Does This Leak Make Me Look Fat - Part V: Surgery

The Leak

The Bike was right!  Skipper is trying to save me! He told me that the professional Boat Doctor told him that Skipper couldn't find the leak because there were so many of them and they couldn't be isolated.

That's a death sentence for a boat, but Skipper wouldn't accept that. He said that we'd been together for almost 40 years and he wasn't going to let me slip away without a fight. Skipper bought himself a book on Sunfish Doctory and learned how to fix leaks that couldn't be found.

I had the surgery last week.  He started by taking of my rub rail. That tickled, except when the drill slipped and it nicked my gelcoat. Then he inspected the whole joint where my deck meets my hull.  And guess what? He found the leaks! One huge one and two little ones, plus a couple of cavities that just needed filling.

In the Recovery Room

All of my leaks are fixed. I'm resting comfortably and should be on the back water next week.  I'm dry inside and I'm feeling weak, but pretty good.  The best part was that it rained really hard for a couple of days, and I didn't get any water inside me at all! Skipper says that he's going to do some cosmetic work and give me a good polishing as soon as I'm strong enough.

Does This Leak Make Me Look Fat? Part IV - Going Home

Going Home - I hope not for the last time!

Skipper came to see me at Winter Camp. He usually comes to see me on Sundays when we race. But this was on a Friday. He never comes on Fridays. He packed me up onto the trailer and we went home.  He didn't say much again, and seemed to be upset.

The bike was in the van, and said to cheer up. He told me that a few weeks ago he was in rough shape too, not shifting right and wobbly wheels and bad bar tape.  He said that Skipper just took him and spent a whole day fixing him, and now he's as good as new and that maybe Skipper's going to fix me too.  The Van said that Skipper and Mrs Skipper had been talking a lot about me. And about the Harlot. She didn't know much, but said that Mrs Skipper was shouting about boats not being worth it and Skipper was just shaking his head a lot.

Now I'm sitting in the driveway at home, away from my friends, and I'm still scared.

Does This Leak Make Me Look Fat - Part III: Seeing the Professionals - and the Professionals Seeing Me

Putting the water back where it should be

About a month ago, Skipper gave up on my leak.  He took me to a boat doctor.  I was scared when he left me there alone in a snowstorm, but the nice people at the boat hospital took me in and checked me over.  Then they put me back outside. They didn't even do anything! Skipper came and got me a couple of days later. He didn't say much, just "Come on girl, let's go home."

When I got back to Winter Camp. my friends there said that it wasn't a good sign. They said that boat doctors will always fix you up if there is something wrong with you, and if they don't, it means that you are a goner.  That week there was a pretty bad rain storm, and part of my boat cover blew off. I was full of rainwater and felt bloated and awful.  The next time Skipper came to race, he was asking people if they knew anyone selling newer Sunfish. I didn't feel well from all the bloating, and Skipper was preoccupied and not concentrating, so we spent most of the day in the back of the fleet.

I'm scared.

Skipper is a Chicken

Where's the Blue and Yellow Sail? 

All my winter friends and some of my summer friends got to play today. Sunfish 1 showed up from Summer Camp and I wanted to race with her. Instead I got to watch. Skipper explained to me that he volunteered to help out on the committee boat because they were shorthanded.  I find it odd that the race committee needed "help" on a cloudy 40 degree day with 20 mph winds.  Here I am, looking forward to racing with my friends, and he wimps out.  The other Sunfish have all been giving me grief ever since about being a fair weather boat. I try to tell them that I just have a wimpy skipper, but the just laugh at me.

I've been with Skipper about as long Mrs Skipper has, and both of us know him better than he knows himself.  He's going soft. He goes around telling everyone that he's got to get a dry suit, but he's too cheap to buy one, so he wimps out on the cold days.  I don't know what he's got to complain about, because I'm the one that's wet and freezing my rudder off in the water!

Don't Ever do that to me Again!

I think Skipper got his daggerboard from here

Skipper decided to do something nice for me, but like a typical man, he fouled up on the execution.  He is getting my daggerboard patched up, and he was supposed to bring his spare to use for racing today. He couldn't find it, so he had to borrow one.  Not a good move.  He managed to get one that was home made, maybe even for another class boat, and was way too fat to fit in my daggerboard trunk. Only about two feet of it was actually in the water, and it stuck up so far in the air that he had trouble tacking.

We did really well downwind, but every upwind leg was an exercise in frustration. We would point about 5 degrees better than the other boats, but we would slide so far sideways that they would open up huge leads on us. By the last race we figured out that heeling way over to windward would let my chine help out the daggerboard a bit, but it was too little too late.

I wish that I could say that we didn't make any mistakes.  Well I didn't anyway.  Skipper made two huge mistakes on port/starboard crossings, one that cost us second and pushed us into last because two boats passed us while we were doing turns. Another time we were first at the mark, but we had to duck a starboard boat, and ended up being the last around the mark, because we kept sliding sideways into it.

Since Skipper made a couple of bonehead tactical mistakes, and we lost every race on the upwind legs, I know what USA 17 feels like racing in the America's Cup. Can I change my tactician?

Finishing First in the Middle of the Fleet

By Skipper's logic, we're winning this race

I'm worried that Skipper is losing it.

We've been on a roll for the past two weeks.  Two weeks ago, we had a really good week at the races. This weekend we raced with 23 other Sunfish, which was awesome. The wind was perfect, and we didn't make any really bad sailing mistakes.  We finished first in all of our races. We haven't finished any lower than 2nd in three weeks.

Skipper has been treating me really nicely. He has been really gentle with his tacks and gybes, and we're actually starting to roll tack. Most important, he has stopped yelling at me. He yells at the wind now, which worries me. All weekend he was obsessed with keeping up with a skipper named Dave. And when we talk about where we finished in races, he babbled incoherently about "alternate scoring" and "parallel universes".

According to Skipper, both of these statements are true:

• We won 8 out of 9 races races this weekend and came in first for the regatta
• We finished in the middle of the fleet for the regatta

Unless we sailed the course so that the same number of boats were always to the right and left of us, for the life of me I can't see how we finished in the middle of the fleet. We brought home a trophy that says "First Place", but skipper says we finished behind this elusive "Dave". Actually, there were two skippers named Dave, and Skipper says he finished behind both of them. How can you finish behind someone when you finish first?

I think Skipper is sailing with his rudder up

No Chain

Erik Schmerik.  I've got Skipper!

I guess it pays to be a flirt!  Skipper got me a new gooseneck quick release this week, and adjusted my rigging so my sail shape is easier to control. He didn't yell at me at all or plop down hard on my deck. He told me that he would rather sail me than a Laser anyday.  We worked a bunch of beautiful races this week.  We tried new ways of starting, and port tacked the fleet three times on starts! We caught other boats downwind, and pointed so much better upwind that other skippers were talking about us. We were over early on one race and still managed a second! Racing today was awesome!

Skipper's bike came with him to summer camp today and said that we had a "no chain" day.  The bike calls days like we had today "no chain" days, because everything's going so smoothly that it's like there's no chain on his gears.  Even though it doesn't really work with a boat, it sounds better than "sailing like I had no sail", I'll stick with "no chain".