Final sail of the season on the Walker Bay

I've sailed the Walker Bay several times since my last post and my opinion of it has evolved.

The first couple of times I sailed it the wind was too light for proper sailing. I've had some much better wind (5-10 mph) and one perfect day (10-15 mph). For my final sail for the season, the wind was probably too strong (5-28 mph).

I'd mentioned before about sitting on the seat instead of on the floor. With enough wind, that's the appropriate place to sit. That moves the center of gravity forward and changes the feel of the boat.

The sail has a window in it which works well with a proper wind. The tiller extends the appropriate length for sitting here, too.

I've changed my initial impression of the Walker Bay as a rowboat with a sail. It is a decent sailboat. It is easy to sail and control.

Given a perfect day and I could race back and forth on the lake.

It was less fun in high winds. Today had 25+ mph gusts. I probably should have skipped sailing but I doubt that I'll have a warm enough day again this year.

I would not recommend sailing in winds like these but I didn't get into any trouble. I was able to sail downwind at speed. The wind pushed the bow down a bit and I had to fight the tiller a bit to go straight but it wasn't difficult.

Tacking was much more difficult with so much wind. It stopped the boat cold. I also had the top of the sail tangle itself. A couple of more tacks freed it.

I'm pretty strong so someone younger might have had problems holding the sail in place against all that pressure.

All told, the Walker Bay was exactly what I wanted - an inexpensive sailboat that I can set up and take down easily by myself.

I look forward to next year's sailing season.

Further Thoughts on the Walker Bay

I went for another sail in my Walker Bay. This time I had very light winds.

To be honest, I spent a lot of time drifting. The weather service said winds were 3mph with gusts of 11.

A 3mph wind is not enough to really move the Walker Bay but I almost always had enough wind to turn it.

During a gusty period I was able to move up on the seat a couple of times. I liked the feeling. The boat felt more stable that way. There was so little wind, though, that the boat was leaning towards me making me feel like I was on the wrong side of the sail (I wasn't).

Previously I complained that a side wind will push the boat sideways. That happened several times. I discovered that I could regain control by loosening the sail a bit and turning downwind long enough to get some motion then turning back to my original direction.

This may sound intuitive to more experienced sailors but most of my experience has been with my Whitehall and it is harder to turn, especially in light breezes.

Speaking of my Whitehall, the Walker Bay gave me new appreciation for how well the Whitehall is designed. The Walker Bay has a traditional block and tackle. My Whitehall has a more complicated one where part of it is at the end of the boom. This gives a lot more mechanical advantage than the one on the Walker bay with is self-contained on the middle of the boom. It's actually more work to trim the sails on the Walker Bay than on the Whitehall even though the Whitehall has a larger sail.

Sailing the Walker Bay 10

My Whitehall is a lot of fun to sail but it's almost too much for me to set up by myself. I've had a Walker Bay sitting around unused since I got the Whitehall and it occurred to me that this can be sailed, also. I took advantage of a Black Friday sale at West Marine to get the Performance Sail then waited months for appropriate weather.

The sail kit went together fairly easily. It would have been even easier if Walker Bay had included the correct instructions. The instructions provided were for the High Performance Sail kit instead of the Performance Sail kit. The High Performance Sail kit incluides a small foresail and parts for mounting it. I puzzled over the missing pieces but decided to assemble what I could. I eventually found the proper instructions on the Internet and found that I'd make good guesses about the parts I had assembled.

Currently I've got my Whitehall hanging from the roof of my garage so I can use the trailer for the Walker Bay. This is overkill but a lot easier than trying to get a 100 lb boat on the roof of my car. The Walker Bay is light enough that I don't bother backing the trailer into the water. I put the boat off near the water, set up the sail and launch it by hand using the built in "wheel in the keel".

Setup is quick and easy. You put the lower piece of the mast into the upper piece, step it, attach the boom, fasten the safety lines and block, and fit the rudder. The dagger board goes in after the boat is in the water. All of this takes 5-10 minutes - maybe 15 including parking the car and getting settled in the boat.

