Wanna-B-RV(ers)

This should be somewhat self explanatory.

Last time I launched my boat my truck spent nearly half an hour with the rear axle getting splashed by salt water, which didn't help my already rusty brake lines one bit. Now that I have a smaller and newer car, I'd like to keep it completely rust free, thus there are two options: extend the hitch or extend the tongue. Extending the hitch can only be a temporary solution due to the immense leverage it places on the hitch, thus I chose option 2.

My trailer uses 3" square tubes with about 1/16" thick steel (really thin). Ideally I'd like to have a tight fitting galvanized tube to go into that, but I couldn't find anything so I wound up buying a 6 foot piece of 2.5 in 11 gauge. I think that's a little overkill.

There are a bunch of holes drilled through the pipe so I can change the length as needed, though I don't expect to ever bother.

Photos:

As I write this it is 40 degrees outside and I can hardly imagine that only 2 days ago I was out on the water enjoying a warm 70 degrees sunny day. Fall is no longer just an idea but a rather persistent reality, and, as they say in imaginary lands: "winter is coming". But two days ago, when the world was still summery, I drove my catamaran to the Keyport Municipal Boat Ramp, rigged it in record time (it now takes me less than 20 minutes), and went out towards my destination: Verazzano Bridge. Little did I know that this journey would last over 7 hours, and I wouldn't make it home for a full 10. But first things first. Here is what happened, including the bulk of the tragi-comedic adventures:

1. I had a nice and leisurely time sailing straight downwind all the way to the bridge. The journey was about 15 miles and took under two hours. I knew that coming back would be harder, but figured that I should not be so conservative all the time and live a little.


2. I managed get my scenery on video and even made some video calls to share my experiences with family and friends (Using a Galaxy S3 in a waterproof pouch)


3. As I approached the bridge (about 1pm), the wind started to get stronger. Having learned from last week's mistakes, I took great care not to underestimate the power of wind gusts, and thus managed to keep the boat right side up. I turned around and headed back, but the wind was now exactly in front of me. I picked the closest course I could that kept me moving at a reasonable speed without capsizing, and headed towards New Jersey


4. In about an hour and a half I found myself approaching land which was strangely familiar, and yet entirely devoid of that "home port" feeling. This familiar land was Leonardo. I felt that this was acceptable as tacking goes, and I'd tack back towards Staten Island next, but when I turned and tried to settle into a similarly acceptable course on the port tack, I found myself heading almost exactly for the Verazzano Bridge. This was somewhat disheartening, so I beached the craft just west of Leonardo and had lunch on a beach that was still somewhat warm.


5. The wind continued to increase, and while I was having a forcibly de-stressed lunch experience on the shell-encrusted beach, I glanced up to notice a batten sticking out my unexpectedly torn mainsail, about half-way up (that's about 12 feet up the mast). Now, seeing parts coming out of a craft that is responsible for getting you home is in itself disconcerting - but your mainsail... well, it's kind of important. I managed to take down the sail, shove the batten back into its torn pocket and hope for the best


6. With the relaxation over, I re-attempted my port tack course with a significant reduction in success quantity. This time, I pushed it harder and a gust of wind simply knocked the boat over, despite me letting the mainsheet loose altogether. I righted the boat without too much difficulty thanks to my righting pole, and even managed to stay relatively dry by quickly getting out of the water


7. Several more attempts at getting somewhere resulted in the same success rate, and thus I felt it time to play the remaining ace I had in reserve. I beached the craft yet again, in almost the same spot (as I literally gained no ground against the wind), and reefed the sail. Reefing the sail is basically leaving it part-way down, and mine has the fittings to permit this to be done given adequate spare line, which I happened to have.


8. As I am fiddling with the sail, I notice that my righting pole, which was at some point permanently attached to the dolphin striker via the use of an eyebolt is now floating in the bay somewhere near my boat. Apparently when I beached the boat, I ripped the pole off its attachment because the pole wasn't properly tied (I don't have time to tie it up after righting the boat, the boat takes off and needs attention)


9. Proudly complimenting myself on my resourcefulness I wasted no time and reattached the pole by using some spare line. I was busy tying a knot to the dolphin striker (with the bows pointed to sea) when a gust of wind decided that it was time for the boat to climb off the beach and do what boats are supposed to do. Now I should point out that I was directly in front of the boat that I thought was safely beached, and that the sails were completely free (and now reefed!), yet the boat still plowed its way off the sand, into me, and continued its relentless march towards freedom despite my grunt-ful efforts to slow its progress. I had no choice but to grab on and climb on. A few minutes later, I managed to turn it around through diligent application of choice expletives and additional grunts, and to get it back on the beach to finish my knot work


