She was out of the family's hands for a few years while Hurricane Ivan came through, and her rig was lost or maybe borrowed by the Holley Boys. We tracked her down in 2011 and bought the hull back, had a fun time picking her up and chasing out a few critters from her hull. Tip: Don't leave the inspection port open on a boat without a rodent screen in place.
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| From Small Boat Restoration |
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| From Small Boat Restoration |
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| From Small Boat Restoration |
MADISON gets called for photo shoots in Seaside periodically
04 Jun 18:
Day sail then we color coded the blades on MADISON, PHOENIX and WAVE.
20 Jan 19:
Our AMF Sunfish MADISON came from Corpus Christi out to Florida in 2000, she had been part of a College sailing program there. We just came across this shot, Clark sailing Escambia Bay while Skipper supervises. The amazing thing about this photo is the two other sailboats in the background. Not only is that more than we have ever seen out there, they are way North in the Bay, up past the I-10 bridge and the train trestle!
10-11 Sep 19:
Picked up SMEDLEY, Eddie and his team made the trailer 15' 6" so it will fit in a Pods moving and storage container. They cut off about a foot on the tongue, and the trailer looks better and still tows great. We had asked for a longer tongue when we had the trailer built, thinking we could back the boat all the way into the water, but it turned out it was easy to get the boat on and off the trailer with the rollers.
The Pod arrived and SMEDLEY fits! With room to spare on the side.
Once SMEDLEY was in we built a rack over the top. It holds the Super Sailfish ZSA ZSA and Sunfish MADISON. Suspended above is our wooden Sunfish ZIP, and below are the Standard Sailfish WINNIE and wooden Sunfish CHIP. The rack also held all of the spars and sails, there was also room for 4 Dynamic Dollies which break down easily. We also put the compact planer in the Pod and all of our boat patterns.
12 Sep 19:
The Pod Full of Fish departed to Virginia, full of our Standard Sailfish WINNIE, Super Sailfish ZSA ZSA, wooden Sunfish ZIP and CHIP, Catfish SMEDLEY and fiberglass Sunfish MADISON.
12 Sep 19:
The Pod Full of Fish departed to Virginia, full of our Standard Sailfish WINNIE, Super Sailfish ZSA ZSA, wooden Sunfish ZIP and CHIP, Catfish SMEDLEY and fiberglass Sunfish MADISON.
Next stop Chesapeake!
Or not. Cue Pandemic 2020...
11 Jul 20:
Air Temp 84F, Dewpoint 80F. Water Temp 78F. Winds NNW 10-13. Light swell.
Peeked outside this morning to check the status of the Saharan dust and Heat Warning. Nice wind from the NNW and it wasn't a sauna yet, so we launched our Sunfish PHOENIX and MADISON. Skipper launched first in PHOENIX and I followed. 2 boats out, so a race ensued.
Video: https://youtu.be/x3L3Bu81mys
Results: Skipper won, I DNFd but got back to the shade first.
11 Jul 20:
A conversation in The Sunfish Forum got us motivated to launch our 1981 Sunfish MADISON (green and blue sail) and 1982 Sunfish PHOENIX this morning, because I couldn't remember which tiller setup was on which boat. I think every boat has something different.
After we got back we cleaned up the boats and took some pictures
Just to confuse everyone, we made our own tillers, they come up just short of the cockpit so Skipper can steer with her leg or her upper leg (butt) while she slides around the aft cockpit edge to tack.
Another custom length tiller with a Ronstan Batttlestick 31 inchish. The extension gets used on occasion, mostly when ghosting and reclining in the cockpit.
Color coded blade tips. I hope Skipper doesn't change her mind on which tiller she likes on which boat.
On to halyard and gooseneck settings, how we like it. See how the aft end of PHOENIX's boom (near boat) is peaked up a little more than MADISON?
Both rigs are set to Geezer Rig, plenty of cockpit boom clearance. Both sails are tied 5 sail rings down from the top grommet, or the 6th grommet down, approx 60 inches.
PHOENIX's gooseneck is set at 20 7/8 inches aft of the interlocking bolt.
MADISON's gooseneck is set at 23 3/8 inches aft of the interlocking bolt.