When evaluating the Walker Bay as a sailboat it is important to remember that this is a rowboat with a sail so some allowances have to me made. The biggest is that seating is not particularly good. The rowing bench is in the center of the boat. For sailing, this doubles as the point where the block is fastened down. Most pictures of the boat sailing show the sailor sitting on the rowing bench. This will work in a strong breeze but is unsuitable for normal sailing. The best place to sit is on the floor between the rowing bench and the back bench. This lets you keep one hand on the tiller and the other on mainsheet. Any other position means that you will have to shift position and take a hand off of the tiller, the mainsheet, or both.

Because your weight is further back than when rowing, the bow is lifted a bit. This lets the boat turn quickly but it has other ramifications. The biggest is that you really need to have your hands on the controls at all times. If left unattended, the boat will turn suddenly in the slightest wind. This is potentially dangerous
Sitting on the floor limits how long I can sail. My legs get tired of being curled up after an hour or 90 minutes.

All of that said, it Walker Bay is a decent sailboat. Sailing it is easy and intuitive. The slightest breeze is enough to move it and it can get up to a good speed. I've only used it in a lake and I would hesitate taking it ou on anything larger but its great in the 5 square mile lake that's most convenient to me. It can sail fairly close to the wind and it tacks quite easily. When sitting on the floor, the boom goes harmlessly over my head so I don't have to remember to duck.

The biggest problem is when the wind is coming directly from the side. This pushes the boat sideways. The dagger board and rudder are not enough to stop this from happening. The bow being out of the water because of my position doesn't help this either.

My conclusion is that the Walked Bay is a good boat for someone who wants to be able to go sailing with a minimum of setup. If you watch for sales, you can get the boat and sail for around $2,000 which isn't bad. The boat itself is a zero-maintenance boat and the sail kit is light and easy to store. It meets my goal of being able to set up the sail and get on the water quickly.

Renting a Whitehall

A couple of weeks ago we went to Connecticut on vacation. We included Mystic Seaport in the trip as well as the consignment shop that I bought my Whitehall through.

We went through Mystic Seaport on Columbus Day which was the last day of the season that they rent boats. We rented a Whitehall similar to mine. I noticed several differences.

First, my boat is much fancier than the ones for rent. Mine has nicer woodwork, better flooring, and many other details. The polyurethane finish makes it much nicer than weather, grey wood.

The mechanism for pulling up the swing keel is nicer on mine (although mine needs to have the steel cable replaced).

Rowing the Mystic Seaport boat was a little frustrating. First, the oars that they gave me were only six foot oars which is too short. Also, they use a single thwart with a looped rope that holds the oar in. This gives a oar a lot of play. Two thwart or an actual oarlock is much easier to use.

Regardless, I didn't have any trouble rowing us in a circle around the town.

I'm sure that the plans for my boat came from Mystic Seaport since the maker was associated with it. Their small-boat designer loved Whitehalls. I have his book on small boats and it devotes much more space to Whitehalls than any other type (to say nothing of having a picture of a Whitehall on the cover).

The plans would have been based on the few surviving ones and in 1980, I think that only a couple were known. One of those is on display.

Replacing the stern post

After digging out the rotted stern post on the Black Sheep and giving the exposed wood several days to dry out, I used an epoxy-based wood rot product to seal the plywood and the new post. I gave that a day and a half to cure then attached the post.

I used a lot of epoxy and screwed the sides to the post. It is solid. I used more epoxy to cover the screw heads and fill in some cracks.

Where there was a gap in the fiberglass I could see that the new piece wasn't as tight a fit as I had hoped. There was some gap between the post and the plywood at some parts. I squirted more epoxy into the gap to try to seal it off.

All of this went very quickly. The hard part turned out to be the mounts for the rudder.

