Dear Montgomery sailors, I would first like to introduce you to the (new to me) M-17, Hobbit, hull number 349, 1982 model. She arrived yesterday here in Madison, WI after a long trip from Colorado. Some points on her history: she was not in the water since 2002, and probably not more than 6-7 times since 1999. I suspect she was never for extended periods in the water, since there is no bottom paint. She came with a working jib, 150% genoa, wood toerails, knotmeter and depth sounder. The centerboard moves freely, and there are few minor dings.
I was quite impatient to try her out, and went to the lake today. It turned out to be quite an adventure, not the sailing itself, where Hobbit was very well behaved, but the rigging and derigging, which were quite a challenge. So now I have a lot of questions, which I hope some of you can help answer. Many of these questions are showing clear general sailing ignorance, so if you just feel like ignoring them, and/ or pointing me to a book, that's fine. a) Most people have mentioned raising the mast as a difficulty, but before that I could not figure out how to put the long screw into the foot of the mast without two people. The problem was that with the mast in the rear cradle, even pulled back to the right position, the cabin hatch was in the way and I was not able to lower the foot of the mast low enough to get the screw into both the mast and its support. With two people, I had to raise the mast to an angle before someone else fitted the screw. How do people who singlehandedly rig solve this? On my Compac 16, the mast base had a cut in the shape of an L, and the mast had two pins sticking out of it, which slid into the "L". Has anybody tried to replace the mast base with a similar arrangement, which does not require you to go to the base before raising the mast, or is it a fairly insecure attachement what I just described? b) The halyards on Hobbit are different from everything I've ever seen before. Namely, half of the halyard - the one attached to the actual sails -- is made of steel cable, of length about equal to that of the mast. The other half, the one coming down along the mast from the top, is usual rope. Is this common? I haven't been very happy with this arrangement today, so unless there is a good reason for this, I would have liked to switch to an all-rope halyard. c) How do people use the halyard cleats on the mast? For some reason these cleats, instead of having two equal length "horns", have one long and one short. That makes it hard to do the standard locking knot I used to do on other boats. d) After de-rigging, what do you do with the many steel stays (forestay, backstay, sidestays, spreaders), halyards, and other stuff that comes along the mast? I spent today the better part of an hour just tying all these with sail ties, but this is very time consuming. If I am to rig and derig in 1/2 hour (today, by the way, rigging took 3 hours!), I need a better solution to this. On my Compac 16 I just left all the stays in the cockpit for short trips, and things were fine. e) The rudder shows signs that it might begin to crack, or at least just the varnish on it. Have people done something about this? f) How are the genoa sheets run? I had them going through the blocks furthest aft, then around the winches, and into the clam cleats. This worked alright, but each tack was quite some work. On the Compac 16, I had the jib sheets going to cam cleats, which were much easier to tack single-handedly -- release one, pull on the other. g) Some longer term maintenance projects: I will need to redo all the outside wood trim, which is peeling badly. Is it teak? Should I just use a teak cleaner to remove the old varnish, and then teak oil? What do people use for cleaning and waxing the hull? h) There was a discussion a while back about the balsa core rotting. I haven't detected any soft spots in the deck, and since it was in dry climate and out of the water, I suspect it is intact. How urgent is it to rebed all the deck fittings, if the boat will be kept out of the water when not sailing? Should I do it now, or as a winter project, or wait to see perhaps there is no problem ever? i) There is a small crack in the gelcoat around the rear centerboard screw (from drawings I remember seing, the one which acts as a stop for the cb at its lowest position). Should I worry, or is this normal? j) Is there a wiring diagram for the boat available anywhere? I found a whole bunch of cut wires in the cabin, and the electrical connection at the bottom of the mast is cut off, so I'll need to do a lot of detective work if I am ever to make the electrics work. That's it for now. I am sure that after sailing a couple more times I'll have many more questions, but any help with these is appreciated. Thanks, Andrei. _______________________________________________ http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/montgomery_boats