Video: https://youtu.be/qs2FVwrvIlI
15 Jan 21:
Okay, this is the last one, I promise. MADISON was the third boat in from the shoreline when Hurricane Sally's 9 foot storm surge rolled through, and she got chine damage on the port side aft of the beam. Not sure from what, the dolly next to her maybe?
Pre Hurricane Sally.
We grabbed another piece from the salvaged Sunfish SALLY and cut a backer patch. I suppose we could just epoxy that to the hull and call it done. We have also made patches like this by laying poly sheet over the hull, and laying up 4-6 layers of 4 oz fiberglass cloth, either on the same profile of a good boat or on a section nearby that has the same basic shape.
Test fit to see if it will go through the hole.
Hmmm, now where and how to tie off that string...
.....one of The Usual Visitors whispered in my ear to tie the string off to the Carriage House. Brilliant. I did that then added some more THIXO, smoothed it out level with the side and bottom as best I could. In the past I'v laid in strips of fiberglass cloth but I've done a few recently thay were just THIXO "plugs" and it's worked great.
20 Jan 21:
Did some touch up fairing, sanding and rolled a small bit of primer to the repair spots on PHOENIX and MADISON. Ready for paint.
26 Jan 21:
And just like that MADISON is ready for Sea Trials. The paint on her repair is dry enough that we flipped her back upright on her Dynamic Dolly, found her mast, rudder and daggerboard and put her cover on, rain is a coming.
She'll wait for PHOENIX to be finished and they'll Sea Trial together.
11 Feb 21:
MADISON didn't wait. We had a small weather window to drop MADISON in for a Functional Check Float (FCF) and Rigging Check. Skipper let me be the Functional Check Pilot (FCP).
69F, very little wind, most of it coming straight off the beach. MADISON had fun and hit me in the head with her boom about 20 times, knocked my hat off twice. We stayed shallow, never made it out far enough to get the daggerboard fully down, my kind of water.
Light wind coming right off the beach so I used the Crickle to get back to shore. MADISON didn't leak a drop!
26 Jul 24: Nice weather for a sail and a photo shoot, we took our 1981 AMF Sunfish named MADISON out for the first time on the James River. As mentioned in an earlier post, we had the boom set too low for our liking, so the first few photos are of Skipper going out and returning immediately so we could adjust the gooseneck. I chuckled when I read our notes from 2021 "MADISON had fun and hit me in the head with her boom about 20 times, knocked my hat off twice." We should have fixed that then, we were happy at the time that she didn't leak and the hurricane damage had been repaired.
Even sitting in the cockpit and ducking, the boom is still too low for a recreational sail. But we have nice wind and a few small waves. Winds were around 6-8 knots with a few puffs coming off of a rain shower about 15 miles distant. Mostly cloudy skies added to the pleasantness with the water temp at 82F and air temp at 75F, dewpoint 74F.
MADISON has been in the family since the late 1990s, she spent a bit of time teaching new sailors at Corpus Christi State University, and after being sold as surplus she found her way to Skipper's parents. We can't remember how and when, but she worked her way from the Texas Gulf Coast over to the Florida Gulf Coast, spending some time on Escambia Bay and then East Bay. Now here she is in the Mid-Atlantic region. Is she trying to get back to Waterbury, CT?
We slide the gooseneck well forward, maybe 16-18 inches from the forward end of the lower boom, which is a little further forward than our normal 19-21 inch setting. We could also tie the halyard 6-12 inches lower on the upper boom. But this setup got us sailing today, with decent lower boom clearance above the deck and the aft end of the lower boom angled up a bit. We like the lower boom set high, the way ALCORT shows in all of their advertising photos, but you may notice in other photos that modern day racers set the sail rig very low.
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| Image Credit: Ginnie Gilson Spofford Lake Sunfish Regatta July 13th, 2024 |
Anyway, we like what we call "The Geezer Rig." And check out our beautiful custom sail, made by Hunter and his crew at Schurr Sailing Pensacola.
Back to the beach. Low tide by the way, we used the dolly to roll the boat about 50 feet out before there was enough water to launch, even then we didn't have full clearance for the daggerboard. We like how the nose wheel rolled, so we didn't have to hold the bow the entire time. The dolly rolled so well that we had to turn it sideways to keep the dolly and boat from rolling back into the bay.
