March 2004 - montgomery_boats - mailman.xmission.com

Finally! New features on the MSOG site
by Doug King 20 Mar '04

20 Mar '04

Fellow and fella MSOGgies, It's taken me several months, but I finally got around to putting many of your contributions up on the MSOG web site (My middle initial should be P for "Procrastination" King). I apologize to those of you who sent me stuff a (long) while back. Though I'm still not caught up, I made some pretty good progress. Major features added this week are the following: -Upgrade and Renovation Ledger Tool by Tom Smith, under How-To -List Archives Updated to February 04 under Really Good Stuff -A Cruising Guide to British Columbia by Scott Grometer, under Trips, Planning, Races, and Rendezvous -Provisioning and Updates/Information on Cruising by Scott Grometer, under How-To -Montgomery 15 vs. Compac 16 - Part 2 -Boom Vangs under How-To -More Portsmouth Race Ratings) under Specifications -More Two-stroke vs. Four-stroke Outboards by Scott Grometer under Owner Info/Outboards -A Trip to Catalina by John Fleming under Trips, Planning, Races, and Rendezvous -Jim Smith's humorous article, "Electric Outboards" under "Owner Info->Owners Write: Outboards" In addition, a couple dozen snippets, links, boat owner's photo links and such have been added to existing pages but I won't detail them here. If I put up anything that the author objects to, please let me know and I'll remove it. Some things worth special mention: Tom Smith created a great MS-Word-based ledger system for tracking tasks, costs, times, etc. It looks really useful. The list archives have been updated through February. What took so long was my dividing the database into two tables so that one can now search only from 2004 on (much faster) or include earlier year's posts, and figuring out how to do the searches. Scott Grometer has three pieces, A cruising guide to the Northwest and two on provisioning. Sorry it took so long, Scott. All of these items are also listed at the bottom of the MSOG Home page. I've made a few location changes, so if any links or downloads don't work or need updating, please email me directly at msog(a)msog.org. I'm obviously slowing down on working on the MSOG site, but I'll try to clear out what's left of the backlog and add new stuff occasionally. I'll be sending out the annual "State of the MSOG" address in the next few days, so stay tuned. Doug ------------------------------------------ Doug King M-17 #404 "Vixen" Montgomery Sailboats Owners Group Web site: http://msog.org Email: msog(a)msog.org

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Re: M_Boats: Re: My new Motor
by bownez＠juno.com 19 Mar '04

19 Mar '04

Thanks Jeff, You're sailing and I'm not. Like Connie says, we still have that white stuff around. But, the sun is getting high, the pool is melting, and soon us notherners will have tillers in our hand and smiles on our faces. Soon. Bones ________________________________________________________________ The best thing to hit the Internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! Surf the Web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today!

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Re: M_Boats: mellow
by chbenneck＠juno.com 19 Mar '04

19 Mar '04

Jeff, You left out one most important parameter............ The angle of heel should never - ever cause your beer can to tip over............. My daughter's boyfriend who absolutely had to have a sister ship of our Tripp-Lentsch thought fast meant lee rail under water and hanging on for dear life. When he found his Tripp-Lentsch (which by coincidence was also red like mine) and we sailed together, he sailed his way, but I never spilled my beer and beat him every time. Finally made a believer out of him: sail it on it's feet and let it fly............! Of course, my sailing style didn't bother him because he didn't drink beer and therefore was oblivious to the problems he created - but he did tip over his cans of soft drinks! Connie

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Re: M_Boats: Re: montgomery_boats Digest, Vol 13, Issue 7
by chbenneck＠juno.com 19 Mar '04

