Hi, Randy, Glad that you enjoyed my humble writing on the three-day trip to Catalina. We had a total of four(4) inflatables put in but only two remained in service. The other two were pulled out by their owner due to their deficiency. Captain Howie's Sea Hawk III and my Stearns Inflatable Kayak remained in service for the entire stay in Catalina. The Stearns kayak tracks pretty good with decent speed, enev under windy condition, and is very hard to tip over. It stores in a carry bag which, while under way, was kept in the cabin near the bow to counter balance the outboard. I was able to inflate it in the cockpit by placing it abeam with two paddles underneath for initial support. The one I have is a two-seater kayak so that my wife can also enjoy it. When paddle solo, the front seat service as additional storage. It might be a little pricy, but it is worth every penny. I found the best price on internet: http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/product/horizontal-item.jhtml?id...
From: RandyG <RandyG@cite.nic.edu> Reply-To: For and about Montgomery Sailboats<montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> To: For and about Montgomery Sailboats <montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> Subject: RE: M_Boats: Photos of M-15 #120 at Catalina Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2004 16:39:31 -0700
Fuh-Shing Pan,
Enjoyed reading about your Catalina sail. What inflatable did you and your group find worked best? It sounds like you all carried your inflatable deflated and then inflated them when you arrived. I am curious to know what inflatable worked well. I have a great inflatable dinghy but it is too big to reasonably stow inside my M-15. And creates too much of a drag to tow it behind.
Randy M-15 # 407
From: Fuh-Shing Pan Sent: Fri 7/9/2004 2:04 PM To: montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com Subject: RE: M_Boats: Photos of M-15 #120 at Catalina
Sorry, Steve, I did not get your message until this morning. I was out of town for several days. Yes, I am on the list and lurking around for a year or so trying to soak up as much information as I can from all good salty sailors of Montgomery boat. I searched but failed to find any active Montgomery group in so. Ca. I joined S. California Potter's Group in May so that I can learn from its old-salt sailors and beef up my confidence. This Potter group has an active yearly schedule that includes day-sailing and couple of coastal adventures to outlying islands. I tagged along Potter's June adventure to Catalina Island to self-test my sailing skill outside the protective Long Beach Harbor for the 1st time and to check if I would get sea sick on a long trip. Both tests, to my surprise, went along quick smoothly. Following is some recap of the Catalina trip.
Trip day one: Launched and departed at the Alamitos Bay/ Long Beach at 6:00am. Except the father/son team from Utah, we were all single-handling. We motored half way to Catalina and motor-sailed the rest of the trip. Due to balky motor that plagued some of the skippers (total nine boats participated) for the whole trip and steady head wind during the second half of the trip, this trip not only took 2 hours longer than the expected 6 hours passage but also forced a change of destination. Instead of the targeted Catalina Harbor on the south side of the island, all but two of us headed for the Two Harbor/ Isthmus Cove on the north side. Other than the mishap of the motors, the outward trip was uneventful until we came across a huge tanker in the shipping lane unmercifully claiming her right of way. The wake waves generated by the long-gone tanker were quite a shocker to a novice sailor like me. The approaching wake wave looked more like a small tsunami with sporadic breaking white cap on top. Every Potter skippers changed their course and headed into the wave at a slight angle. I followed suit and, while crossing the wave crest, felt my M-15 airborne for more than a split second and landed with a big solid splash behind the wave. What a thrill! After mooring at Two Harbor, everyone brought out their inflatable dingy/kayak and went on shore for a hearty sunset barbecue. Speaking about inflatable, do not waste your money on those cheap toys. Some of us learned a good lesson from using them.
Trip day two: we had a lunch gathering and exchanged ideas/experiences and other heated issues on our living planet. After the lunch, I walked across the narrow flat land connecting Catalina Harbor/Two Harbor to see the other side that I had never seen. The scenery are quite nice especially when I reached the higher land overlooking the entire harbor and the Pacific ocean. I finished the rest of the day enjoying kayaking, swimming, on-shore shower, and on-boat cooked noodle. I slept the second night with continuous dreaming of a gentle rock-n-roll.
Trip day three: After breakfast, I paddle ashore to deflate my kayak and summoned a water taxi to take me back to M-15. We departed around 9:30am. One of our potter-15 failed to get motor running and was towed by a fellow potter-19. Again, we motored-sailed halfway and then quit motor and wind-wind all the way back to Alamitos by 4:00pm. On the way, I try to rig main/jib sheet for autopilot without success. During some point, I even experienced an accidental jibe that surely shook me up.
To summarize: the trip was successful and very much enjoyable. Distance traveled was 36 miles to and 31 miles from, according to GPS. Peak wind speed was estimated between 10-15 knots. No worry necessary for the ebb and flow of tide. For anyone interested in our Catalina trip, a slide show was made available by our beloved Captain Howie at http://www.howies.net/socalpotter/ and click on the "past event/ Catalina June 2004"
Fair wind Fuh-Shing Pan M-15 #120
From: Steve R. <stever@mail.saabnet.com> Reply-To: stever@mail.saabnet.com, For and about Montgomery Sailboats<montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> To: montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com Subject: M_Boats: Photos of M-15 #120 at Catalina Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2004 09:31:58 -0700 (PDT)
There are some nice photos of Fuh-Shing on the Catalina Island cruise with the SoCal P-boats:
http://howies.net/socalpotter/catlina22004/03.htm http://howies.net/socalpotter/catlina22004/10.htm http://howies.net/socalpotter/catlina22004/17.htm http://howies.net/socalpotter/catlina22004/19.htm http://howies.net/socalpotter/catlina22004/32.htm
Is Fuh-Shing on the list? If so, could you give us a trip recap?
Thanks,
steve
Steve R. M-15 #119 Lexington, KY
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