MarkSumner
Old Phantom, Older Sailor
I happen to live on a little 60-acre lake that doesn't allow gas motors. After picking up a canoe, kayak, and paddleboat and working them all to death (I may be the only person who has put more than 500 miles on a paddleboat), I couldn't resist a spiffy 1980 Phatom that I spotted nearby.
Despite the age, the single owners had kept the boat in terrific shape. Stored indoors, out of the sun, without so much as faint cracks in the glass. Everything from the sails to the lines looks crisp, clean and strong.
So now it's siting on the shore of my little lake, and I'm pondering what to do next. There are no sailing clubs nearby, and not another sailboat on the lake. I've been rigging, unrigging, rigging the boat over and over, trying to familiarize myself with how it feels and sitting in the boat on shore to fiddle with how the sail moves in a moderate breeze.
When it comes to rigging, I do have an issue. I've been watching dozens of videos on rigging Sunfish and similar boats. Truthfully, no two are the same because you can't get one minute into one of the videos without coming across some pulley, lead, snap link, or cleat that the person making the video has seen fit to add to their boat. That doesn't help when you're just trying to make sure you're attaching line A to Traveler B correctly.
In any case, I've got the process of putting on the mast, raising the sail, and tying off the halyard cleared up enough that it looks consistent with what I've seen. But there's a big difference as soon as I come to the mainsheet. I can tie off the stern end to the traveler well enough (there's a ring there to hitch to), but at the bow end of the footwell the Phantom has no block -- a part that appears in every Sunfish video I've seen. I'm making the assumption that, in lieu of the block, I just handle the mainsheet directly as it comes from the boom. It seems to work... on shore.
As soon as I can get an evening or morning that's close to dead calm, I intend to de-mast the boat, put it in the water, and practice just paddling it around the bay a bit, getting a feel for sitting on the footwell, and testing the stability as much as it can be tested without the sail. Then I'll summon the gumption to put the mast on the thing and give it a go.
Fortunately, the north end of the lake is all relatively shallow. And the water's warm.
Oh, and while I may be a rookie, at 57 I'm no spring chicken. So ... how doomed am I?
Despite the age, the single owners had kept the boat in terrific shape. Stored indoors, out of the sun, without so much as faint cracks in the glass. Everything from the sails to the lines looks crisp, clean and strong.
So now it's siting on the shore of my little lake, and I'm pondering what to do next. There are no sailing clubs nearby, and not another sailboat on the lake. I've been rigging, unrigging, rigging the boat over and over, trying to familiarize myself with how it feels and sitting in the boat on shore to fiddle with how the sail moves in a moderate breeze.
When it comes to rigging, I do have an issue. I've been watching dozens of videos on rigging Sunfish and similar boats. Truthfully, no two are the same because you can't get one minute into one of the videos without coming across some pulley, lead, snap link, or cleat that the person making the video has seen fit to add to their boat. That doesn't help when you're just trying to make sure you're attaching line A to Traveler B correctly.
In any case, I've got the process of putting on the mast, raising the sail, and tying off the halyard cleared up enough that it looks consistent with what I've seen. But there's a big difference as soon as I come to the mainsheet. I can tie off the stern end to the traveler well enough (there's a ring there to hitch to), but at the bow end of the footwell the Phantom has no block -- a part that appears in every Sunfish video I've seen. I'm making the assumption that, in lieu of the block, I just handle the mainsheet directly as it comes from the boom. It seems to work... on shore.
As soon as I can get an evening or morning that's close to dead calm, I intend to de-mast the boat, put it in the water, and practice just paddling it around the bay a bit, getting a feel for sitting on the footwell, and testing the stability as much as it can be tested without the sail. Then I'll summon the gumption to put the mast on the thing and give it a go.
Fortunately, the north end of the lake is all relatively shallow. And the water's warm.
Oh, and while I may be a rookie, at 57 I'm no spring chicken. So ... how doomed am I?