I had bought a new set of screws for this. I figured that a 4" timber is actually closer to 3 1/2" so a 4" carriage bolt should be the right size. It turned out that the post is closer to a true 4" than I expected. Also, I pulled all of my screws out of the same bin but I did not measure them. It turned out that some other sizes had gotten mixed in. There were two 5" ones and a couple of shorter ones.

Because of the angle, I had a hard time getting a consistent angle for the holes. I had to widen some of them.

I had gotten galvanized screws but when I got replacements I went with stainless.

The tubes for holding the rudder looked symmetric but it turned out that one end is imperceptibly wider than the other. Naturally I had mounted both of them upside down and had to reverse them. Once I did that, the rudder hung properly.

I used another tube of epoxy to seal the screws and the fiberglass around the mounting plates.

I still had some of the Olympic Stain that I used on the interior. Most paint is unusable after two years but this just needed a good stirring. I replaced a broken floorboard and gave the floor a new coat of stain.

I also used some spar varnish on the tiller and the oarlocks.

I would like to give the exterior a fresh coat of paint but otherwise the boat repairs are complete.

Ready to finish

I used some epoxy-based wood sealer on the exposed plywood on the Black Sheep. For good measure, I used the rest of it on the new stern post.

The stuff I used is actually meant to stabilize rotten wood but it should be fine for my purposes. It comes in two parts with a warning that it will heat after they are combined. When used in temperatures above 70 degrees they recommend that it be chilled first. Otherwise it might melt the container within 20 minutes.

I didn't notice any real heating but I had it applied well before 20 minutes. It is very thin so that it will soak into the wood. It is almost the consistency of water. I used a paint brush with it to be sure that everything was evenly coated and that it got into all of the plywood.

The directions say to give it 24 hours to cure. The coat on the post was still sticky after 12 hours. The plywood seemed dry. To be sure, I will give it more 36 hours and wait until Saturday for the next step. This will be using thicker epoxy and screws to fix the post in place.

While I have the boat at home I will try to give it a new coat of paint. The flooring especially needs it. The interior of the boat itself is in good shape but the flooring had lost a lot of paint. The exterior has several scrapes and the waterline is permanently discolored.

Two years ago I was able to paint the boat quickly so none of this should be difficult.

Repairing the Black Sheep

A couple of weeks ago I was shifting the Black Sheep on its trailer and the top of the stern post snapped off in my hands. Since this is a 4x4, that was a bad sign. It was rotted. I found more rot surrounding the part that holds the rudder on.

I have been busy but I finally got some time to spend on fixing her. Since I have had to fix rot in the stern post twice before I decided that the whole thing needed to be replaced. I had been worrying about how to get the old one out. Power tools will not fit.

 It turned out that this was not a problem. The entire post was rotten, even the parts that had been solid when I fixed rot before. The only solid parts were small parts around screws and the pieces I replaced earlier. Even these were not hard to get out since the wood around them was rotten out. I was able to do it all with hand tools in two days.

I have a long 4x4 in my garage so I decided to use this for the new sternpost. I saved the top that roken off in my hands. I used this to get the correct angle on my power saw then I trimmed the edge. Here it is, ready to be fitted. The sides were perfect. I only needed to put an angle on the end.

I think that one reason the original post rotted was that it did not fit tightly against the bottom of the boat. This allowed water to soak up through the end and into the rest of the post. Having it covered in fiberglass didn't help. That just sealed in the water.

I already put in a drain so that it will not collect water over the Winter.

I spent a lot of time fitting the end of the post so it wouldn't be as exposed as the original. You can see here that it is a pretty good fit.

I am going to let the exposed wood dry for a few days then seal it. I will also seal the end of the new post. Once that it done, I will epoxy it into place and try to use epoxy to fix the holes in the fiberglass. Originally the sides were screwed onto the post and a fiberglass strip put over the ends. I will see if I can get the same effect with a little epoxy over the screw heads.