Sea Pearl 21 Slides into Lake George . . . . .

[Charles Brennan]

OK, Maybe it slipped into Lake George, Florida and didn't actually slide! 
My Son has been working on a Sea Pearl 21, that he purchased last April and has been itching to take it out, but needed access to a truck.
(Cue: 1800 CALL-DAD.) 
So this morning, I went over to his house near Ocala, Florida.
(Saying : "Near Ocala, Florida" is MUCH easier than saying "his house in Ocklawaha, Florida".) 
We got the truck loaded up with his gear, boat hitched up, lights checked and we were off!
I have missed out on Kayaking this past Spring, Scalloping this past Summer and Sailing this past Fall, all to build a boat in my carport, so I was MORE than anxious to get out on the water on SOMETHING!! 
ANYTHING!! 

Now, some of you may have read of me railing from time to time, about what the State of Florida laughingly    calls "Un-improved Ramps". 
These are basically, wet spots alongside a road or a dirt path, up here in north central Florida.
Here's one:
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How do we know this is a boat ramp?!? 

'Cause the State of Florida spent all of their boat ramps budget, on a sign proclaiming that it's a boat ramp! 
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Quite a far cry from the kind of boat ramps I used to frequent:
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However, we waded around a little and found enough of a slope to get the boat launched without incident
Although at first look, I was wishing my tow strap was available for a rope launch, instead of being back home in the garage.
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The boat tipped enough when I boarded, that we decided we were going to fill up the water ballast tanks, after all.   

We had the wind blowing right into the (Ha!) ramp and since the Son's Honda 2.3hp outboard was subject to Brennan's Motor Dictum:
"The Only Thing An Outboard Motor Does Reliably, Is Fail."   
It did. 
It would start, then lug and stall, then start again, then lug and stall again ad infinitum until the kid's attention was sufficiently distracted to nearly put us into driftwood, stumps and the occasional over-turned Cypress tree, courtesy of recent Hurricanes.
I had to fend off    with his (really nice!) Shaw & Tenney oars a few times and also employed a sweep stroke, every now and again, to keep us from returning back to shore.
Eventually he got it sorted out and got the recalcitrant motor beaten into sufficient submission, that we could get out far enough, to get the sails up and start sailing.
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"Look Dad!! I'm Sailing!!"   

This was his wife's first sailing trip in a boat smaller than a Windjammer.
We explained to her, the origin of the nautical term: BOOM!!   
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The boat was moving along smartly, headed towards the only blue skies we could find.
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Did I mention we were moving along, "smartly"?!? Like, 5.5 knots, smartly?
And on half-reefed sails! 
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What? Is that a little water on the GPS? 

Yes, indeedy. We spent the afternoon zig-zagging, to avoid rain storms, sometimes with limited success.
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We had both the main and mizzen sails reefed 50%, partly in deference to his wife's first sailing trip on a small boat, the son's conservative approach to an unfamiliar boat that he was trying to get a feel for, plus the inclement weather and . . . . .
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 . . . . . . .    WITH ABSOLUTELY NO HELP FROM HIS FATHER!! 
I kept ragging him about sailing so conservatively and pointing out there was a LOT more sail wrapped around those masts.
His wife, (who had no concept of the possible risks to setting full sail on a small boat, when a rainstorm could easily outrun and overtake us) joined in on the heckling.
Fortunately, he ignored both of us, for the sake of safety.
Guess I taught him better, than I knew.

I was heartened to see that I'm not the only one who trashes cockpits, while sailing.
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Felt good to be sailing again! 
Well, OK!! Motoring again! 
(Headed back in, while the son furls the main.)
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I was surprised to see channel markers in a lake, but they had them and seemed to be marking an honest-to-goodness channel.
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We could have gone back and forth all afternoon, dodging rain showers, but a problem cropped up:
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A leak somewhere, that will have to be dealt with.
Since we had no idea how MUCH water, or from WHERE it was coming, the son elected to return to the (snicker!) boat ramp.

