Sailboats Fair and Fine: read oldest posts first

Wolftrap Drawings showing both rigs. Top picture is Schooner Wolftrap Sailing

Well we hung around about six weeks and I was offered work and took some of it. A little income makes all the difference. We visited friends and family and in general had a good time. I did some work on the boat that we had planed to do in Fort Lauderdale. I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing though I felt sorry for my wife. All this time Georgene was feeling down. She had a broken arm we had sold our nearly new home and moved on a boat that she couldn't stand up in and September was steady moving on. We were starting to have chilly nights and we couldn't drink the marina water.

About that time my new video camera broke down and we had to send it to Canon to have it fixed. I tried to talk them into lending me one until mine was fixed and they didn't show any interest. I told them what we were doing and offered to buy another one at a price reduced enough that I could sell it and not get hurt to bad. Again they weren't interested. It would be six to eight weeks before we could expect to get it back.

We went back to see Georgene's doctor and they thought we should wait three months while she took therapy. We decided to go in two weeks. They wanted her to sign a release and told us she would never get full use of her arm without professional help with the therapy. She still had some time to wear a sling so we had time to think about it.

This time there were no offers to throw a party . I guess friends and relatives were sick of us and wanted us to go on an get out of town.

The day before we were were to leave to go up the bay we were feeling a little nervouse about one of us breaking something so we didn't do any thing even remotely dangerous.

We moved Wolftrap out to the face dock at the end of the pier. I don't think we slept much that night. We probably would have been as well off sailing up the bay all night. Some time late we went to sleep and it got pretty cool the temperature dropped to the mid thirties and a pretty good layer of fog moved in. About four A.M. We were jolted awake. The work boats were on their way out and the first one rolled us against the dock. We had fenders out they are never exactly right somehow.

I jumped out of bed and said, “Common George lets get going.”
She raised up sleepily and said, “It's dark and we haven't had any coffee or breakfast,”
“Well we can get started and you can make breakfast under way,” I pleaded.
“No, I want my breakfast and I want to go wash up and brush my teeth,” she answered with a fair amount of firmness so thats what we did.
I stewed the whole time and didn't brush my teeth. Now you know that gets'em every time. I felt like I was even.
Finally the sky was getting light but the fog wasn't. There was a breeze holding against the dock but not strong. I went over a piling with a dock line and made it to my forward port cleat. Put the engine in forward and with just a little power she began pulling the stern out. The plow anchor mounted on the Bowsprit skidded across the top of the dock and I let go the dock line and pulled it to me I put her in reverse Wolftrap started backing away. I want to say right here that Wolftrap steered better than any sailboat I have ever owned. She had a balanced rudder with part of the rudder forward of the rudder post. With the engine running in reverse there was none of that thing of her backing to port. She went where you aimed her forward or reverse. I pushed the tiller to starboard and she backed to port and lined up with the channel. We headed out at about three knots through the fog. We could see from one buoy to the next so it was a piece of cake. We cleared the end of the channel and headed outto the channel of the York River. We were aiming for Buoy 22 which would be coming into view if the course I had laid into my Loran was correct. I hoisted the main and trimmed her and she started pulling right away next the forsail was hoisted and finally the jib and we killed the engine. Near silence ensued with only a gental swish, swish, of her bow gliding through small waves and then we could her the bell on buoy 22 . With a hot cup of coffee in the cold damp air and a feeling that God loves the world, we watched the sun sneak through the clearing fog.

Sailboats Fair and Fine: Read oldest posts first

The wood work was going beautifully plywood with mahogany trim inside. The carpenter was a real craftsman. One of our employees grand father did caneing so we had him put cane in all the locker doors. The white interior trimmed in mahogany with mahogany sole and a kind of green yellow velvet cushions she was beautiful. Her hull was off white with a dark chocolate brown boot topping and the same brown above the rub rail. All was set of with buff spars and white on the tips.
A set of trail boards were carved and we we off to go sailing. We put her in the water at Sahara's Creek on the York river across from Yorktown. We were disappointed in her. She wasn't stiff enough to carry her heavy spars. I talked it over with Mr Bolger accusing him of designing spars to heavy for the boat. He reminded me it was my idea to use pipe as it was cheaper. I conceded begrudgingly and set to work ordering new material this time tubing. The mast would be 1/8 thick and 5 inches in diameter. The bottom coming up through the deck would be ¼ and sleeved where they joined. The top yard I think 16 ft long was 1/16 thick and only weighed 6 lbs. A lot of weight was cut out .Then in spite of Phil Bolger protests we added more lead bringing the total ballast to 2100 lbs. That was 1600 lbs over what he thought was right. With all that ballast and wooden interior that he had not figure on she was still fast as stink. That of course says a lot for her hull shape's weight carrying ability.
We sailed her her on the York river for about a month making minor changes here and there we hauled her a couple of times and tried different propellers to get the engine to come up to speed. She was getting better all the time we raced a couple of “racer cruisers” down the York river with them carrying full spinnakers and us with our flat half spinnaker. We started off ¼ mile behind them and caught and passed them in less than 12 miles. Can you imagine what would have happened had we been carrying the 400 lbs. she was supposed to carry? I'm sure she would have been a half to a full knot faster.
There were a couple things about her that bothered me. I had insisted that the sprite be offset with a bow in it so that it would not press into the sail going to windward. So the forward end of the sprite had a dogleg in it that rested against the mast. It had to be held up level with a bridle. That was a pain in the neck. So we moved the dog leg forward and held the sprite about 12 inches away from the mast with the halyard and a line down to the deck. In light air if she rolled any the sprite banged the mast. We sounded like a bell buoy. The other thing was with the mast all the way forward there was almost no room to stand on the bow and hoist the sail and sprite. It really was a precarious place to be. Setting the spinnaker was a problem and somewhat dangerous. We made some changes that helped but I was never completely satisfied with the mast all the way forward. My wife worried I'd get knocked overboard so we had some man overboard drills that didn't add to her comfort much. They were things I decided to live with for the most part.
She would have been a better boat with wooden straight sprites. As a matter of fact looking back she would have been a better boat had I kept my ideas out of her and just built her as designed. Even so she was a fine, fast and seaworthy vessel. The aluminum masts worked well.
We took Woftrap to Deltaville where we planned to keep her. There was a yacht club in Fishing bay where we were. They raced small boats most weekends and racer cruisers out in the bay on others and there were racing cruises which we joined into several times unofficially much to the aggravation of the yacht club.
One Friday night while eating a shrimp and oyster buffet at a local restaurant the yacht club commander asked my partner if we were going to sail to Hampton with the yacht club fleet.
Bob said, “No we hadn't planned on it.”
“Well Now you don't want to race to windward for 50 miles is that it. You aren't afraid we'll pass you coming back before you get to Hampton are you? Your partner, Doug says you guys are fast on all points, isn't that so Jess,” he asked turning to the man beside him.
“Yeah he says there's nothing faster than a fast boat and he's got the fast boat.”
That of course wasn't exactly true, though I had bragged some.
What I said was, ”There ain't nothing slower than a bunch of bankers in a bunch of slow boats.”
Bob and his shop crew came across the finish, an unofficial third. How's that for a crude hard chined boat. The truth of the matter was they weren't beating as hard to windward as those boats could have sailed. In a lot of wind it probably could have been a different story. But that didn't make it any less sweet for Woftrap.
I being away for the weekend was, never the less, prouder than a new daddy with a baby boy.