10. I launched the now reefed and re-conditioned boat once more, only to discover two interesting things:
    • The boat travels at ridiculous speed even with all the sails loose
    • The starboard rudder won't lock at these speeds, and I can't keep the boat still long enough to do it either


11. What this means is that now I have a boat with a dragging rudder and excessive sail area, in other words, it requires all of my upper body strength (of which I do have a fair amount) to steer. At this point, I had no choice but to admit defeat - which, naturally, does not excuse me from further failures.


12. I went back to the beach yet again and asked for help. Now, I don't usually do this.... I don't mind asking for directions (who does that nowadays, anyway?), but asking for help with stuff like this is typically met with the following response from my inner rationalizer: "And if this easy way out weren't available, what would you do, huh? You're supposed to be self-sufficient!". Yet my situation was clear: It took me an hour to go 500 feet. I have 10 miles to go, all up wind. It is past 5pm, and sunset is in less than 2 hours. So I picked up the phone and asked my wife to come pick me up at a downwind marina. Now, doing this would require that my truck and trailer also find their way to this new marina - which would require some commuting, but it was better than my current situation.


13. With my hat thus hung low, I now have only one difficult task remaining - getting the boat to Leonardo boat ramp. That means that I now need to circumnavigate the big pier just west of Leonardo (it usually shows an aircraft carrier on satellite). My rudder still won't stay down (more accurately, I still can't pull it down fast enough before I pick up speed), and thus it is time to use those expletives and upper body strength yet again. The next 40 minutes are comprised of me being contorted between the tiller and the nearest handhold, applying all the force I can to keep the boat from going directly into what I suspect to be a military installation. All my sails are loose and yet the boat continues to careen forward, veering wildly thanks to the floppy rudder


14. To add to my already adequately entertaining experience, I realize that I'm not actually sure exactly where the ramp is - but this time I pick the right direction and find it on my first attempt. Moreover, I even manage to dock on my first attempt, tying up the boat just in time for my wife to show up to pick me up


15. Now it's just a bunch of driving back and forth, or so I thought...


16. By the time I get back to Leonardo with the trailer it is completely dark. In fact, the sky is clear and I can see the stars, if only I had the time to stare at them. I position the trailer in the water and have my wife sit on the brake pedal, since my parking brake isn't the most reliable and I don't want to have to fish out the truck as well as the boat (not to mention the famous Leonardo boat ramp drop-off - we'd need a crane to get the car out of the water here). With the truck safely running, I get on my boat (which is now only equipped with the jib) and try to sail the 20 feet to the ramp, to what I thought would be the end of this adventure. I thought wrong, again


17. The boat decides that it does indeed want to sail, except not towards the ramp - the wind does something strange, unpredictable, and confusing - and I wind up slowly drifting past the ramp towards the parked boats, as my wife looks in the rear view mirror in puzzlement. The rudders seem to have no effect on the boat's direction


18. I try this and that, then I start using an oar, and each time I start to row, the wind picks up and blows me back, sideways, or into the barnacle-encrusted walls of the boat parking area. As all of this occurs in complete darkness, I continue to trip over my own lines and rigging and to periodically fall into the water (not that I didn't try to prevent myself from falling - I have bruises to show for it). A few spectators show up on the pier and start giving my wife a running commentary sprinkled with helpful suggestions (which, according to her, were entirely useless). After 1 hour and 15 minutes of this process, I make it close enough to the pier for the spectators to grab my line and pull the boat to the ramp. My famous upper body strength is now exhausted, and it is now 59 degrees out, rather than the pleasant 74 at mid-day


19. The rest of it is uneventful, and I make it home at 9 pm. I left at 9:30 AM

It's been two days, and my muscles are still quite sore. I feel that the sailing season is over for me this year. Maybe I'll take a class next year.

Here is the wind graph for this day (this is at Sandy Hook, it was probably somewhat stronger in the middle of the Bay):



According to this, if I had stayed out a bit longer I could have sailed back - the wind shifted from West to North.

One of the things that makes me reluctant to take my boat out is the time it takes to rig it. I am generally sailing alone, and am thus rigging it alone as well. Fully rigging it takes me nearly an hour. I've read a bit about what can be done to make the process quicker, and am now going through the options.