So we furled the sails and headed back.
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You can actually see the Mental Checklist of tasks, playing across his face.
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Pointing to the only place where there ISN'T rain scudding across.
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Securing the boat for the trip back home.
Hey!  Who came up with that Great Idea for rotating the license plate out of the way, for launching/retrieving?!? 
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I was a little surprised at how much stuff has to be secured for the road. 
Note the straps that support the lee boards.
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Road Ready!!
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No Trailer Disasters, just a nice uneventful trip to a nearby restaurant and then a leisurely trip home.
Nice day.
I don't know which of us, needed it more.
Charles Brennan

[Norm L.]

A reminder of what a sweet boat that could be. After another XYZ $$$.  But I like it as I like that rig. The closest I've gotten was the yawl and the cat.

[Frank B.]

You and yours sailed!!  I'm still trying to "magic" myself up the mast to reroute the halyards.  Pretty obvious I can't use a bosuns chair since it would be attached to the halyard I have to reroute. 

Florida "rustic" dirt ramps.  That one looks a lot like the one I use in Wild Goose Lagoon, Tindall, AFB, only has some additional signs.

This one is quite misleading, no you can't get it online at least you couldn't a few years back. It required a trip to a certain office only on Tuesday at certain hours whereby you would be checked for security clearance. 

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Nobody answers this one at least they didn't several years back. 

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[Riley Smith]

Oh man, I like Pearls! Nice boat Chris! I'm glad CB got to scratch the itch!

[Doug SC]

Looks like a good shake down sail. 

I have canoed all the way down Juniper Springs Run from the park and taken out at a dirt ramp on the south end of Lake George. Lots of wildlife along the shore of Lake George with a variety of wading birds and the ever-present gators and turtles. Eagles and osprey are also common.

[Doug SC]

I recognized the launch site where you put in. That is the same one where I took out. The St Johns River enters the lake a bit east of there. The west shore of the lake is mostly undeveloped land. It has the feel of old Florida.

[Ed]

Nice looking monohull SP!  As a SP Tri owner x 3 I recommend you rethink how you are strapping the boat down on the trailer.  Avoid strapping the masts/sails to the trailer, run the strap under them from gunwale to gunwale, and use bungies or foam coated wires from HF to hold the masts on each bullwinkle.  My friend Ted ruined a set of sails strapping them down that way.  Two straps, one behind main bullwinkle and one in front of the mizzen bullwinkle and behind leeboard cleats.  The mizzen strap will also keep the leeboards in and if they pop out of the cleat they will drop onto the 2x8 bolted onto the trailer (used to step on and off boat), looks like you don't have them.  The SP Board, which your son is on, has a ton of photos that show the step, all of my pictures are too large to fit on here, and I can't figure out how to shrink them right now. 

[Chris Muthig]