19 Mar '04

Hi Scott, You'll rue the day you offered me encouragement to tell more sea stories............. As for French canals............ When the company transferred our European office to Paris, I had to leave my German racing class centerboard sailboat in Germany. Boat less, the question in Paris, our new home, was - Now what? At the Amsterdam boat show, I found a salty Norwegian wooden double ended fishing boat style 25 footer, with a one lung SABB diesel - 10 HP with a variable pitch propeller. It was 50% open cockpit space with the engine box in the middle (great engine access: served as a table; and the children could race around it in perfect safety) It also had a nice pipe railing around the cockpit from which to hang fenders. Forward were two berths in a small cabin (sitting headroom) and standing headroom in the pilot house / galley. I thought this would be ideal for the Seine in Paris and on inland water ways, so I placed an order with the Norwegian builder. The following spring we took delivery of the boat in Rotterdam, and then went via inland waterways through Holland, Belgium, and France arriving back in Paris about three weeks later. Traveling the canals is like entering one end of a soda straw.............. There is no sense trying to pass a barge that is doing .01 knots less than you are, because a few kilometers down the "tube" you will hit the next lock and will have to wait anyway. In Holland and Belgium you have large remotely operated locks that will hold maybe 6 barges at a time, with me tucked in under their sterns as the last one in as the gates shut behind you with a mighty clang..... In France they are all hand operated. The lock keepers are French war veterans. They work from about 0600 to 7 PM and that's it for the day. So, if you arrive at quarter to 7 you just tie up and call it a day. There is no sense of getting through that lock, because the next one is maybe only 100 yards away - or maybe even 1 kilometer, and you have to stop anyway. The lock keeper's wife usually has a vegetable garden. You can buy some cucumbers, tomatoes, salad, some eggs to resupply the galley. The canals go through the countryside - rarely touching towns - so you are dependent on the lock keeper's wives for supplies. You help in the lock operation. You operate one half of the locks while the lock keeper works the other half. As you reach a lock - assuming it is open for you - you are waved in by the lock keeper. You moor the boat and then go and close the back half lock gate on your side of the lock, while the lock keeper closes it on his side. Next he goes to the other end of the lock and opens the shutter that lets water in or out of the lock. When the new level has been reached, and there is no more water pressure on the gates, you swing open your side, the lock keeper swings open his side; you climb aboard; press the starter and as your diesel goes pflumpf - pflumpf -pflumpf, you ease the prop into forward pitch and slowly move out into the canal ahead. One morning we were at the top of a staircase of locks going down into a broad valley. All day long it was out of one lock, go 100 yards, and enter the next lock. If my memory serve, we went through 24 locks that day - all hand operated. Oh, and don't forget, the lock keeper gets 1 cigarette per boat that pass through his lock as a tip! Another thing that will shake you is going through a tunnel on a canal. There were no lights in the tunnel, and keeping a straight course in inky blackness to keep from hitting rough stone walls with my varnished pine hull was difficult. Luckily I had a good flashlight on board. As an engineering aside: Some tunnels are so long that the tunnel bore had to be dug to fit the curvature of the earth. If they had just dug it straight, the water in the middle, being higher than at the ends would reduce the water to roof clearance distance. Canal-ology! Barges, with their length, just sort of slide through the tube! ..........and you find an economic pecking order in the canal shipping. Owners of oil tanker barges, chemical barges, are new, modern, live aboard fast vessels. They have beautiful living quarters for the family, including children (swing sets on the hatch covers) as well as the VW Beetle or a FIAT 500 for land transportation. The bottom of the heap are very old, and barely useable, sand and gravel barges. Towed by a tractor along a tow path, with the deck hand steering using a long tiller (10 feet long) and a semicircle of wooden cleats on the deck where he stands, so that he can brace himself against the tiller pressure. No roof over his head - out in the open in all kinds of weather; no cabin.............! I wonder what his wage rate is? Traveling the inland waterways is idyllic; quiet; peaceful; unhurried. Farmer's fields right and left of you, a row of poplars off in the distance that line a French country road; the occasional fisherman sitting on the banks of the canal with a line in the water; or a woman washing laundry in the canal water.......... >From Paris, we also went up and down the Seine to Le Havre a few times. Above Rouen, you go through your last lock and then you are in tidal and international waters. At Le Havre you have a tidal range of about 21 feet! You go downstream from Rouen with the outgoing tide, and upstream with the incoming tide, and since everyone else is waiting for the tide change too, it becomes boat rush hour. Barges, coastal freighters; and somewhere between them all, there you are trying to keep out of the Big Boys way.......... It's a great way to see the Netherlands, Belgium and France. France has a most extensive canal system, and you can go from Paris to the Mediterranean via the canals and the Rhone river. So, start dreaming Scott, and if you need more details, yell. I still have my old canal handbooks with all vital information. Connie