Some changes are obvious winners, and I upgraded some hardware to quick release.

To figure out what's worth doing, I needed to analyse the process to find bottlenecks. To do this, I left a camera running while I rigged my boat alone.

Here is the video:

The breakdown of the major parts is as follows:

1. Unpacking (removing tie downs, bungees, etc): 4:30
2. Moving Mast (reversing it): 1:00
3. Shrouds: 2:30
4. Stepping Mast: 1:10
5. Forestay: 1:10 (Quick Connect in my case)
6. Jib Sheet Bungee (really shouldn't take so long): 0:50
7. Boom (using Quick Pins): 0:30
8. Halyard prep (untying everything): 1:50
9. Rudders (carrying and installing): 3:00
10. Main Block stuff (untangling, slacking, hooking up boom): 1:40
11. Unpacking Sail: 0:30
12. Main Halyard and sail prep (not raised, just hooked up): 1:10
13. Jib Halyard and sail and sheets: 5:00

This leaves only raising the main sail (which is best done at the water on windy days) and of course getting off the trailer and parking the truck - perhaps another 10 minutes. So I've thus far dropped my 1 hour to less than 40 minutes.

Analysis

I was expecting the rudders to be the biggest single component, but at 3 minutes, it's probably not worth it to attempt to rig something to permit them to stay on the boat. Raising the Jib took longer because I had to find a substitute zipper runner (my zipper is torn, I lost the runner, and the new runner isn't running as smoothly... I removed 14 minutes of looking for a donor with a suitable zipper). Raising and tensioning the main is therefore probably the largest segment, but it couldn't be captured. Leaving the mainsheet blocks attached at both ends appears to be helpful. The whole boat on trailer backwards business would likely gain me at most 3:30 (Shrouds could stay attached, and mast positioning would be reduced), so probably not worth the trouble.

Some other changes I'm considering:

• Keeping the boat on trailer backwards. This permits you to leave the shrouds attached and simplifies the mast up/down process. I could even make rudder supports for the trailer and leave the rudders on. Getting the boat on backwards seems a bit clumsy though
• More quick-connects, eg tiller
• Using a screwdriver in place of the mast hinge pin. Easy in, easy out, stored on shore

Attaching the mast forestay shackles on my Prindle 16 takes me a long time. It is also one of the more troubling steps in rigging this boat - somehow the mast has to stay up while I fumble with the shackle and its pin, holding up the bridles and pulling on the forestay turnbuckle. It's not ideal, and it could be improved.

People generally advise against using any sort of quick-release hardware on the forestay, and with good reason. Should it quick-release on its own, you'll have a 26 foot mast coming down on your head, and at best you'll be stranded. Thus I went through West Marine's entire sailboat hardware list 100 items at a time, until I had a solution. Basically, I need something that's quick to attach, but is relatively strong and secure. I am trying to go from this:


To this:


Now, it's quick-release, and it's not as secure as the original shackle, but it is very unlikely to release under tension. As an added safety measure, I use a velcro tie over the pull-pin.

Here is how this setup was made:

This fine day I found myself back in Keyport, equipped with a brand new power righting setup should I find myself capsized again. The forecast called for relaxed 6mph winds, but it must have been a very fast 6mph - so much so that I had to take down my mainsail to keep the trailer from flipping over in the parking lot. The old man who seems to be a permanent resident of the pier helped me rig and launch, nearly without incident (my mainsheet got tangled on the trailer, and I almost sank the boat when pulling out). The strong wind forced me to launch on jib alone, and I then sailed to a beach where I could raise the main safely (In retrospect, tying off at the pier would have been just as good). Before long, I was sailing faster than ever.

My goal for the trip was to experience fast sailing alone, and to start pushing the catamaran a bit. The wind was strong enough to easily flip me, so the weather complied. After about an hour I gained enough confidence to intentionally fly a hull - a balancing act that's equal parts fun and scary. It didn't take long to get fairly comfortable to keep a hull a foot or two in the air (as a kid I used to ride a wheelchair on two wheels just for fun, and that tipping point experience is handy). The only problem was that my arms were getting abused - my main cam cleat stopped working and I had to hold the mainsail at all times.... this was also a good thing, since it made it much easier to react to wind gusts.

