We have had very unfriendly sailing weather for the past 4 or 5 weeks in terms of traveling. It seems we can only put one day of wind together followed by a no wind day. This of course makes it difficult to travel. Labor Day weekend was no different. We had nice wind on Friday but nothing on Saturday. Sunday was light to variable out of the East, opposite our prevailing, and Monday it is supposed to thunderstorm in the afternoon.
What to do, what to do? Sunday evening forcasted wind out of the northeast but wind never the less. It was forcasted to swing slowly through the midnight hours to east and then southeast by morning and finally clocking south as the rain approached by afternoon. A quick decision prompted us to leave the dock at 6:30 pm Sunday. The crew consisted of myself and my 13 and 15 year old daughters.
We carried the asymmetrical spinnaker west down the Canadian shore in relatively flat protected water with the wind out of the northeast in the 8 to 12 range. We had a gorgeous moon so I elected to carry the kite for over twenty miles until the wind began to clock out of the east somewhere around 10 pm. We beamed reached across the lake in up to 14 kts of air and short chop of 2's and 3's. Reaching Dunkirk NY around 1:30am we tacked and headed northeast. Every mile we went the wind slowly clocked to the southeast and then to the south allowing us to follow the American shoreline headed back east toward Buffalo.
Overall we posted 67 miles, however the last 3 miles slowed in a dying sunrise. In the first 11 hours we logged 64 miles. At that pace we could have done a 140 mile day turning an average of 5.8 miles/hour. Not bad for an old girl. All in all a beautiful sail and my youngest even parked the boat in the slip for the first time ever.
How was your weekend?
Dale
We spent the weekend preparing Phantom for a two week cruise down the Texas coast in early October. It still is hot as blazes here and we don't sail much until we get the first coolish front through.
Has anyone have any experience, comments, or know anyone who does about the Lehr propane outboard motors? Our two outboards are well past their usefull life (one is a Cruise and Carry) and are needing replacement...at least one does so we have a spare. The yacht club members referred to our outboards as "dinosaurs". They ran, which was more than their motors did.
Would appreciate any comments or information.
J&B
Propane is a fairly low power fuel. It takes a lot more of it to make the same horsepower compared to gas or diesel. Most engines that get converted from gas or diesel to propane lose a lot of horsepower in the process. For that reason, I suspect the propane outboards will be quite a bit heavier than a gas motor of the same horsepower. I spent quite a few years maintaining a fleet of gas compressors powered by natural gas (different fuel but similar fuel systems). They could be quite tempremental when the weather got cool. Some I had to use exhaust gas to keep the regulators warm so they would not freeze at 60 degrees ambient temperature. I remember lining up spark plugs on the dash of my truck warming them up with the defroster on icy days, then the mad dash to get them installed and the engine started before they cooled off. How do you handle the fuel source? Surely you don't have to lug a bottle of propane in the dinghy? The fuel system will be different than what you are used to. Probably 2 gas regulators, then a carbuerator with a diaphragm and spring for moving parts. Simple usually, but the regulators can cause problems (flooding) when they start to leak (and they will eventually). Usually a flooded engine will refuse to fire at all, but it can be interesting when they do fire. We launched a 10" pipe tee during a backfire event once. Don't know how high it went, but it took awhile for it to come back down. The guy with me tried to run when it sounded like our world had just ended. I grabbed him by the shirt collar until the tee fell back down on the steel roof (our world ended again), then told him he could run if he wanted to. Is there much support for those motors? parts, service ect?