
flushing. I do hose them down after use. I occasionally wipe down the
Seagull with WD-40 and the MinnKota with Armor-All. (Actually, I haven't
used the Seagull for the past year.)

If you have a galvanized centerboard and will be storing Lollipop on her
trailer, don't worry about it. My CB was essentially unaffected by frequent
saltwater use over 30 years, and I never tried to wash the salt off..

Do give your trailer a good hosing after saltwater use. Mine is not
galvanized but has held up pretty well. It was getting rusty when I bought
it back in 1970, but I repainted it with an orange primer that must have
been pretty good stuff. It's ready for another paint job now though. Keep
your Bearing Buddies pressurized. I've changed to a Spindle-Lube axle that
allows repacking the bearings by just squirting grease in at the end of the
hub. I pump a little fresh grease in once in a while, which forces some of
the old grease out. I try not to submerge the hubs when I launch.

You'll probably want to wash the salt off Lollipop's hull after use. I
usually hose off Manatee's hull while I'm washing the trailer. You probably
keep Lollipop washed and polished anyway, so the saltwater shouldn't change
your routine in that regard. It's probably a good idea to wash the salt off
your sails too, but I rarely do.

I've only sailed Monterey Bay once, so haven't had experience with otters.
Otters are cute and surely harmless. I enjoy the occasional seal in SF Bay
and often bark back at them. There were zillions of jellyfish sailing with
me the time I sailed from Santa Cruz to Monterey. They probably wouldn't be
good swimming companions. There is kelp off the lee shore of Catalina, and
I don't recall it being a problem, but it is probably best to avoid
concentrated fields of kelp, where your boat might get hung up.

I wonder how your lungs will react to the abrupt change in elevation every
two weeks. Perhaps you will be supercharged when you first descend to our
oxygen-rich environment, and you will find yourself running around at high
speed. I live near Space Systems/Loral, which has a vacuum chamber that you
might be able to use in an emergency. Or maybe you can just breathe into a
paperbag, which is said to provide relief from hyperventilation. Or you
could go diving without your scuba. Eventually you may lose your high
altitude acclimatization and you may want to take your air tanks with you
when you go back to Tahoe, just in case you need a shot of real air.

Regards,
Harry
P14 #234, Manatee
Mountain View, CA