2-Albemarle Sound-Tale of the Fozzguppy

J.J.Falkanger (gatorjj@mindspring.com)
14 Jun 1999 06:33:03 -0700


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West Wight Potter Website at URL
http://www.lesbois.com/wwpotter/
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I've sympathized with the folks on this mail list about water coming in through the keel trunk, but never had it happen to me, so paid no attention to the solutions. I quickly became interested when I noticed water lurching in through the bolt recesses. Bashing into the quarters of these waves put 2 gallons of water into my boat! I know, because I sopped it up with a magic cloth most of the way, dumping it into the sink, and I measured how much was in the container when I got back.

While I was sopping, my friend John captained the boat. He mentioned how well engineered he thought it was, and how well balanced it was compared to his Catalina 22. He also brought up reefing. Folks say you should reef when you think about it. I've never thought about it before! I was too engrossed in the adventure to think about it, but he kindly mentioned we would probably heel somewhere less than 40 degrees if I reefed. I did, and it bought us some more time, and we got back to about a 20 degree heel on average for a while, with the lapper and 1 (and only, for now!) reef point. Wind was steady about 20 knots at this point, and we were nice and wet, inside and out, but not worried. We couldn't see it for the rain, but we were about 3 miles away, still with wind dead on the nose.

About this time I noticed we hadn't seen another boat out today. What fools we were! We figured as we got closer to the lee shore, we'd get a little less wind, and a little smaller on the waves. Not until about a mile away did we get relief from the waves, and the wind continued to increase to the point we were hanging about 30 degrees on average, back to making about 3 knots headway. Then John brought up heaving to. Another thing I neglect to think about!

I guess the wind was a steady 20 knots, gusting higher, beating our brains out, and we hove to. Fantastic! Though not totally balanced with the lapper and reefed main, we took a break, had a root beer, emptied the previous root beer, sopped up some more water, and hung out for a while. The GPS had us moving backwards at 1.6 knots, but we were almost there.

--to be continued--

J.J. Falkanger
Cary, NC
P-19# 792 "Fozzguppy"
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