Lunch at Lake Weir . . . .

[Charles Brennan]

Back when I lived in south Florida, you always had somewhere to go in  a sailboat, no matter the local weather conditions.
You could go south to the Keys, East to the Atlantic Ocean, West to the Gulf of Mexico, or North to Lake Okeechobee, anywhere from 30 minutes to 2½ hours away, to avoid bad weather.
Gave you lots of choices.  I thought all that was behind me, but my son has shown me recently that you also have those kind of duck-the-weather conditions, up here in north central Florida.
We were going to go out on his Sea Pearl, the Black Pearl on Lake Apopka, but a morning front of nasty weather    changed our minds for us and we went north, to Lake Weir, instead.
And had the weather been flaky there, we still had our choice of Newnan's Lake, Lake Harris, Lake Apopka, or Lake Rousseau, just out of reach of a rain front.
Like I said, choices. 

Not that the weather was necessarily gorgeous; it was pretty gun-metal gray and dreary, but what it was NOT, was raining and storming. 
Lake Weir has a fairly nice launch area, as long as you don't go past the ramp drop-off, a concern with a long-tongue sailboat trailer.
A problem for Urchin, but won't be a problem in the SCAMP (if I ever get it finished).
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Chris quickly parked and got back to the dock, while I tied up.
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Nice breakwater, BTW.
Ready to go! 
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Well, . . . . . . . on the very third pull, or so. 
I was both mentally grateful that I intend to use a trolling motor on the SCAMP and mentally apprehensive, that I might be using that same kind of motor, if my electrical calculations are found to be wanting. 
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Zoom in on the motor clamp, to see my carabiner contribution to motor safety. 

Once running, the little motor zips that Sea Pearl right along! 
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Bent on the sails (actually, what you do, is un-twist the mast that the sails are wrapped around) and assumed my usual position, as rail meat.
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Notice that it is so gray and overcast, we didn't even bother with sunglasses.

Check how flat the bottoms of those clouds are, indicating winds aloft of <10 mph; exactly what we were reading on the wind speed indicator I had brought along.
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But for all that, the boat moved along smartly, still ghosting along at 2 -3 knots even when the waters flattened out to nothing.
It was the light air performance of Sea Pearls, that first attracted Chris into getting one.
And we quickly accelerated to 4 -5 knots, whenever an errant puff came by.

We sailed east to a local restaurant called: Gator Joes.
Chris called his wife to drive over and meet us for lunch, in about a half hour.
Right after he hung up, the winds picked up and we arrived in 15 minutes, instead of 30 minutes.
Gotta love a Sea Pearl! 
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They don't have docks to tie up to, but they do have a beach dedicated solely to parking boats.
No valet, though. 

Chris exiting the boat for the second time; only this time, with his wallet! 
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Our view of the boat, from our table.
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And a leisurely return back to the ramp.
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Just ahead of a particularly nasty rain front, coming at us from the west. 
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Hard to tell from this pic, but there was a fairly strong thunderhead developing, just behind the vegetation.
Man! There is NOTHING like having a near-real-time Doppler-shift radar in your hip pocket, to give you that smug, satisfied feeling, when you close the truck door to drive off and see the first fat rain drops hitting the hood! 
Great way to spend a Sunday afternoon!

Charles Brennan

[Riley Smith]

I LOVE my Doppler radar. And my data buoy! And Sea Pearls...but I hate thunderstorms! Glad y'all timed it perfectly 

[Chris Muthig]

Great pictures!  My wife posted a couple of videos on Facebook, I figured out how to save them to my photos, but can't figure out how to post them here. 

[Timm R Oday25]

Thanks for bringing us along .
Is the outboard clamped to a bracket ,that is bolted to the rudder ?

[Charles Brennan]

Timm, In a word: Yes.

Here is a zoomed-in pic showing the right angle bracket bolted to the rudder stock.
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Hope this helps,
Charles Brennan