For my wife's 30th birthday, I decided her big present would be an H18. First time we tried sailing was on our honeymoon,10 months ago, and we have only had one other opportunity to rent a catamaran since then. So I'm definitely new to sailing, but I did have a background to not be intimidated by such a challenge, and she enjoys the sport so much.
I scanned craigslist for a month and when the time came near, my mother talked me into taking her on the 5 hour ride to surprise her and look at the boat. I had two more candidates eight hours away. I would have made the other trips, but it's hard to let down a wife who is so excited. Anyway, the boat is advertised an 88 at $2,000, with a trailer. It was blistering hot out after we arrive from our five hour trip without air conditioning. I look it over with the scowl of a cheap old man, and a hopping wife who is going on about our long drive with no ac. You get the picture.
I found no soft spots on the hulls, but there were a few discolored areas from repair. My only real concerns were: The boat had no title, and from what the laws of his state were, the boat never would have needed one. He did have a bill of sale that made me more comfortable with the fact. My second concern was the fact that the serial number was
scratched into the hull. This could be normal for all I know, but I sure don't believe it is. Lastly my only true concern at the present, is the serial number might not line up with the year advertised for the boat. I would like some help with this one. On the bill of sale from the "State of Connecticut - Department of Motor Vehicles - Bill of sale" the serial number reads CCMH6193M83A and is listed as an 88. On the actual scratched in number, the trailing 3 leads into the 8, so it is hard to tell if it says 88 or 83. This bill of sale could be printed out, use your imagination. It did have enough of the sellers information on it to make me comfortable enough not to disappoint my wife. What I'm curious about now is, how can I verify the year with the information I have?
We have several locations we can sail it at; 1,500 acre lake by my parents vacation home, or a bay by her parents vacation home, or a different bay 5 minutes from our home. After picking up the boat we slept over at the property by the lake due to it's proximity to the seller. My wife was very excited to try it out, so the next morning we tried our hands at rigging it, instruction manual in hands. We did this in our driveway so we would have easy access to the internet. The driveway was large, but tree covered. I had the brilliant idea of moving the light trailer by hand, detaching it from the car to avoid the trees. This cost me a windshield when our makeshift mast pin came apart, and delayed my wife's adventure another week. I know I'm really starting to impress you now.
Fast forward to this last weekend. We bring the boat up to the lake. This time we go to the marina, some what better prepared then last time. I picked up what nuts and bolts I felt we were missing from the sale. We also found a very helpful fellow sailor, who had no experience with catamarans, to question. Six hours later(no exaggeration), we were on calm waters with a very very calm breeze, outrunning every other boat on the lake, be it at a snails pace.
Now if it wasn't for such a calm breeze, we certainly wouldn't have fared so well. I never even hooked up the downhaul. I assumed it was for the jib, but then realized it wasn't, and at the sixth hour just said WTH, we're losing light and we're not going to die going 5mph. Anyway we had a great time, and upon reflection learned a lot, and still have some questions, like what do you do with that extra jib halyard line that I may have made too log?
One last thing. When someone refers to a cam , they think of
Quote:
A cam is a rotating or sliding piece in a mechanical linkage used especially in transforming rotary motion into linear motion or vice-versa.
and not
Quote:
A mechanical cleat used to hold a line automatically. It uses two spring loaded cams that come together to clamp their teeth on the line,
Why must I learn 1,000 new words to understand the mechanics of sailing? Why can't you just call a block a set of pulleys? I see its age of invention as the only explanation, and not a good one. The physics of sailing have no unique quality. I'm an engineer by trade and find this fact somewhat annoying.
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but opperating under that condition can be very hard. 