[Rhodes22-list] ANOTHER first sail on my R22

[Mark Whipple]

Hi folks,

I'm jumping on the bandwagon to tell you about my first sail on my R22!
This is a long post so only read it if you have the time to be (hopefully!)
entertained for a bit.

I purchased this boat at the beginning of July in a town in central
Massachusetts. For a variety of reasons I did not launch this boat until
10/1. I a some fun stories about raising the mast for the first time but
I'll save that for another time.

I currently own three sailboats, as long as you don't count the two
dinghies that can also sail. My largest boat, a Nimble 30 yawl designed by
Ted Brewer, is currently for sale. I really love the boat but I wanted to
downsize as I approach retirement. I did not launch the Nimble this year
although she was in the water last year. My third boat is a Com-pac 16 that
lives most of the time on Cape Cod. This year I was granted a mooring in
Pleasant Bay on the Chatham/Harwich/Orleans border.

I wanted to downsize from the Nimble 30 to sailboat on a trailer and after
some research it seemed the Rhodes 22 was a good fit for me. I came close
to purchasing a Seaward 25' but I'm very glad I ended up with the R22
instead. Currently I own a RAV4 Ltd with towing package, and I will be
using that vehicle to launch and haul Tiny Dancer at my boat club on Boston
Harbor. The long term plan is to replace the RAV 4 with Highlander that can
tow the R22 on the highway. BTW this R22 is a little unique: she has wheel
steering, a self-tending jib with a Hoyt jib boom and an internal 15 hp.
gas engine with a Saildrive underneath. She will soon receive the name
"Tiny Dancer."

After hauling the Compac 16 on 9/14 I then set my sights on launching the
R22. I at least wanted to have a test run before the winter. I'm a middle
school technology teacher and I had two days off from school on 9/30 and
10/1. I first tried to launch the boat on Mon. 9/30 (we had raised the mast
a couple of weeks earlier). Unfortunately we ran out of time. It was a plus
tide so the boat yard became partially flooded at high tide. Getting the
tongue extension to come out took  quite a bit of time and effort and was
the main cause for our delay in launching.

The next day a friend and I went down closer to low tide and tried to
launch the boat. We were on the boat club's main ramp which is long and
fairly flat. Unfortunately it was too flat. It didn't look like we were
going to get deep enough to launch until I backed up just a bit more and
the trailer seemed to fall into a hole on one side. Then the boat floated
off. Later analysis suggests that I either backed into a big hole in the
ram or I actually went off the end of the paved ramp.

Once the boat was floating I started the engine. It ran but didn't idle and
would stall when I put the boat in gear. I decided I would just haul the
boat back out and be done with it until next year. However by this point I
couldn't get the trailer in deep enough because now the water was much
higher. Boston Harbor typically has tides around 9 - 10 ft., but this tide
was close to 12 ft. It even flooded the main artery road next to the boat
club. I knew even if I could, I shouldn't put the trailer back in as far as
I did when launching. There was a good chance of causing damage to the
trailer if I tried to pull it past some kind of obstruction with a 3100 lb
boat on it.

The boat sat on the floating dock near the launch ramp overnight. I came
back the next day and the direction of the wind was now much more favorable
for sailing to the club dock or even my mooring. The forecast said NNE
winds 10-15 kts gusts to 20 kts. I don't think I saw whitecaps but it was
pretty breezy.

My first sail was getting the boat from the launch doc to the leeward side
of the club doc. After that it got too dark to get out to my mooring -
especially because I wasn't certain where the mooring had been dropped this
year. When heading to the main dock had just the bare minimum of jib and
main out, in part because I was sailing almost dead downwind. I reached the
dock and immediately realized my boat would be much better off on the
leeward side (the dock was essentially perpendicular to the wind).

I got the boat around to the other side of the dock but had trouble tacking
(because now the dock was upwind) so I turned the boat by gybing.
Eventually I realized I needed to roll out more main, but by that time I
had got the boat on a good tack which let me land it on the dock. A bow
line, stern line, springer lead from the bow cleat and a couple big fenders
secured her until I could get back to move her to the mooring. Of course I
never found my mooring but picked up another that wasn't in use.

I hope to haul Tiny Dancer on the trailer this coming Monday (Columbus
Day/Indigenous Peoples' Day). I've been told there's a second ramp at my
boat club that is twice the slope of the main ramp. The secondary ramp has
no dock, so the logistics promise to get interesting, especially if I can't
rely on the engine. Updates to follow!

Looking forward to learning much more about this boat!

Take care,

Mark Whipple
S/V Tiny Dancer
Boston, MA