Thanks for the writeup...  basics are, the leeboards were split when I bought it, leading and trailing edges, had to sink penetrating epoxy in to get it solid again, the port side took 8 ounces of epoxy before it stopped absorbing.  6" fiberglass tape on all leading, trailing, and bottom of both, then filler, faired multiple times, 3 coats high build primer with sanding between all coats, then 3 coats of polyeurethane sprayed in an hvlp, got them looking good.  During that time while waiting for stuff to dry, added coats of varnish and epoxy to all of the wood surfaces, and re applied the name (kept the name, even though it's supposedly bad luck to not rename.)  Black Pearl seemed to fit nicely.  Replaced the bunk boards, reran all of the wiring, new lights on the trailer, new rollers, basic trailer stuff.  Little engine started EVERY time during the 6 months I worked on it, until the day before the trip.  Lots of cleaning the carb, and scrubbing light corrosion off of the coil mounting surface, it finally started. The day of, I'm attributing the motor not starting initially to the gas not being turned on, it just took me a bit to get my head out of my butt.  Once sailing, it performed better than expected.  We headed for the ramp when we noticed about 8" of water in the floorboards, which amounts to over 12" including the space under the floor.  When I got it home, I filled the ballast tanks to the top, and watched for leaks.  Nothing.  Drained all of the water from there and dried it carefully, and filled the rest with water.  Not long later, I noticed water all but pouring out of the port through hull for the ballast tank.  Pulled the top of the deck off (after removing 28 screws, a third of which broke off or stripped).  Pulled the through hull fitting, and found the wood core between the hull and ballast tank rotted out.  Pulled the starboard side, nowhere near as bad, but I'm doing that one also.  I let it dry out for 2 weeks, dug out a bunch of the coring, and cut large squares of 6" fiberglass tape to cigarette roll and stuff into the voids.  Taped the undersides, and filled the holes with  penetrating epoxy.  Sanded down flush with the bottom of the tanks.  I've got one side redrilled, the other one I had to add more epoxy to just before it got cold.  During all of this fun, I moved the outhauls on both booms closer to the gooseneck so I can furl the sails more (had about 20-24" of sail still exposed when fully furled).  Waiting on the 1/4" line to finish that project.  The wood on the motor mount was rotted, got that removed, just have to cut and shape and varnish the wood to replace it.  Mounted a new stern light and bow lights, both wired in, and mounted 4 LED courtesy lights under the deck, halfway done wiring that in.  Mounted 2 pop up cleats in the rear cockpit, since the large cleats that are there have a 1/2" hole for the stern lines, and are almost unusable for a decent stern line.  I'm also changing out the 4" deck plates that access the ballast tank drains for 8", since I'm a normal sized human being (control your laughter), with normal gorilla hands.  Lastly, the mizzen boom rubs the bimini pretty bad, so I'll be either cutting an inch or two off of the bimini, or adding a shim to the mast socket to raise the mast an inch or two.  Also, the forward ferrules for the dodger broke away, so I'm going to shape some HDPE blocks to fit perfectly in the toe rails of the deck, use 4200 to bed them in with a couple of rivets for good measure, and drill the holes.  Lots of piddly little stuff, hoping to have everything done by New Years or mid Jan.  My goal is to have some experience on the boat and possibly make the BEER cruise this year.
I'll post some pics here when time allows, probably this weekend.  Took quite a few to document the process.

[Noemi - Ensenada 20]

Hi Chris!  That's a LOT of work.  Good thing you've had some expert examples to follow over the years.

[Chris Muthig]

Update from the weekend, got the lines run on the outhauls, and taught myself eye splices in double braid (using fids).  Got all of the fiberglass done in the ballast tank lids, filled all of the screw holes in the ballast tanks (56 of em), made the outboard bracket blocks, those are completely sanded, tiller is completely sanded, and attached a shim so it would ride slightly higher and clear the stern light.  Made an HDPE 1" thick shim for the bottom of the mizzen mast to get it raised up, this should allow the boom to clear the bimini top.  Also finished running the electrical for all of the lighting.  Gittin there! 

Still left to do, trim the inside holes for the 8" deckplates, install those, install the through hulls, sand down the epoxied holes so the ballast tank lids fit properly, install the battery, make a panel for the switch plate and battery shutoff to mount to, wire everything to that, install the bilge pump and through hull for that, cut a hole in the foredeck for a 4" deckplate and install that, varnish the motor mount blocks and tiller and remount those, and I'm installing eyelets on the trailer for better tiedown attachment points.  Starting to get the itch to launch it again.

My tow vehicle is finally on the road, just doing some short local runs until I'm more confident in it.  I bought an 06 Nissan Titan, 5.6 LE, it has been an absolute nightmare.  Been about 5 months since I bought it, lots of piddly issues, plus the a/c didn't work.  Trust me long story short, I've had the dash out 4 times now, this last time was TOTALLY out, to get to all 5 blend door motors.  Everything is back together, a few more small issues to address, but it's driveable finally.

[Chris Muthig]

Noemi, thanks for the kind words, he has taught me alot over the years, most of which is has served me well.  Occasionally teaching me what not to do by example.  I still remember you riding with Tim and I in my Siren, that was a great day, spirited sailing, should have reefed but man, it was fun!  Still remember the beautiful serenading we were treated to.  You're always welcome on my boat!

[Noemi - Ensenada 20]

Awww, thanks!  It was really fun to sail with you guys.