The 1963 wooden Alcort Sunfish CHIP has a new name to go along with her new home. Emiliano and crew renamed her LEAF, and she hangs out with The Artful Sailor when not entertaining the crowd at this year's Pocket Yacht Palooza. So far she has 2 new sails and a new paint job, among other things.
(Image: Artful Sailor)
LEAF was spoiled in Florida, but she may be even more spoiled in Pt Townsend, and certainly more sailed.
We thought we had our Sunfish stored nice and dry, under a tin roof and with a SLO Sail and Canvas Spars-On-Deck cover. When I moved CHIP to get to the old floorboards underneath, I heard water slosh. Uh oh. We pulled the cover off and found that water rain water had blown into a gap in the cover at the stern and drained down into the cockpit, caused by the mast holding the cover up just a bit. The gap was our fault, I should have snugged the cover down a bit more. The cockpit was fine, we sponged out the water, but the floorboards warped and had mold. We cleaned everything up and will try to save the floorboards, right now we parked the dolly on top of them to flatten them back out. Stay tuned...
We looked out and the wind was perfect for a beam reach on and off the beach. CHIP flew through Sea Trials, over, through and under a few waves. 98F Heat Index, the Bay felt like a hot tub. Winds steady at 14 gusting 17, one gust hit 25. But the waves were well spaced. She tacked all over the place, sail set great and blades behaved. The splashguard was excellent to divert the water taken aboard during submarine mode. The helm was responsive and the boat felt solid. We found that the tiller extension was too small of diameter for secure grip and too varnished, very slippery. ANnd if the sheet gets away, the boat just stops and the rudder can be used to maneuver back under the boom, grab the sheet and sail away. Bonus for the day, caught a stern wave!
Our 1963 Alcort Sunfish CHIP is ready for Sea Trials, so she needed to get off the finishing dolly and onto a Dynamic Dolly. I asked Skipper how to organize Sunfish TETRIS and she said she wanted her 1965 Alcort Sunfish WAVE to take a turn on he finishing dolly, get her purtied up like the other boats, fix the amateur patches I put on 20+ years ago. So first we dollied WAVE up to the Carriage House and dropped her in the grass. Next we used Skipper's field expedient Sunfish hoist to get CHIP off of the finishing dolly.
Lowered CHIP onto the Dynamic Dolly and rolled her out next to WAVE.
WAVE loaned CHIP her spars on deck Sunbrella cover, a fine cover that we got fro SLO Sail and Canvas. It has nice straps!
Rolled the finishing dolly out into the yard and walked each end of WAVE up onto the dolly. Rolled dolly into the Carriage House. WAVE telling fish stories to ZIP and WINNIE.
While we were in the Carriage House we shaved some yaks. "Yak shaving" is what we call it when we find other jobs to do while avoiding the primary job, which in this case was getting CHIP out back to the Sunfish Shack and finishing cleaning some air vents inside the house. Today's yaks to shave were cutting some 1/8th inch nylon line to make daggerboard retaining lines for WAVE and PHOENIX and whipping the ends of a couple of vintage Sunfish/Sailfish sheets.
We cut the nylon line to length and seared the ends. Line is long enough so that daggerboard can easily be removed, but not much longer than that. The retaining line is there to keep the daggerboard from floating away after a capsize.
Tied the line with a bowline. Make the little loop, the run the rabbit (end of the line) up through the hole...
...around the tree (long end of the line) and back down into the hole.
Snug down the bowline. Cut another line for PHOENIX. Yak 1 shaved.
Old School. Simple.
Yak Shaving Take 2. Wrapped the end of the sheet with a piece of gaff tape and seared the end. Then whipped the end with waxed line. Yak 2 shaved.
How to whip a line.
Back to our original unscheduled program, CHIP taking up WAVE's slip in the Sunfish Shack, ready for Sea Trials!
Had some clean up items over the last few weeks getting CHIP ready for Sea Trials. Painted the trim with TotalBoat WetEdge BluGlo White and Interlux Brightside Largo BLue.
Attached the coaming.
Yankee Driver.
Bridle.
Reassembled rudder.
Halyard cleat on the wooden boats is on the mast collar.
Used 1953 Alcort Sunfish ZIP's floorboard as a template.
Found out that the 2nd Gen wooden boat cockpits are actually a little shorter, so we had to measure and recut floorboards.
Used Grandpa Nelson's ratchting brace bit to auger the finger holes.