This day I came prepared, complete with sandwiches, but as it turns out, it is impossible to have lunch on a catamaran in high winds - you need your hands at all times. Fortunately, the Prindle 16 is a "beach cat", so I beached it. Even so I had to keep a watchful eye on it as the waves kept turning the boat against the wind.



After lunch, I resumed my journey and my heeling experiements, but this time I shifted my weight forward somewhat to level out the boat. Little did I know that in high winds this is not a great idea. As I approached ludicrous speed on the port hull, I pitchpoled unexpectedly... although I suppose that it's always unexpected. The port hull caught a wave, and suddenly the boat was going end-over, but since it was already angled, it also began to cartwheel - first bows down, then onto starboard hull, and then, to my amazement, onto the stern and back onto the port hull! This was nearly a complete revolution about the mast axis, and I still cannot quite tell how I stayed on the boat and what I was holding onto.

Here is a video that approximates what I experienced (it's the closest thing I found):

The very first time I got my Prindle on into the Raritan Bay I managed to hit 16.7 mph (14.5 knots). The water was warm and it was all fun and games... well, mostly - as long as you keep your head away from the boom. I met Bill who lives right by the boat ramp and he took me for a ride on his Hobie 16.

I learned that launching is best done with the bows away from shore, and that it's not so easy to come about without a steering oar.



The following week I found myself in the same location, but with significantly less wind. There was only a single gust of wind while I was out, and that one happened when the main was cleated and I wasn't paying attention... and me and my sister suddenly found ourselves being slowly dumped into the water. Capsizing wasn't the problem, as we soon discovered - it's getting it back up that's tricky. I brought a righting line complete with knots, and the boat didn't even turtle, yet our combined weight did not contribute significantly to changing the boat's orientation. The tip of the mast never lifted from its position about 20 inches under water.

Fortunately we were shortly rescued by a pair of wave-runner operators. The men had not planned for a high seas rescue, instead they came by to figure out what the odd shape sticking out of the water was all about. One of them simply grabbed the righting line and put his craft in gear - our boat came right up. Here we learned another important lesson: do not position yourself where the boat will land on you. In fact, it's probably best to hold on to the boat and go down with it.

I plan on adding a power righting pole since I'd like to sail alone.

After my gradual disappointment with inflatable sailing, I started to monitor craigslist for catamarans. Hobie 16's were at the top of the list but I eventually expanded my search to include Nacra 5.2 and Prindle 16. After some research I decided that a Prindle would actually be better as it is more novice friendly, and after some failed transactions (people who didn't have valid titles) I suddenly found myself parking a Prindle 16 on my driveway.



The boat sat unused for something close to 10 years, changing owners but never seeing much use. The trailer and hulls were sound (although dirty), but the wear items were trash - trampoline, lines, rigging were not in great shape. Before long my $600 investment turned in $2000.... some of the expense could probably have been avoided, but I wanted new parts on a boat I wasn't very familiar with.

Trampoline came from Slo Sail and Canvas (made to order), Lines and rigging from Salty Dog Marine, Sail repair from SailRite, and a bunch of little things from Murrays. On top of that, I wound up buying LED lights and new wheels for the trailer, regalvanizing the frame and rewiring the whole thing (it didn't even come with wiring).

I've now owned a sailboat for about 2 months. In this time I learned some sailing terms, some sailing maneuvers, and a lot of sailing frustration.

My first boat is a Kaboat 14 with a removable sailkit from SailBoatsToGo.com. It's the deluxe version, bigger sail, bigger leeboards. I have to be honest - this thing does sail. And it does pack into bags, which is the main reason I bought it - so I can tow my RV and bring a boat. It takes about 30 minutes to put together, which I find to be fairly reasonable.

The bad news boils down to these:

1. It only sails well downwind. It can't really point - I'm not sure if that's because it's a raft, or because the sail doesn't let it, or because I lack the skills to make it do so. But the end result is a 170 degree no-sail zone. In other words, if you go downwind, you can't really come back - instead, you tack, then you tack, and each time you lose all the ground you gained.


2. Even downwind, it can only go so fast - 6mph is about as fast as it can even go in very strong winds, and 2-3mph is all I can expect in typical winds where I sail. This one is definitely all about the boat - with a 4HP outboard, the boat can go about 8mph with 2 people (10mph with one), all while bouncing around like crazy. The amount of wake it produces even during low speed sailing is phenomenal


3. This setup lacks blocks and cleats - so you have to hold the mainsheet at all times. My arm gets tired.


4. This setup lacks a true rudder - you steer with an oar, to which you must apply a good deal of force. My other arm gets tired

In short, it's not ideal. The last time I was out on Lake Hopatcong I was making my slow and wakeful way back to port, surrounded by heeling HobieCat's. The catamarans were flying around me in circles, seemingly unaware that the winds were mild and suboptimal. It took about 2 weeks for me to start considering an upgrade seriously... and the search for the perfect catamaran began.

