FINALLY - SEA TRIALS & CLUB RACING!

After repowering CaiLeigh Anna in mid-August the plan was to conduct sea trials before Labor Day and get in a couple sailing trips before the fall racing season started. Two scheduled attempts to cast off the dock lines were cancelled due to fuel related issues.

First, my mechanic thought there that old fuel and/or a dirty fuel tank which caused the engine to shut down after a 45 minute test run at the dock. After cleaning the fuel and tank the motor ran fine during a 2 hours test run at the dock. However, during the second test run the engine ran for 10 seconds and shut off, and could not be restarted. The mechanic now suspected that the electric fuel pump was malfunctioning.

The fuel pump was replaced and all seemed to be fine. The mechanic conducted daily test runs of the engine for a week so we were confident that CaiLeigh Anna would finally cast off the dock lines that had bound her to the dock for over two years.

Saturday, September 20, was a wet and dreary day but we felt that a sea trial was essential considering that the first race of the fall season was the next day. After another successful test run at the dock we cast off for the fuel dock a short distance away. All was fine so far. This was all to change as we departed the fuel dock, raised the head sail, and headed down the Frederica River to St. Simon's Sound.

We noticed diesel fuel pumping out the bilge discharge and an inspection of the engine compartment revealed fuel pumping out of the injector bleeder valve. A small ¼" bolt apparently wasn't tightened sufficiently and had worked out from the engine vibration. Despite a lot of searching I could not locate the missing bolt. Since running the engine was out of the question, we sailed back to the marina as far as possible and dropped anchor. Then we called Sea Tow to tow us back to our slip.

I had already contacted my mechanic and he was onboard shortly after we docked with a replacement part. After another series of test runs at the dock we felt confident that we could compete in the first race on Sunday.

Sunday's weather was a complete reversal of the previous day and we were greeted with sunny blue skies and light winds from the Northeast. Prior to the skippers' prerace meeting we moved CaiLeigh Anna to the transient dock to avoid exiting over a shallow hump in the marina during low tide a couple hours away. It seems that we had finally exercised all the fuel gremlins that had haunted us for the past month. Joining our regular crew of Joe & Pat, and Suze was Bryanna, a high school member of the local sailing club. After a few tacks everyone had their jobs down great and we never had a bad tack during the race. It is a great crew and we were thrilled to have Bryanna on board.

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Tally ho, the race was underway as CaiLeigh Anna joined the rest of the Golden Isles Sailing Club in St. Simon's Sound for the first race! My objective was to successfully compete and try to avoid any sailing mishap. We got a less than stellar start as I was overly cautious and determined to avoid the rest of the fleet in a close starting formation. CaiLeigh Anna responded well and sailed extremely well, albeit not as fast as needed to compete with the leaders.

Our head sail or genoa jib is cruising size, about a 125%, and not a racing sail which run from 135% to 170%. Still we sailed well and managed to successfully deploy our new asymmetrical spinnaker on the first downwind leg. The huge multicolored sail is a thing of beauty. Our crew performed flawlessly all day and we actually caught up with the lead pack, which were becalmed just short of the finish line. At one time CaiLeigh Anna was in the lead before we also lost out wind.
Three of the lead boats caught a puff and managed to cross the finish line. And a short time later we found a breeze along with Delphine and were also sprinting next to each other for the line. We had a couple boat lengths lead with CaiLeigh Anna and managed to block Delphine's course to the finish line barely squeaking out a four second fourth place finish ahead of her.

The return trip to the marina was joyful as we sailed side by side with our friends on Delphine. After a testy docking due to a cross wind we were safely tied up in our slip and rejoicing over a very successful day aboard CaiLeigh Anna. There are still many small things to do to bring this boat back, but she has returned to the sea where she belongs. This skipper could not be more pleased.