Good points Bones, A friend of mine had neglected his Catalina 30 for over a year and asked me to take her out and use her "as if she was my own". You know to me that implies what is said, it took me a week to clean the mildew and grime of a year sitting in the sun at the marina. I was so amazed at the size of everything. After cleaning her up I tried to start the inboard atomic 4 gas engine, but found she had gotten water in the cylinders and was frozen solid. I removed and overhauled the engine, this project took me over a year to complete. During this time I parked my M-17 and covered her after washing and waxing her hull. I could not work on 2 boats at once, so.. at the beginning of summer I started taking the cat30 out for short sails and tweaked the motor, learned where all the lines led and how to work stuff, the best thing happened last week when I sailed to the marina and was checking out the other boats and after the engine failed to start (I missed my trusty yamaha4 outboard) I had to beat out the channel, I got all these stares from the boat owners thinking "he's not going to beat out, is he?" not a lot of room here especially with a 30footer. Well I learned to sail on a smaller boat, the essence of sailing is in the these little wonderful boats my M-17 is a dingy that thinks its cruiser, I didn't know better when I beat out of that same channel I had traveled in my monty so many times before, I didn't see much difference except I got a lot closer to edges than before. I am enjoying the heavy displacement sailing of a larger boat and I drool over a Bristol channel cutter or a Pacific Seacraft Orion which although I have never sailed in one, are my idea of the perfect cruiser. I still have my Monty parked and protected and yes I will be putting her in the water before this season is over because I have to show off her newly painted mast at least a couple of times, and I just put some more money on getting my trailer lights working.
1976 M-17 "Sagitta" A small, faint constellation, located in the Milky Way between Aquila and Vulpecula. Arrow-shaped _______________________________________________ http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/montgomery_boats
