Dolphins+ 3rd new vid! Catalina 27 conversion

Voltron

1 MW
Joined
May 2, 2013
Messages
2,803
Location
Santa Barbara CA
Step 1- Find a random boat with a dead gas inboard on Craigslist in a city you've never been to (San Francisco), buy it sight unseen, then get a one way ride with a buddy who happens to be going there with as a much tools and gear as you can cram in his van, hoping there will actually be a boat waiting when you get there, not just a hole in the water, then find said boat at random SF marina.
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Step 2- Spend a couple of days checking systems and provisioning, then solo sail it out of the Bay, take a left, and go south for 5 days at sea until you get home. (Santa Barbara).
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Final morning...
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Step 3- start taking out the gas tank and engine.
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Updates to follow...
 
Wow ! Thats pretty ballsie to hop into a strange, unknown sailboat with a dead engine, and head srtaight out of the Bay to open water for several days.!...
RESPECT :bigthumb:
Did you have any Aux motor (outboard ?) at all ?
Did you have any crew ?
I understand the Bay entrance can be a pretty hairy piece of water , even for experienced power boats..but a small sailboat is another step out into the twilight zone !
I have done a few crazy things on sailboats with no motors, but that is all behind me now i know what the ocean is capable of :eek: !
Nice boat, by the way :thumb:
 
I may have been crossing the Golden Gate bridge when you went under it. Nice pictures.

How are you planning to charge the batteries? Not a lot of room for solar panels. Too bad there isn't a flexible panel that can be part of the sail.
 
I thought I recognized you up there!🤣
Thanks for the kind words about the boat ($1000 well spent!) and pictures. They came out pretty good for steering with one hand and trying not to let the wind blow the phone out of the other!

I did bring up an outboard and a mount, and did a quick install (that was a lot of trips in and out of the lazarette getting it bolted up with one person), and brought a folding bike and trailer, which made getting hardware and provisions easier.
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The timing really worked out, part of the cheap price was the boat had to be moved at the end of Feb, and the 3 weeks preceding that was the first real setup of the heavy SE wind pattern (the wrong way for going around Point Conception!) that brings huge swell and the atmospheric river of rain heading for the CA coast, so really studied the pressure maps and tried to pick the day two weeks from then when it would break up, and started setting up a ride for 2 days before the target day. Nailed it!
Red skies at night final sunset in SF! (That's a good sign!)
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So launched into the last day of the SE storm, knowing it would switch the next day. I figured if something broke, it may as well be still close to SF and down wind going back, as once it turned to the blasting Northwesters there would be no turning around.
It had been a long time since my last big adventure sail (kid raising), and that night was one of the several times I was really questioning if I had bitten off more than I could chew!

But leaving in blasting SE winds actually made it a perfect beam reach across the Bay, so sailed out of the slip without using the outboard, much to the surprise of the locals asking what time I would be back 🤣
It was a stunning shift though from charging across the flat water of the Bay, then as soon as I was past the Bridge, entering the giant churn of the ocean swell meeting the outgoing tide... The waves were coming from 5 different directions at once! 🤣
 
Planning on the Sunpower flexible panels for at anchor, that get put away during daysail. I generally motor for pretty short distances, so don't need huge fast recharge ability.
 
I love this project! Small sailing boats are such great candidates for EV drives... nothing spoils cruising like a giant diesel in your living room.
 
It was a pretty good deal.. Plus it came with free adventure!🤣


And it was non stop, had the sails up for 5 days straight.
I'm sort of an insomniac on land (this trip actually made me remember that some of my natural traits that are annoying on land come in really handy at sea and life suddenly made sense again 😂), and function well on short bursts of sleep, and the conditions were so brutal the first two days I was awake and pretty continuously up on deck, the third day was far enough offshore, and far enough away from the shipping lanes...
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to heave to and get some naps in during the day, and catch up on food. And a beer. Usually I don't drink at dawn, but no one was there to complain.. Lol
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There was a few stretches where I was on the tiller pretty continuously for 12-14 hours, even if I had an autopilot it would have had trouble keeping up with the huge following swell and gusty conditions.

I've been at sea longer, but this trip stood out for the non stop churned up ocean for the whole trip, when I got ashore and sat on a toilet the first time, it felt like the entire room was being shaken around by an invisible giant, and couldn't sleep in my land bed from all the pseudo motion...I had to sleep in the boat for a couple of days to reacclimate!🤣
 
Well, that was blissful. Got the temporary motor hooked up, just in time for full moon cruising, and it was so indescribably perfect.

We get a lot of day winds that die down at dusk around here, so this motor was perfect for getting out of the slips far enough to sail the rest of the way out, and then keeping the cruise going without the noise and annoyance from starting an engine as the moon rose.

Part of the extreme satisfaction levels was the amazement of passengers at the silent power, and it reminded me what an amazing response people have to electric boats, in a way that's different from the electric bike reaction.
People are used to bikes being silent anyway, but it seems with boats, many peoples memories of other boat trips involve being asked along, then eduring the owner struggling to start an engine, then yelling at each other over the noise, and heading downwind with the exhaust cloud hovering and moving with the boat.
So for them to experience untying and suddenly pulling out in total silence and control, has a really strong impact.
It's great, aside from having to keep reassuring them that no, you're not going to start the engine before untying, it's already on. 🤣


Bonus note- the boat smells so much better inside now without the whiff of diesel or gas you get on any boat that has been closed up for a while.
 
Removing all the extras off the engine too, prepping for pulling it, so between emptying the nearly full tank of old gas, the weight of the gas outboard and it's tank and and taking all the extra tools and gear off from the big cruise, the boat is hundreds of pounds lighter, and you could feel her floating light and lively on the water...

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Can you provide info on your temporary motor setup? What voltage, what batteries? And what motor is that exactly?

And maybe I missed it, but what is the permanent motor setup going to be?
 
That one is the Minn Kota Riptide 36v 112 thrust pound transom mount model.
One plus of this motor is it's light enough to switch onto my skiff, where I'll run it off of a 36v bike pack.


Right now it's on a basic lead acid pack just to get running for summer.

It's a toss up on the final motor, debating repurposing one of my Hubmonster motors, vs a Motenergy, as a buddy has extras with Sevcon controllers.
He also has a Lifepo Calb cell setup he isn't using, and is a Northstar battery dealer too, but those are all the choices I want to take time with, hence the temporary motor for summer.
 
Temporary down below storage for while away from the boat... Another plus of this thing compared to a gas outboard.
 

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For once, Point Conception was the nicest day of the trip...
First time I actually took off my foulies!
Then that night around the corner was magical.. Suddenly flat water, warm offshore sundowners, and doing 8-9kts for several hours straight towards home in the dark without a drop of water on deck.

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Not much of a tech update, but the fun factor sure has been incredibly high! This weekend was live music from a big boat.. We have a sandbar at our harbor that's so steep from dredging I was able to ram the bow straight into the sand before the keel hit, pick up friends ( hot dancing on the bow friends🤣), then drift over to where the music was, all in total silence, then out for sundown sail after the music including having other people hop on from dinghys... Such great completely unplanned, random fun!

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You can see me giving it little shots of reverse to keep the stern up into the very light wind and current.
When it pans over to the band, you can see a white powerboat bow in to the sandbar in the distance, I picked up my passengers right next to him..
You can't see it from up there, but there's about 15 or 20 kayaks and dinghys rafted up right up against the big boats stern.
Good times!
 
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