What a blast :-)

We spent the last couple of nights down on La Petite, in MDR. We're still getting to know our little pocket cruiser, going through system by system, compartment by compartment, block by block, line by line, cleaning and fixing as we go.

We hope to head over to Catalina on the 26th, a 30 nm shakedown cruise which will probably take us ten hours if we get reasonable wind part of the way. There is talk of a low pressure and rain coming in so we'll have to see if we get to do the "never rains in Southern California" crossing or just local day sails instead. We did replace the old 5 hp Nissan with a new 6 hp Mercury 4-stroke. I'm not sure the Mercury is a better engine, but the complete lack of throttle and steering friction adjustment made the Nissan almost unmanageable (as I mentioned in another thread). Both friction adjustments had been completely worn out and repairs did not seem worth it.

Yesterday started out really socked in but by afternoon we had the new engine installed, brilliant sunshine and we decided to stop working on La Petite and just headed out for another short sail in what was probably 10-15 mph wind.

What a delight, the Ericson 23 sails as if she was a dingy ! She easily got close to hull speed in no time at all and bringing the tiller over resulted in near instant tacking without appreciable loss of speed. I wish I could say that we performed the tacks with equal alacrity, but give us some time to get back in the groove

I think we're going to really enjoy our La Petite !




-Sven

eating my heart out

Ca va bon, ca va bien! Now aren't you glad all those engine controls aren't under foot in the cockpit? Make sure you have a bailing bucket at hand on the way to Catalina.

Re: eating my heart out

Originally posted by Bob in Va
Ca va bon, ca va bien! Now aren't you glad all those engine controls aren't under foot in the cockpit? Make sure you have a bailing bucket at hand on the way to Catalina.

Click to expand...

Hi Bob,

The jury is still out on the engine controls. Embarrasing story omitted

Two comments on the drain in the cockpit.

- The stock drain is indeed insufficient and dangerous as you can't even tell if a bubblegum wrapper has blocked the drain.

- Simple large bore holes in the transom with one-way flapper valves would be a lot better, assuming the transom is solid so a hole through it would not end up pouring water down into the bilge.

We will definitely make sure to have a bucket for the crossing but at this point I would not go for the crossing unless I thought there was little chance of needing the bucket. The boat seems _really_ solid and well cared for, but she's too pretty and well behaved to take any chances.

Are you still in the water or do you have to winterize the boat that far south ?




-Sven

Re: Re: eating my heart out

Originally posted by Sven

... The jury is still out on the engine controls. Embarrasing story omitted
...

Click to expand...

The final (final !?) result is that we lock the outboard and just use the rudder. It is ever so tempting to use the O/B when you want to swing the stern one way or another, but if the tiller is locked, with that huge rudder it doesn't have too much effect in reverse.

I'd still like a simple in-cockpit engine control but with 23 feet we could walk her into the slip if we needed to. Sailing out of Marina Del Rey is like sailing out of Disneyland

No wonder I admired Bruce King designs when I was an aspiring naval archictect ... _he_ knew what he was doing !





-Sven