Is that there aren't enough of them!

Well...Tuesday and I'm finally home and glad to be here.
Thursday Suzanne and I sailed a Hunter 43 with friends again and
Friday my friend who owns Bristol 27 broke her ankle water skiing. Her
boat belongs at Port Jeff, so I agreed to sail it back and leave it at
the mooring. The boat is old and tired, but I still had a good time
sailing it in somewhat flukey air on Saturday. Even when the wind died
at times I just waited. The single cylinder diesel is just too noisy
to use.
Suzanne and Thomas were scheduled to pick me up but then the owner of
the boat called and said her boyfriend was going to bring his "new"
Schock 35 to Whitestone from Port Jeff and was alone. Zikes! I was on
board for that idea. I told Suzanne I'd call her for a ride back on
that end.
So here's where the trouble starts. The 35 was fitted with a wheel!!!!
It had been added by some pinhead and it was showing a lot of play. We
examined the steering system and it was just a mess. I made a
judgement call and felt we could sail her as-is. Once we were out in
the sound we could indeed sail, but the rudder was not steady and
pointing was tough at times. We got the hang of things by using the
sails to steer and balance the rudder perfectly (mostly!). It was a
fun sail nonetheless and that's a pretty fast boat, quite a bit like
the smaller 30/30 that I've been sailing. Her owner plans to redo the
whole boat, which I know he'll pull off since he redid a J30 a few
years back. He's got some work to do. The PO tried to make a cruising
boat out of the 35, adding the wheel, interior stuff and so
on....it'll have to go.
We sailed into Whitestone near 6 pm and we'd timed it so Suzanne was
just driving up. We took Thomas back to City Island for dinner aboard
our friend's Catalina 30, but we didn't sail again until the next
morning.
Sunday we went out on the Catalina for a few hours, but the weather
looked nasty and it was steamy for little Thomas, so we headed in.
More sailing...and some racing for Suzanne on Wednesday. Our new
folding prop is on the boat and we'll be sailing Heart of Gold in a
few days...probably on Thursday.
Great weekend!


RB
35s5
NY