I planned this well in advance, at least 2 months. The park seemed perfect for what I had in mind: quiet, not popular with kids, waterfront, water. Besides, I figured that it would be a welcome reprieve from the hot summer weather in new jersey. The waterfront campsites have no hookups at all, so I got ready to "rough it" by buying a cheap Harbor Freight generator to supplement my solar array on cloudy days. Even with this much of an advance notice my site options were limited at best. Of course I wanted waterfront... But I managed to reserve site number 47 which looked good on paper and on google maps satellite.

Things have not quite worked out as I expected. Sites 30-50 are classified as prime waterfront, while other sites are either just prime, or I suppose, subprime. Our site turned out to indeed be waterfront, but I'm not sure if I would qualify it as prime. While it fit the 20 foot trailer (barely), and it is right by the water, you don't actually see this water unless you can get around the hedges that line most of the water edge. I guess this is really a subprime waterfront site.

Frankly, many of the other prime waterfront sites are not much better, and most offer the same limited view. There are a few perfect looking sites here, specifically 42 through 30. If I were to come back here, that is where I'd stay - except that most of these have significant tree cover and would render my solar panels useless. Even in our site we only got sun until about 3pm - and the nearby sites are worse. None of the waterfront sites have electric hookups, so any RVs that stay there run generators (except ours).

The good news is that you really are about 20 feet from the water and it is possible to launch small watercraft directly from the site, which is exactly what I would have been doing upon arrival if it were not raining and cold! I certainly did not expect mid 60's for the high in late June. Launching is somewhat challenging because of the rocks, so foot protection is highly recommended.

Fortunately, the next day was slightly warmer and was occasionally rain-free, so I seized the opportunity to take out the sail boat - something I continued to do every day until we left. The weather gradually got warmer and warmer, and it didn't rain again.

My first brilliant solution to the boat numbering problem was of course using the self-stick numbers from Home Depot. These did stick to the inflatable PVC hull, but inspired no confidence as the corners peeled off immediately.



After some research, I figured that I need to paint the numbers on. I ordered stencils, made a template with stencils, tape and old newspapers, and sprayed white Krylon Fusion onto the boat. This is a surprisingly time-consuming process - making the template to look straight in the first place can take a while, then masking and taping, and more masking.... and in the end, you still wind up with overspray everywhere because the letters weren't absolutely flush with the boat. Now you need to use acetone to clean up the cloudy edges, which also takes forever and goes through paper towels very quickly.

The real surprise comes in a few days - when you realize that the paint isn't drying. It's still sticky - scotch tape sticky. So I called Krylon, and they confirmed that the paint will only work on rigid PVC. Thanks, Krylon, all of my spray paint works on rigid PVC.

At this point there is nothing else left to try but that which you should have spent your money on in the first place - boatnumberplate.com .... live and learn.

The logic for taking this course flows somewhat like this:

Boat over 12' long? Then register it and take the course. Plan to put a motor on it? Then register it and take the course.

I found a locally taught $75 course from Boat Safe US, and it turned out not to be a complete waste of time (other than saving me $500 in fines should I ever get checked). While I already knew or inferred a great deal of the material, the unambiguous driving rules and various other bits of info were helpful. Our instructor was coaching us for the entire 8 hours to pass the test - he basically gave away all the exam questions, so it was hardly a surprise that most people got a perfect score.

Now I can legally drive just about anything that isn't commercially registered - a 60' yacht if I wanted to. But that isn't what I'm driving. I'm driving an inflatable raft. Fortunately, that's also legal.

After our Sinking in the Navesink adventure which is covered in an earlier entry, me and my passenger reached a spontaneous and hesitation-free decision. Something about rowing a sagging craft a midst a cloud of gnats makes one wish for a backup plan, and this plan involves powered propulsion, and by powered I don't mean human-powered. It took some pondering to decide whether I wanted electricity or gasoline as my main power source, but ultimately gas won due to the particular appeal of exhaust fumes, noise, and the inability to use it in restricted waters. Or was it the range? I suppose it must have been the range. Doubling your range with electric means another 50lb+ battery which costs another $170+, and will probably last a few years before it wears out. Doubling the range with gas means a couple of pounds of gasoline in a little red plastic container.

