ZoomKitty to be renamed

It just doesn't float.

Last night my brother & I took the cat out for a sail on Lake Pocotopaug. Absolutely beautiful conditions for cat sailing. Perfectly flat, overcast, and ~10 knots 2 in the gusts & lulls. We get the boat rigged, off the trailer, sails up, and off the beach. I get the rudders down while going slow, and turn to sheet on, when we feel a small tap. We were halfway between the boat ramp and an island and had left 1 minute or less ago, but I figure we hit a rock. My brother pulled up the dagger, because I hadn't felt anything on the tiller, and said "Oh, that was just a little tap" and we continue on. We get going, but it just feels like I am having trouble with my main trim, my brother tries to wild thing, but I don't like to do that in gusty conditions anymore. We are approaching an island, so we tacked, and took off towards the shore, but my brother wasn't on the trap anymore.

We tacked back to a puff, and I told my brother to move his weight back to help the tack, this caused a massive wheelie, and I thought we were going to pull a back flip. Immediately I knew we were sinking, and half a second later I had ruled out the drain plugs or anything else other than the dagger board trunk to have happened that fast. There was no way to tack with the hull completely full, so I bore off and gybed for shore. In the process of bearing off, the whole hull was under water, and I thought we were going to have to swim for safety. Once we gybed and the new hull was to weather, we pulled the boards up to just fill the case, and unhooked the rudders. While doing so, the sinking hull's tiller was more than a foot under the surface of the water, but we had to get the rudder up to get onto shore. Once ready to beach, my brother got out on the leeward trap to keep as much weight off the sinking hull as possible.

Once very close to shore, I'm looking at the steep embankment, and thinking this is going to suck dragging the boat up and onto the trailer with only two of us after having to run back and pick up the car. So after considering our options and the lighter winds near shore, I gybe back out to clear the marina docks, go almost DDW and have my brother paddle with the daggerboard from the good hull. We did tap another rock going back into the beach with the rudders halfway up. We made it to the beach, and took the sails down. By the time we got the sails down the hull was completely resting on the bottom. We pulled it onto the beach with a whole bunch of grunting and swearing, and heard air trying to get in through the inspection port. I opened the port, and the water level in the hull was at least 6" higher than that in the dagger trunk, meaning the floatation foam was the only bouyancy we had whatsoever. I ran to get the tools to open the drain plug underwater to facilitate drainage, but the hull was mostly dry by the time I got back, and the beach was washed out behind the dagger board. A large section of the bottom of the board was delam-ed and split open, and there was a 3" x 1" hole in the bottom of the hull with a crack halfway up the back of the trunk.

The one thing I am very happy about is it wasn't the hull I had been working on for the last year, but the one I planned to work on this winter. I just regret that we lost a nice day of sailing, I can't use it this weekend, and I now need new boards.

Interesting experience, and I hope I didn't bore everybody, but I thought it would be something worth sharing. Kind of funny, since nothing more serious than a bit of fiberglass work is the outcome. Also taught my brother a lesson on why I always insist everybody wear a PFD while on board.

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ZoomKitty to be renamed "Screen Door on a Submarine"

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