The Big Erection Party

Happy New Year Everyone!

In my haste to get the last post out regarding our new "home", I did not take the time to thank all of the people who helped de-construct the Sailing Shed at my house and re-construct it at our home beside Rickey's Flamingo Bar. The move could not have gone more smoothly; no one got hurt, the shed came apart in sections just like I designed it to and more importantly it went back together in sections like clockwork with alot of helping hands. Hell, the door even closed smoothly after re-construction! Amazing!

So a big Thank you to:

Alex Coronado-Guzman who begged a truck and trailer from Stan Hartling for the big move and helped load and unload the shed

Peter Staples, my father who landed late Saturday for a two week vacation and got roped into the move
Simon Wood, on island by himself and graciously chipping in by showing up at my place at 8:30 am
David Douglas who came down island to my place before he had to do a full day on Atabeyra
Trem Quinlan who made cappucino's and coffee for the crew

Anna Staples, my mother, who was likely wondering why she had to get up at 7am on her first day of her Christmas holiday and who took the pictures of us loading up
Paul Fletcher who met us up at Ocean Club for the re-build and jumped right in
Julian Petrucci, our newest member to be who also showed up to help with the build and to meet some fellow sailing enthusiasts

Jeff Lee for moral support and his superior supervisory skills
Nelson Nakao who climbed like a monkey on to the roof of the shed for the finishing touches, man, he's quick with a hammer too!


I hope I got everyone!

So, within the span of 2 or 3 hours and a bucket of sweat, we managed to bid adieu to our little box on the beach that I built 3 years earlier out of surplus plywood used to board up our condos at the golf course during Hurricane Francis (or was that Jean). Paul and Nelson said a few words during the last opening of the box...
From this:
to this:
I'm very sorry we did not get a group photo in front of our new home. The pic above was just after the last few remnants of the box had been loaded into the back of Simon's truck (thanks again Simon) and everyone had moved on to enjoy their Sunday.

However, here is a group pic of our race day down to the Conch Festival in November, yet another long over due Blog posting but I'll save that for another day...

Good Lord!!
Last update was November 5? And here it is past Christmas...
Where to start? I guess the biggest news for the PSC is the granting of space at the Cultural Center and the building and erecting of the new Sailing Shack that happened over a week ago now. So, if you haven't been sailing over the holiday season, shame on you, but now you'll find a 6'x6'x9' high shed beside the security shack at the cultural center. The same old lock is on the shackle and the key is hanging behind the shed for now. I will be tallying who has paid their dues for the '08 season and sending out a reminder email in early January. After that point I will only be sending out emails to paid members of the club for upcoming events etc. and I will be changing the lock to a combination lock for members knowledge only.

So, if you are still interested in sailing our Hobies but have not paid up yet, please make arrangements to do so.

I will be posting another entry with a few pics in the next while. Please check back again.
Pat

Try again this Sunday?

According to windguru.com, it looks like we might get lucky with some decent wind this Sunday. If anyone would like to commit to racing at 10 am for this coming Sunday Nov. 11 please send me an email or respond to this post below. Thanks.

Shut out again!

Oh well, good intentions shut down by no wind and huge surf. Sunday's scheduled race day was a non-event unfortunately. However, four of us made good use of the lack of wind and fixed the leaking hatches on another boat. Mike, Paul Fletcher, Noel Percival and I spent an hour visiting, wishing for wind and taking apart the hatches on a boat that was less than water proof.

What follows below is a good combination of Mike Rosati's experience on how to fix a boat, Paul Fletcher's suggestion to document how to fix the boat, Noel's photography skills and my posting abilities (and tools).

Step 1: Find the leaky hatch.
Paul described how he took out one of the boats and had to drain the hulls 3 times! So, time to get busy. Under each seat pad is a round plastic hull cover fastened to the hull with six screws. Mike's suggestion to find the leaky hatch was to remove the drain plug and use a kiteboard pump to "inflate" the hulls. Worked like a charm - the leaky hatch started to hiss and was further identified by pouring a little water to see bubbles form around the hatch cover.

Step 2: Remove and clean the hatch
The plastic hatch is held in place by 6 easily removed screws. We used a sharp paint scraper and a knife to remove any dried glue and sand encrusted glue underneath the seat pad.




Step 3: Apply Goop
Once cleaned up apply a liberal bead of Marine Goop (actual glue product) around the hatch opening and place the hatch cover back over the screw holes and screw back into place.





Step 4: Spray adhesive
Next, the seat pad needs to be glued down using a spray adhesive. I used 3M's product that should be allowed to set up for 5 or 10 minutes before pressing the seat pad back in place. Don't be afraid to apply lot's of spray adhesive. Do be afraid of overspray covering your watch face. I'm hoping I can remove the oversprayed adhesive with Goo Gone!

Repeat the above steps for each hatch that you find leaking and don't sail the repaired boat for a day. That should do it for another year!

UK Halsey Racing Quiz

Thanks to Simon Wood for the following link:

www.ukhalsey.com/RulesQuiz/index.asp

This is a great site and worth spending some time understanding the rules of racing. The animations keep it interesting and give you a good understanding of rights of way etc.

Now there will be no excuses on Sunday's race day..."STARBOARD"!!!!!

Thanks again Simon!

Mike fixed our wheel!

Mike just called me and said he has fixed our tire on the cat trolley and he will have it back on tomorrow. He's keen for racing on Sunday (see last posting), so see you there - the more the merrier!

Here's the Happy little Commodore delivering our new boat from a few weeks ago!

See you Sunday! If anyone wants to show up a little earlier than 10 (eg 9am) to help me set up please let me know. Thanks!

First Race Event for '07/'08: this Sunday Nov. 4

Just a quick reminder that Sunday November 4 is the first Sunday in November, the first Sunday of the 2007/2008 racing season and also Daylight Savings time. So, turn your clocks back an hour Saturday night but still get up for racing at 10 am on the beach! The new boat is ready and waiting...

Also, only a handful of members have paid or contacted me to make payment for the '08 year. Please make arrangement to drop off your waiver forms to me or Becky Carlson as soon as possible as year end was yesterday. Or, bring your info and cheque to the beach on Sunday and we can get it then.

Happy Sailing!