When I research my options I try to break them down into categories, and thus I searched far, then wide, then both, until I narrowed my choices to the following three:

1. New Name Brand
2. Used Name Brand
3. New Chinese Wonder (no name)

My wife took care of blacklisting the no-name category altogether, based on some interesting past experiences. I don't have a problem with off-brands, but try as I might I couldn't find a source of replacement parts for any brands I considered, so to her surprise I came to agree with her opinion. Most forum discussions seem to agree here as well (often for unscientific reasons like "Buy American"), and while I often get a bit concerned when too many people agree with me, I felt that the decision was justified regardless of motives.

The choice between the remaining categories was simple. I felt that spending $1400 on a new motor was a bit excessive, seeing as how the whole boat thus far has cost about that much. As for used, June is not the ideal time for shopping - supply is running out, demand is high, and unsurprisingly the prices go up. Fortunately outboards hold their value remarkably well and thus I can probably get my money back. After some craigslist hunting I found the perfect motor: A Mariner 4M 2 stroke. The boat can take a 10 hp 2 stroke but I don't want to carry anywhere near that much weight. The little Mariners seem to be very well liked, and after a bit of failed negotiating I had it for a spring-time price of $375. It ran great but showed signs of poor cooling flow, and so of course I wound up pulling it apart.

Seeing as how my understanding of our legal system boils down to "Claiming that I didn't know won't get me off the hook", I decided to read up on boating regulations "just in case". My boating equipment consists of an inflatable raft and a clip-on sail kit, but something told me that putting one red pool float into the water may not be entirely without cost. As it turned out, I was right. The New Jersey Boating Safety Manual attempts to decipher the complex set of laws surrounding boat approval using a full-page dummy-compatible flowchart. According to this diagram I must register and title my boat for two reasons: It is over 12 feet long, and I plan to put a motor on it. (It also tells me that I must enroll in an 8 hour safety course, which I hope to take next weekend).



Regardless of how funny I may find the idea of going to the DMV to register a pool toy, I'd rather keep my dreams free of the haunting face of the Angry and Disapproving Boat Police man. I've never actually met a Boat Police man, but something tells me that his gaze will be both Angry and Disapproving, while the stares of the passing vessel operators are likely to be Curious and Condescending, as they on-look from the regal safety of their properly registered non-pool-floats. Thus I gathered my documents and my pride, and went out to the place they call the Department of Moro... (I try to forget how that acronym goes).

The clouds were rolling in steadily, and their distorted reflections now danced inquisitively in the dark stillness of the water. I continued to row, moving my eyes periodically from the luffing sail above my head to the shriveled and distorted shape of the boat hull, as it gave way to the force I applied to the oarlocks and then returned to its proper form, as if I were pumping some huge red bellows for some distant furnace. My destination, formerly my point of origin, continued to loom in the distance behind me, reminding me each time I turned my head of just how fast 2 miles per hour really is. Looking aft I would encounter the compassionate stare of my wife, helpless in her desire to assist me in some way, but finding no help from either the entirely absent wind or the partially broken rear oar locks.

I was grateful, for the moment, for the sudden disappearance of trumpeting power boats passing us on either side. Each pass of these vessels added insult to helplessness in the form of a limp sail flapping back and forth as we bobbed in their powerful wake. Now even these sources of noise and unrest were gone and all that disturbed our slow progress back to shore were the gnats, silently landing on us in small but appreciable quantities. Every few oar strokes I would break my rhythm to inform the gnats of how I truly feel about them.

But all of this happened 4 hours later.... here is how it began:

The wind forecast claimed that the wind would pick up in the afternoon so we went out late (2pm). My plan was to sail from a water access area in South Amboy, so we drove to this spot. It turned out to be not quite as pictured - either it was low tide or something else, but there was no way to get from the boat ramp to the water. So we moved one block over to the East, at the end of Raritan Reach Rd. There is a small parking lot with a 200' walk to the beach. We lugged the already-assembled boat to the ocean, and I should have aborted the trip right there - the waves were large for our boat (2' at times), and the wind quite strong, blowing straight towards shore. I tried to rig the sail so that it was up until I rowed out and would drop later - but our attempts resulted in a completely different outcome: