Our planned activity for this morning focused around launching the dinghy from the main boat for the first time together. Clark launched it once before, back in January, under the supervision and guidance of the boat broker. This was our first time launching on our own!
Clark removed the dinghy cover just after 9:00. I told him I needed 30 minutes before I could go for a dinghy ride because I had just put my laundry in the dryer, and I could not leave it. By 10:00 we had ourselves almost ready to start the dinghy trip when Clark's phone rang. It turned out to be an important, and unfortunately long, phone call. Forty-five minutes later, we tried again to start the dinghy launch process.
The dinghy that came with Sunset Delight sits on the top deck and must be lowered over the side into the water using a crane. In comparison, we launched the dinghy on Sea Moss by pushing her into the water off the swim platform. The crane is automated and comes with a remote control for up / down, right / left movement. Lift wires are connected, one at the bow and two at the stern of the dinghy, to the crane.
Clark spent an inordinately long time playing with the remote control to position the arm over the center of the dinghy before attempting to lift her. Our port-side neighbor, Robert, watched in fascination as Clark moved the crane a centimeter this way and then that. Finally, he could not stay quiet any longer and reminded Clark that he had better disconnect the wires connecting the boat to the deck, or when he did lift the dinghy, the deck might come along for the ride. Whoops!! As Clark went to unhook the deck connectors, he said, "We need to write up a checklist procedure for launching the dinghy!"
Clark undid the four deck connectors - two in the bow and two in the stern. To unhook the bow, however, he had to get tools and bang hard on the connector to get it to release from the boat. We had to wonder how the hook even got connected as it was way too hard to get off! Once released, Clark went back to precision positioning of the crane.
Finally, he decided it was ready for lift off and maneuvered the boat up and over the side. I ran down and stood on the lower deck to help guide the boat into the water. When it hit the water, I reached over and disconnected the lift wires from the hook.
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| Dinghy with lift wires disconnected from the crane |
I grabbed the lift wires to give some upward pull -- pretty much an exercise in futility given the weight of the 40-hp motor. As I held on, I looked for the plug but could not see it. Also, with the positioning of the big boat and the dinghy, I could not reach the plug hole even if I found the plug.
I told Clark I could do nothing, and he came flying down from the flybridge. Then, when I realized he could not reach the boat either without jumping in and adding more weight, I told him to go back up and lower the hook, so we could reconnect the crane to pull it back up. Somehow he flew back up to the flybridge (not an easy maneuver) and started lowering the hook! Once the hook came down low enough, I grabbed it and reconnected it to the dinghy, and Clark pulled it back up. Yay!!
Clark decided that since the boat had taken on salt water, he wanted to rinse it out with fresh water before putting the plug in. I went and got the hose, and he ran water into the compartment that had taken on salt water. As he looked to see how much water had come into the boat, water suddenly gushed out. That is when he discovered that the gushing water we had seen was coming from the bilge pump doing its job. Phew! We had not taken on anywhere near as much water as he dreaded had been the case.
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| Crane to lower and raise dinghy |
Meanwhile, our port-side neighbor, Robert, continued to watch our activities with extreme interest. After all, we were today's entertainment. (In boating, sometimes you watch the show, and sometimes you are the show. Today we put on a prime performance for our neighbors.) Again, he could not contain himself and offered up that we needed to insert the plug. He did not realize that we were letting the fresh water drain out before putting in the plug. He must have been getting pretty nervous on our behalf!
Finally, Clark put the plug in and gently lowered the boat back into the water. We both breathed a sigh of relief when no water flowed into the boat. Okay, so now we could finally load up the boat with our personal items, like water bottles, life jackets, and ourselves. Oh, but no, we had taken so long to get the boat into the water that it was now well after noon. Since I had no clue what our dinghy ride would entail, I said I was not going anywhere without lunch first, so we took a break from the dinghy launch to eat.
Stomachs full, we grabbed our stuff and climbed into the dinghy. I held the lines ready to cast off as Clark turned the key in the ignition. Nothing! Hmmmmm! Now what?! Our port-side neighbor coached Clark through the starting procedure with the choke, etc. since Clark has never had a dinghy with a steering wheel and key ignition. Multiple times Clark tried to start with multiple nothings as the results.
Given our track record of poorly maintained items on the boat, Clark immediately thought, "I better check the spark plugs". We could smell gas, but the engine did not even try to turn over. Not good!
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| Clark took the cover off the outboard to start investigating the no ignition situation |
Clark asked me to look up the size wrench needed to remove the spark plugs on a Yamaha. At that point, I decided that our dinghy ride would probably not happen today.
Fortunately, while I did my research, our starboard-side neighbor, Jim, came walking by on the dock. Clark explained to him that the outboard would not start. Jim saved the day by pointing out to Clark that he did not have the "dead man switch" clipped in place. This switch is connected to the boat engine and the pilot so that if s/he falls overboard, the clip pulls out and the engine shuts down, so the boat does not take off without the driver. Clark is very familiar with these clips as we have one on our Sea Moss dinghy motor, but he did not know that this motor configuration had one as well. Maybe another item for that checklist?
With the clock now showing somewhere near 2:00, Clark announced that we were ready to go. Once again I climbed into the boat and grabbed the bow line ready to shove off. Surprise! The boat started and we wiggled our way out from between the big boats and the pilings to start our little voyage.
The dinghy is configured to seat four people in real seats - a two-person bench seat in the stern and two single-person seats in the bow. Clark suggested I sit beside him on the bench seat for our trip. That seemed fine until he started to gain speed upon exiting the marina. The faster he went the further the bow raised in the air and the lower the stern sunk into the water. I did not feel comfortable with traveling along with the dinghy at a 45-degree angle to the water line.
With the two of us and a 40-hp outboard, we clearly had too much weight in the stern. Clark said we should "trim" the boat. I had no idea what exactly he could do to trim it. Do we have trim tabs on the dinghy? I decided I could "trim" the boat in a hurry if I moved my weight forward, so I abandoned the bench seat for the forward-facing bow seat. With our weight more evenly distributed, the boat settled down into a more normal position for cruising. Instantly I felt a lot more comfortable.
On our outing, we visited three nearby marinas for a look at their docking facilities - Marathon Yacht Club, Banana Bay, and Blackfin Marina. I grabbed my camera and took some photos of the area.
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| Entrance to Banana Bay Marina |
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| Entrance to Blackfin Marina |
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| Ranger Tugs at Blackfin Kismet - Gold Looper Vickie Lynn - Looper in Progress |
The Ranger Tugs at Blackfin were adorable little boats. These boats are trailer-able. We met an owner who has theirs configured to allow them to stay in RV parks when on the road and marinas when in the water -- a really great idea for versatility of travel. The folks I met had slowly downgraded in boat size from a 60-footer to a 45-footer to a 27-foot Ranger Tug. Talk about compact!
When entering and leaving Blackfin Marina, we noticed a line of bubbles across their entrance. This must deter some sea creature from entering the marina waters. We wondered what it could be.
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| White line of bubbles across the entrance to Blackfin Marina |
Knowing we still had to deal with putting the dinghy away and that we had a marina event planned for docktails at 5:00, we called it a day and headed back towards the Faro Blanco lighthouse.
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| Entrance to Faro Blanco Marina |
Wonder of wonders, we made it back to Sunset Delight with no mishaps or breakdowns.
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| Sunset Delight docked at Faro Blanco (flag-blue hull) |
Before putting the dinghy back up top, Clark decided we should rinse off the salt water and clean up the deck.
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| Clark preparing to put the dinghy back on board. Note the dinghy is suspended in air waiting to be loaded on board. |
The lift, swing, set-in-place procedures went well and reasonably quickly. Clark did fight with the positioning of the dinghy a while to make sure it was far enough to starboard to reconnect the deck connectors, but otherwise, it went smoothly.
Too good to be true? Yes indeed. When it came time to retract the crane, it refused to budge. He fought with it for a while and then decided to go find our port-side neighbor, Robert, to get his input on how it functioned. Robert and Clark fought with the crane arm for an hour before they finally called it quits. Robert left our boat at 4:30 as I cooked food for our docktails buffet.
Supposedly, with practice, we should be able to get the launch and reload procedures down to about fifteen minutes each. Given our first experience with the dinghy turned into an all-day event, it looks like we will need a whole lot of practice to approach that goal.
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