[Rhodes22-list] ANOTHER first sail on my R22

[Stephen Staum]

Hey Mark. I know your boat.  When my friend Ed was looking to buy a
sailboat a few years back we looked at a Rhodes 22 at a club in Everett,
MA. It had wheel steering, an inboard w sail drive & a self tending jib. It
was above his budget so he passed on it. A couple of years later, the same
boat showed up on a neighboring mooring where I was based at Squantum Yacht
Club in Quincy (off Wollaston Beach). We were neighbors for several years
but I never got to sail on this unique boat. Maybe now I get another
chance. This year I moved my Rhodes to Hingham Shipyard Marina due to the
low tide delays at Squantum Yacht club. Where are you sailing out of?

I have owned a Rhodes 22 since 2003 so can help you with anything you need
assistance with. I will be floating until November if you want to get out
on a Rhodes before next season.

Stephen Staum
s/v Carol Lee 2
Needham, MA
781-704-1037 (cell)

On Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 10:40 PM Mark Whipple <mark at whipplefamily.com> wrote:

> Hi folks,
>
> I'm jumping on the bandwagon to tell you about my first sail on my R22!
> This is a long post so only read it if you have the time to be (hopefully!)
> entertained for a bit.
>
> I purchased this boat at the beginning of July in a town in central
> Massachusetts. For a variety of reasons I did not launch this boat until
> 10/1. I a some fun stories about raising the mast for the first time but
> I'll save that for another time.
>
> I currently own three sailboats, as long as you don't count the two
> dinghies that can also sail. My largest boat, a Nimble 30 yawl designed by
> Ted Brewer, is currently for sale. I really love the boat but I wanted to
> downsize as I approach retirement. I did not launch the Nimble this year
> although she was in the water last year. My third boat is a Com-pac 16 that
> lives most of the time on Cape Cod. This year I was granted a mooring in
> Pleasant Bay on the Chatham/Harwich/Orleans border.
>
> I wanted to downsize from the Nimble 30 to sailboat on a trailer and after
> some research it seemed the Rhodes 22 was a good fit for me. I came close
> to purchasing a Seaward 25' but I'm very glad I ended up with the R22
> instead. Currently I own a RAV4 Ltd with towing package, and I will be
> using that vehicle to launch and haul Tiny Dancer at my boat club on Boston
> Harbor. The long term plan is to replace the RAV 4 with Highlander that can
> tow the R22 on the highway. BTW this R22 is a little unique: she has wheel
> steering, a self-tending jib with a Hoyt jib boom and an internal 15 hp.
> gas engine with a Saildrive underneath. She will soon receive the name
> "Tiny Dancer."
>
> After hauling the Compac 16 on 9/14 I then set my sights on launching the
> R22. I at least wanted to have a test run before the winter. I'm a middle
> school technology teacher and I had two days off from school on 9/30 and
> 10/1. I first tried to launch the boat on Mon. 9/30 (we had raised the mast
> a couple of weeks earlier). Unfortunately we ran out of time. It was a plus
> tide so the boat yard became partially flooded at high tide. Getting the
> tongue extension to come out took  quite a bit of time and effort and was
> the main cause for our delay in launching.
>
> The next day a friend and I went down closer to low tide and tried to
> launch the boat. We were on the boat club's main ramp which is long and
> fairly flat. Unfortunately it was too flat. It didn't look like we were
> going to get deep enough to launch until I backed up just a bit more and
> the trailer seemed to fall into a hole on one side. Then the boat floated
> off. Later analysis suggests that I either backed into a big hole in the
> ram or I actually went off the end of the paved ramp.
>
> Once the boat was floating I started the engine. It ran but didn't idle and
> would stall when I put the boat in gear. I decided I would just haul the
> boat back out and be done with it until next year. However by this point I
> couldn't get the trailer in deep enough because now the water was much
> higher. Boston Harbor typically has tides around 9 - 10 ft., but this tide
> was close to 12 ft. It even flooded the main artery road next to the boat
> club. I knew even if I could, I shouldn't put the trailer back in as far as
> I did when launching. There was a good chance of causing damage to the
> trailer if I tried to pull it past some kind of obstruction with a 3100 lb
> boat on it.
>
> The boat sat on the floating dock near the launch ramp overnight. I came
> back the next day and the direction of the wind was now much more favorable
> for sailing to the club dock or even my mooring. The forecast said NNE
> winds 10-15 kts gusts to 20 kts. I don't think I saw whitecaps but it was
> pretty breezy.
>
> My first sail was getting the boat from the launch doc to the leeward side
> of the club doc. After that it got too dark to get out to my mooring -
> especially because I wasn't certain where the mooring had been dropped this
> year. When heading to the main dock had just the bare minimum of jib and
> main out, in part because I was sailing almost dead downwind. I reached the
> dock and immediately realized my boat would be much better off on the
> leeward side (the dock was essentially perpendicular to the wind).
>
> I got the boat around to the other side of the dock but had trouble tacking
> (because now the dock was upwind) so I turned the boat by gybing.
> Eventually I realized I needed to roll out more main, but by that time I
> had got the boat on a good tack which let me land it on the dock. A bow
> line, stern line, springer lead from the bow cleat and a couple big fenders
> secured her until I could get back to move her to the mooring. Of course I
> never found my mooring but picked up another that wasn't in use.
>
> I hope to haul Tiny Dancer on the trailer this coming Monday (Columbus
> Day/Indigenous Peoples' Day). I've been told there's a second ramp at my
> boat club that is twice the slope of the main ramp. The secondary ramp has
> no dock, so the logistics promise to get interesting, especially if I can't
> rely on the engine. Updates to follow!
>
> Looking forward to learning much more about this boat!
>
> Take care,
>
> Mark Whipple
> S/V Tiny Dancer
> Boston, MA
>
-- 
Stephen Staum
Pariser Industries, Inc.