Knotabus, Shakedown Run

May 1st, 2008
Knotabus took her first shakedown run today. We left San Pedro Harbor at about 11:30 am and ran down wind down to Long Beach Harbor and around Chaffee Island in light breeze until nearing the islands.
After rounding we saw another similar size sloop about 1/4 mile ahead and decided to see what Knotabus had in her, she favors a port tack close hauled and we made up to 6 knots drawing the fleeing boat closer to us with every gust. When we got up to about 10 boat lengths from her she bore away onto a reach and headed for harbor around White island and we continued on a close reach towards the Spruce Gooses Dome Shelter.
After tacking and headed for the breakwater the wind continued to pick up and white caps were forming in the harbor. We tried the reefing system I just got rigged this morning, Bob Lohrs and I made quick work of the two line system and reset the sail, now the sail set even better as the tack line in the sail seems to have shrunk over the years leaving a loose pocket in the main when full up.
Keith our helmsman kept Knotabus pointed straight as an arrow in spite of the strong winds and harsh heal created by the oversized Genoa, we were well past her sweet spot most of the time and you could feel Knotabus pushing hard, relieving the knotmeter from it's wet environment most of the time. Knotabus favors this starboard tack for some reason and we made up to 6 knots at times.
Pushing hard and loading the sails I noticed on Port tacks mast bend to the leeward side and on opposite tacks brought in the turnbuckle which helped our speed and balance from earlier but there's a lot of tuning left to go. Having Bob and Keith was wonderful, Bob's Lifetime of sailing experience helped me to push hard to find out what would break, and stuff BROKE.
We couldn't bring in the Genoa more than 10 % because the furling line got gnarled up in the furler because I forgot to feed it. Stupid mistake but pointed out the need for me to replace the gromets on the gunwale that guided the line and provided a little tension to it.
The new line I replaced the Mainsheet witch is shrinking a little too much under tension and slipped so we had to use the Winch on the Deck to hold the line, and then the winch started to slip up off it's post, the C clip is gone, melted away with time.
The boom shape is controlled all by the mainsheet as it is centrally mounted, meaning the traveller is more important than on most boats. While beating hard and at the winds peak Bob and I both had to yank on the traveler and when we put it back in the cleat, the clam cleat spewed out tiny white ball bearings rendering it useless, but it held that set so we left if there.
On the Port side, the primary Winch works fine in light winds but under a lot of load the locking mechanism stopped engaging so we had to run all tacks on the starboard side, something I don't mind doing, and will do many times when I'm short handed. I hate leaning over the lee side rail to crank a winch.
Oh yeah, and then there's my laptop. I thought secured well enough on the map table, slid off on a hard tack hitting the floor with an all mighty thud. I never buy add on insurance but on this laptop the lady at Dell was giving me such a good deal I did, guess it's going to pay off cause that laptop is BUST.
We got back in with not too much difficulty, just had to pull the Genoa down on deck instead of furl it, and I got some work to do on it, one thing it desperately needs is some tell tales. It's like I'm flying blind up there. All in all a Great day, thank you to Bob and Keith for helping me I owe an insurmountable amount of thank yous.