Udara Tanda 'Took A Splash' Today

Well, we finally got Udara Tanda completed enough for her inaugural launch and took advantage of a favorable wind and lots of sun in the Tampa Bay area.


The morning started off at 7:00, and things worked out pretty well. We made it to the ramp by about 7:30 and spent a good 45 minutes rigging her up. Before we were able to step the mast, a City of Tampa police officer drove up and commented on our rig, because he had a Com-Pac once upon a time and the fact that we were pulling a sailboat with a Dodge Magnum had caught his eye. After exchanging pleasantries, he drove off and we continued work on stepping the mast (standing it up).

We clipped the jib halyard onto the forestay chainplate then wrapped the halyard 5 feet from the bitter end around the winch that's mounted to the mast to create a poor-man's lift to help stand the mast up. This made the job fast and much easier.

The rigging wasn't too bad and we were soon ready to start backing down the ramp.

I had to loosen the bow line to guide the boat down to the side of the dock after it is floated off of the trailer. In this shot, you can see the 10-foot tongue extension connected between the car and the boat trailer.

Ok, back it up! Slowly, slowly...

Everything worked as well as could be as expected and soon, we were motoring down the waterway. At first thought, I was going to go under the Gandy bridge and try my hand at sailing between the Gandy and the Howard Frankland bridges, but the water was too choppy and the wind was gusty and very unstable for a newbee like me, once we got out to the north side of the bridge. I spun the boat around real quick and went back under the Gandy to work on setting the sails on the lee side of the bridge. When we dropped anchor, Katrina received a rope burn while paying out the anchor rode (rope), because she suddenly tried to hold the boat in place while I still had it in reverse to back away from where she dropped the anchor in order to increase the distance between the boat and the anchor. After a quick clean up and some band-aid work from our new first aid kit, we finally got our act together and hoisted both sails, then headed south to see if we could make it to the Saint Pete Pier, home of next week's Strictly Sail boat show.

When Launn handed me a bottle of green tea to drink, I couldn't hold the tiller and open the bottle with both hands, so I threw a leg over the tiller to open the bottle. Turns out, the boat was fairly well trimmed and I was able to stay like this for about 20-30 minutes.

Here is Katrina, practicing to be 'boat candy', by laying out on the roof of the cabin.

As Katrina was checking to see if she was properly positioned in the sun, Jaime decided to doze off on one of the bunks in the cabin. Later on when things started to warm up a bit, both girls laid out on the boat, Jaime on the foredeck under the jib sail and Katrina on the cabin roof just below the boom vang.

To shorten this story somewhat, the sailing was fine, the wind was about 10 knots gusting to 15, and I decided to give her full sail without reefing to see how she handled. Considering my last sailing experience was at the age of 18 on a sixteen-foot Hobie Cat, I did have to shake out the rust and remember how to adjust the sails for best performance. I do have to admit, I need to work on tacking, as I blew 2 of them as I was coming about and ended up in irons (stalled), wishing I would be blown one way or the other to catch the wind. Need to work on that...

When the winds became a bit calmer, Luann decided to try her hand at working the tiller, while I kept busy trimming the sails to help her with her efforts.

We didn't really make our objective of Saint Pete Pier, but we did get within about a mile when I realized we needed to head back because we would need to work a bit harder to make headway. This is when I experienced a close reach point of sail where we were about 45 degrees or so off of the wind and did pretty good. About half way back, the wind died down to nothing, and lacking a spinnaker, genoa (light wind sails) and enough experience, we doused the sails, fired up the outboard and headed back in. On the return trip, the boat handled very well, even when taking on a monster wake (6-7 foot tall) from a twin turbo diesel behemoth that didn't even think about slowing down as he passed us. What was most surprising, is that it took another one and one-half hour to make it back to our launch point. I might be wrong, but it seems to me like we made much better time under sail than we did under power (faster under sail than with the motor).

Here she is, fresh off the water, ready to have the mast un-stepped and everything tied down.

Here's a second view as we began the de-rigging procedure.

So, after 6 hours of time in the salt, sandwiches built in the wife's lap while under way, 5 porpoises spotted on the way, a plan to sail no more than 2 hours (right!) and a healthy dose of sunburn for all, the shakedown cruise can be considered something of a big success.

When we got home, the boat was washed down thoroughly and cleaned out. In this picture, you can see the throttle/shift control and the fuel tank cover I made up.

Here is a close-up of the throttle, shift and steering linkages I made up to control the motor remotely while seated in the cockpit.

And here she is, back home, safe and sound.