A few photos follow of a recreational rigged boat. At the top of the upper boom here, the tack of the sail, take notice of the outhaul line and that there is a sail ring on the last grommet, some folks forget to add that ring. The outhaul can be adjusted as desired, tight for high winds to depower the sail a bit, and loose for "loose" winds to add more cup or draft back to the sail.
On MADISON we have a long bungee run from the bow handle back to the daggerboard, the bungee's is to be a retaining line to keep the daggerboard from floating away after a capsize. The ideal length is to have just enough tension on the bungee so that the top of the daggerboard is pulled forward enough to keep it from sliding down into the trunk....for some folks...that is where I like it. The Skipper likes to have a loose retaining line, so she clips the bungee around the mast when she goes out.
We use a Sunfish snap shackle on one end of the bungee, so that we can easily unsnap to move or remove the line.
Skipper got becalmed last time she was out, for at least two minutes and twelve seconds, so she is going to start taking a paddle with her as entertainment. Here's one spot to stow it, another way is to slide the handle under the halyard. And many Sunfishers keep a shorter telescoping paddle in the cockpit. Also shown in this photo is how we like to stow the excess halyard. One last note about the sail and booms, it is easiest to put the sail, lower boom and upper boom on the port side of the mast so that the halyard can run free from the top of the mast down to the deck fairlead/bullseye. If the sail is on the starboard side, then there is a big mess of sail and booms to try and work around when raising or lowering the sail, and either you are reaching behind the sail to get to the halyard or if the halyrd runs outside of the booms, then it fouls the sail when the rig is raised. How to remember which side the sail and booms go to? One way is to remember is the "Right is Wrong" meaning sail on the right side is wrong :)
The daggerboard retaining line is attached to a daggerboard handle through a 1/4 inch hole that was drilled into the handle at the factory. The earliest daggerboards do not have this hole, because it took a while for folks to realize that it would be a good idea to keep the daggerboard from floating way, as it is needed to right the boat after a capsize. To right the boat, insert the daggerboard fully, swim around to the bottom side, push down on the end of the daggerboard to use it as a lever to get the boat rolling upright. Then grab the deck edge and haul yourself back aboard over the side, or over the stern.
Capn Jack always liked using a line bridle over the factory wire bridle, and he added a little block to clip a snap shackle to for the sheet. He liked the sound of the block going back and forth and the ease of the snap shackle over tying a bowline knot. There are many variation on this theme, one of which is using a bridle block to create a 2:1 purchase by starting the sheet on the lower boom, running the sheet down to a single bridle block, back up to the aft boom block, forward to the forward boom block and down to the cockpit, where another slew of variations happens with open fairleads or swivel cam cleats or stand up ratchet blocks or...FWIW MADSION has a swivel cam cleat (factory) which I use, but Skipper likes the sheet coming right off of the boom straight to her hands, she don't need no stinkin fairleads and will be the first to tell us to never cleat a dinghy sheet.
AMF Alcort Division. The 1/8 inch hole above the cockpit bulkhead sticker is a hull vent, do not plug it. Without the vent, air inside the hull will heat up, expand and create enough volume to pop a deck/hull seam or pull internal foam blocks loose.
The original Cool Cat AMF cubby cooler...
Did we mention how much we like the nosewheel?
MADISON in the foreground and our photship CLARK lounging on the beach.
Field Trials with the trailer winch were a success, operated by the Trailer Wench aka Skipper aka Dock Line Wench and Galley Wench.
We are also very happy with the Railblaza C-Tug kayak cart.
Video: C-Tug
For right now we'll keep the battery on a tender in the garage. Maybe down the road we'll try a solar panel battery charger, but it will have to be one that does a good job in partial shade.
650 Cold Cranking Amps for the winch is plenty, as is 100 minute reserve. The winch motor has to be cooled 14 minutes for every 45 seconds of cranking, we assume this means when pulling a full 2000 pound load.
Updated the Marine Traffic Control Board.
24 Oct 24:
Once again our Sunfish named MADISON was called to action for a photo shoot, we needed to get pictures of the Ronstan Battlestick for a Small Boats Nation article. Wind building as a front came down the James River, 10 knots with a burble coming over the treeline made for interesting conditions, but Skipper worked through it, heading out on a fun and then heading back in on a run, with one dead spot in between. Water temp 68F, air temp 70F with the tide about halfway out.
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