Kaimusailing

I continued to waste time. Fabio was preparing to launch and selling a few items, an endless furler, a Makita cordless drill, sans battery, and his old drone. He wanted $150 for the furler which included about 35' of aluminum foil sections. I was only interested in the furler drum. An endless furler does not have a line coiled up on the drum, the line goes in and out of the drum and doesn’t accumulate in the drum. I figured if I could buy just the drum from him maybe I could get it for $75. It turned out he had changed his plans and was using the aluminum foil sections for something else and offered me the drum for $40. Sure, but wait, there’s more. He threw in the drone and the Makita drill for an extra $10. I didn’t need the drill but the drone had new batteries that would fit my Bugs 3 drone.
.
I charged the batteries up and flew the drone. It is a clone of my Bugs 3 called Force 1 F100. It was lively and ran a long time on one battery. When I priced replacement batteries they were just under $20. From China.
.
eBay sent me a message that I was eligible for a ten dollar discount if I installed their app on my phone and made an order with the app for at least twenty dollars. I ordered two Makita batteries for $33, free shipping. With the discount and adding tax the total was around $27.
.
I took a look at the furler drum. It is a Hood Seafurl 705. It requires a 3/8“ diameter furling line that is an endless loop. Normally it would be mounted on a stay with foil sections up to the top swivel where the jib halyard would attach to the swivel. If I use it, I will be furling sails that are not on a stay, like an asymmetrical spinnaker. I will need a swivel where the halyard attaches to the head of the sail.
.
Pizza Night came and went. 2 pepperoni’s and 2 mushroom pies. There was a complaint of too much garlic on the mushroom pies, but only one complaint, I slipped with the fresh garlic and that slice must have had too much. We were cleaned out, no leftovers for breakfast.
.
I went down to the floating dock to check on the Sumnercraft dinghy. We have had tons of rain the past few days and sure enough the dinghy was full, so full that I couldn’t move it to pour out the water. I put the portable electric bilge pump in it and pumped it out. Water had filled the port flotation chamber and had to be slowly dribbled out through the little hole it came in through. After a long time the dinghy was empty and light enough to launch. I decided to row out to Trillium, the C&C 24 I had sold to Doc.
.
I had noticed the C&C looked down by the stern a bit and suspected it might have some water in the cockpit. When I got to her indeed the cockpit was full, the drains had plugged with debris, and the cabin had 4 inches of water. I cleared the drains and began pumping out the cabin with the little hand pump that is on board. I wished I had brought the electric pump, but I didn’t expect the cabin to have so much water. It took a long time to pump the cabin and the bilge dry. When I closed up the companion way and got back into the dinghy a cloud burst drenched me. Thunder. Lightning. I rowed back. The port oar lock came loose. No good deed goes unpunished.
.
The eBay Air X wind turbine stator that I ordered was canceled by the seller with no detailed information. I presume they found it was defective. I had to reorder a new stator from eMarine Systems in Ft. Lauderdale. It would cost about twice as much but it’s brand new.
.
The C&C 24 that I bought a few years ago for $490 gave me a lot of fun, what a delightful sailboat. I was inspired by Webb Chiles and his Moore 24. I found that small boats are more fun than big boats. Now I’ve come across another small gem, a Beneteau First 235. This is a boat similar in size to the C&C but with a real galley and a real head with a holding tank. The boat was designed by Finot of Beneteau who is also involved with the Mini 6.5 class that races the Minitransat. These are small boats that cross the Atlantic, singlehanded. It is a development class, so changes are constant and the boats have evolved over the years. Finot took a race winner and took hull molds off it. He began production of a boat unlike any other in this size range. The interior was not miniaturized, it had standing headroom and a working galley, plus a nav station and a head with holding tank. The sailing performance was there and the boat looks now, 15 years later, up to date.
.
The boat I came across is being sold by Boat Angel Ministries. As of last Sunday the price was stuck at around $565. I put an auction snipe in at $1551. My reasoning is that if someone else sets there limit at 1500, for 50 dollars more I get the boat. If someone wants to pay more and run the bidding up, I’m out, they can have it. Sour grapes. The boat comes with a fairly new Yamaha 4 HP 4 stroke which should be worth at least $500. Prices for these boats runs in the $5000 to $15000 range. In the UK prices are much higher, not sure why. The photo is from the beneteau235.com website, one of many wallpaper images available there.