hey all!
I have a question for the forum...
I recently acquired my first sailboat, a 25 foot cal from 1972.
the boat has been moored for a long time with no maintenance performed on it, so it had about two inches of barnacles on the bottom.
I freed up the rudder, and decided to sail the boat to clear water to scrape the hull (the visibility in the mooring field was about a foot)
the boat wouldn't sail. the boat was steering maybe twenty degrees in either direction (upwind or downwind) stabilized on a reach. retrimming the sails and full rudder movement would only change the heading maybe thirty degrees.
after a LOT of work we managed to get the boat back to its mooring, but I'm hesitant to sail it again.
I've scraped the barnacles off most of the hull (I think thats the biggest thing keeping me from tacking, slowing the boat down and killing its inertia) but I can't reach the keel. remember, only a foot of visibility.
the rudder is completely cleaned off, and was before we tried sailing it.
do you think it would be safe to go out and try again with 90 percent of the barnacles off, or would the barnacle not cause control problems like that? I don;t know why we couldn't steer the boat onto a run.
all my experience is with smaller sub-20 foot sailboats, with the largest boat being a 20 foot typhoon capy dory. (about 35 hours total in it)
I'm sorry if the post seems short, I just typed out the entire story and then forgot to save it and the browser lost it
any advice?
I have a question for the forum...
I recently acquired my first sailboat, a 25 foot cal from 1972.
the boat has been moored for a long time with no maintenance performed on it, so it had about two inches of barnacles on the bottom.
I freed up the rudder, and decided to sail the boat to clear water to scrape the hull (the visibility in the mooring field was about a foot)
the boat wouldn't sail. the boat was steering maybe twenty degrees in either direction (upwind or downwind) stabilized on a reach. retrimming the sails and full rudder movement would only change the heading maybe thirty degrees.
after a LOT of work we managed to get the boat back to its mooring, but I'm hesitant to sail it again.
I've scraped the barnacles off most of the hull (I think thats the biggest thing keeping me from tacking, slowing the boat down and killing its inertia) but I can't reach the keel. remember, only a foot of visibility.
the rudder is completely cleaned off, and was before we tried sailing it.
do you think it would be safe to go out and try again with 90 percent of the barnacles off, or would the barnacle not cause control problems like that? I don;t know why we couldn't steer the boat onto a run.
all my experience is with smaller sub-20 foot sailboats, with the largest boat being a 20 foot typhoon capy dory. (about 35 hours total in it)
I'm sorry if the post seems short, I just typed out the entire story and then forgot to save it and the browser lost it
any advice?