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Re: M_Boats: Montgomery 23 Motor Question Answered
by chbenneck＠juno.com 19 Mar '04

19 Mar '04

Au contraire Steve, Our Montgomerys have very slippery hulls, so even "hard on the wind" I don't thing we have to get anywhere near hurricane wind velocity to make our toys move sedately over the ice. Gentle breezes and slippery hulls should do just fine! Connie

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Re: M_Boats: Finally! New features on the MSOG site
by Steve R. 19 Mar '04

19 Mar '04

Doug: Thanks for your work on the MSOG site. I think we have the best sailing web site going. Also thanks to Keith for keeping the mailing list up. steve Steve R. M-15 #119 Lexington, KY

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Re: M_Boats: Mellow sailing
by IDCLLC＠aol.com 19 Mar '04

19 Mar '04

I think your canine reef indicator system is excellent. It's obvious that it'd be a pleasure to sail with you! Sounds like your Monty 23 is a serious boat indeed. 30 knots is a lot of wind. Does anyone know if another 23 has been ordered or built yet? Steve Tyree, itty bitty P-15 #2098 "Amy Ann"

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Re: M_Boats: Montgomery 23 Motor Question Answered
by IDCLLC＠aol.com 19 Mar '04

19 Mar '04

In a message dated 3/18/2004 10:45:09 AM Central Standard Time, chbenneck(a)juno.com writes: Sailing? On what? Frozen water???? Can a Montgomery15 do that? Has anybody tried???? Hard on the wind takes on a whole new meaning! But go have fun! Sit in the sun with the bow wave gurgling, beer in hand, and think of us poor clods surrounded by snow! Connie You poor clods. I think the wind would have to be blowing really, reeally hard to get a Mony going under those conditions. It's hard for me to imagine right now, with the grass greening and a 65 degree high today. Drive south! Steve Tyree, born in Limestone, Maine, raised in the sunny valleys of Tennessee.

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Re: montgomery_boats Digest, Vol 13, Issue 7
by Wilsometer＠aol.com 19 Mar '04

19 Mar '04

Connie, First, thank you for the kind words. Second, your magnificent essay on the Istrian coast accomplished its intended goal--I am indeed envious of your experiences there. You had posted an earlier essay (maybe a year ago?) about this region, and I was totally captivated. You really ought to write a book on these and other experiences. I may just have to take the Flicka there someday (I wanted to do the French canals anyway). You really should consider hauling your M15 to the Pacific Northwest some summer. You could hit the Great Lakes, Glacier National Park, etc., on your way, and I guarantee you won't be disappointed. As a bonus, you can put car/boat on the ferry and head up to Alaska for some really spectacular scenery (Glacier Bay is only a day or two from Juneau). Sorry about the late response. It has been over 80 degrees here (Northern California) for almost two weeks, and I have been 'making hay' (working long hours) while it lasts. I understand that the right coast has received the oppos ite treatment. Weird weather! I'll look forward to your next installment on European cruising! Scott In a message dated 3/11/04 12:26:29 PM, montgomery_boats-request(a)mailman.xmission.com writes: >Hi Scott, > >What a beautiful dissertation you wrote on cruising in the Northwest. > >The problem is, with your descriptions - including watching out for bears >- you make me extremely jealous that I am located so far away from such >a >wonderful cruising area, and probably will never be able to experience >it. > >As a tit for tat response, let me tell you about cruising along the >Istrian coast in Yugoslavia, on the Adriatic. No bears (four legged >kind), but lost of bares - (two legged kind) encountered everywhere. >The Adriatic bares exhibit a remarkable range of natural coloring of >their skin. (As a naturalist I observe these things) It goes from >milky white to a scarlet red, and is particularly noticeable in areas >that the "bares" usually have covered when they are in their winter >habitat. > >Think dulcet breezes: steep too rocky shores; rocky islets with tiny >villages - no provisions; no fuel; no water - but almost everyone at >these villages plays a guitar and can sing in four part harmony. That > >is the way it is done every evening since there is no electricity and >therefore no television (radio) on these islands. > >Distances between islands are short; never any fog, no reefs, no extreme >tidal flows, but look out for the Bora. > >The Bora is a wind that sweeps down out of the Alps across the northern >Adriatic and is like a young hurricane. Think flushing an old top tank >toilet. At the right moment someone pulls the chain: the winds drop >down from the cold heights of the Alps, accelerating all the way downhill >and hitting the northern Adriatic area. > >I experience it once in Pula and stood anchor watch all night long (the >Danforth held) and the next morning as I hauled it up - in a flat calm, >of course, - my wife wanted to kiss it. She suddenly had a totally >different feeling for the shape of an anchor and what an anchor >represented. > >In Pula there is a Roman amphitheater - in far better shape than the one >in Rome. The whole Adriatic area was a Roman vacation area, and >everywhere you go you are treading on the same cobblestone streets used >by Roman Legionnaires over 2000 years ago. > >.........and if you tire of the beauty and solitude in the Yugoslavian >islands, you just head West across the Adriatic again for about 40 NM >and land at Venice. Good food, good wine; history; great art......... > >What more could you want? > >But I'd sure like to sail in your lovely area, .......sigh! > >Connie

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Re: My new Motor
by Jeff Grudin 19 Mar '04

19 Mar '04

(Jokingly) Wow! Are you sure you guys are sailors? Sailboats are slow, mellow things that gracefully fly on the wind. With beer in hand, I stand at the tiller, my now gray hair whipping back and forth in the breeze. I know. I have a friend who is a sailboat racer, actually a tactician. He measures every little thing and carefully calculates his tactics to eek out another few tenths of a KPH. I hate sailing with him. I am a mellow sailor. I need a crew to make me a sandwich and bring me a beer, not to make minor adjustments and get all jazzed because we are going 5.8 KPH instead of 5.6. My friends tell me they know the sailing was good if they see me coming back to the dock with the tiller between my legs and they can hear me playing some hornpipes on my whistle. To be honest and accurate, I didn't have a wind meter to accurately measure the wind speed. I was guessing, perhaps a bit low, at the 12KPH. The water was choppy with some white horses spraying off the tops of the chop, but not steadily. It was very puffy. With the sails full, we were probably averaging about 18.754 degrees of heel with about 29.578 degrees as we came up in the puffs. I usually gauge it as time to reef when my dog goes down into the cabin, and stays on the floor. I have to admit that we had previously run through some low water and picked up a bunch of green stuff on my rudder, I am sure there was some on my keel as well increasing the drag a bit. Maybe we were heeling a bit more than normal. At 30 KPH, which is not uncommon in our area, I usually have the main double reefed and have no jib up. The boat screams along and seems to handle very well in these conditions. Dick, How does one move the draft forward? Howard, Nissan makes a 9.9 and a 9.8. Pretty weird, but the 9.8 is the lighter one. A smaller motor probably would be fine in most situations. Since I couldn't try one out, I didn't want to make an error on the wrong side. We have very strong currents in the Delta and heavy winds. There have been times when I have been healed over (I won’t say to what degree) with full sails and heavy apparent wind only to find I was moving backward over ground. Bones, The motor weighs 81 pounds. I guess the newer motors are heavier than the old. The new Honda 9.9 weighs about 95 pounds or something like that. Spring is here. It is time to sail! _____ 73 de AC6KW <mailto:jeff@grudin.net> Jeff Grudin, DVM Web Add: http://www.grudin.net Ocean Animal Clinic / Cat Clinic of Santa Cruz - Santa Cruz, California Montgomery 23 Hull #072 Norcal QRP * QRP-L * ARS * AR Qrp --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com) Version: 6.0.596 / Virus Database: 379 - Release Date: 2/26/2004

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