Boats Thread 2.0

[BlackbirdM3]

And the "Best Owner Maintained Yacht" at the 2024 Corinthian Yacht Club Wooden Boat show goes too.... Hummingbird!

Yeah, I'm pretty proud of that.






A link to my photo album of the show. https://www.flickr.com/photos/196954...77720318321506
Will

[BlackbirdM3]

That looks amazing!

I started leaning to sail dinghy's at the Cal Sailing Club, but life kept getting in the way of making real progress. There was also always a huge line for dinghy lessons, so I ended up doing windsurfing pretty often. I wish I had been able to learn more and get into keel boats while I lived out there.

Thanks. Yes, Hummingbird has come a long way in the past month. NOBODY was expecting me to show up with her looking as good as she does. This past weekend I started reworking the forestay attachment point. The original mount was a bronze eyebolt through the stem. This usually causes the top part of the stem to fail. When I dug into it, sure enough the stem was cracked, checked, and the bolt had a fracture surface started. When I went to unscrew the nut holding it in place, it just broke off. (Revealing the dull crack surface) So, it was a needed modification. It will not be attached to a reinforced padeye just behind the stem moving the load off the stem, but onto the front of the deck (I will work on tying the deck carlins to the frames near the keel to distribute the pulling load to the rest of the boat rather than just the foredeck.) The stem has been semi-repaired with penetrating epoxy, some hardwood dowels, and some long screws. No, not ideal, but to fix it right I'm pulling the whole front of the boat apart. (Yikes) The area will have minimal load on it so I'm not too worried. When its all back together I'll have some new trim back on the boat that should look pretty sharp, as well as some chalks so we can tie it to the dock better. I doubt it will be looking 100% by the wooden boat show at the end of the month, but it will look better than it does I hope.


In the race I made a single major tactical mistake that I knew not to make, but I got greedy and followed the guy I picked to win the race outright knowing full well it likely wouldn't pan out. As it turned out, it cost us a good 40 minutes... Ouch. Still, I managed a 3rd place in the class (of 5 boats) so apparently I did more right than wrong. I can't wait to go race again with the rest of the fleet.

Yeah I know how it goes. I went the better part of 30 years between sailing multiple days in a row. I forgot everything I knew in 1994. I do sort of want to go find a laser or something similar to futz around with on a lake. Hummingbird can be sailed single handedly, but it really wants two people. 4 people if you want to race. I do wish I had something that I could just haul out to the local lake and goof off with.

Will

[McGyver]

That looks amazing!

I started leaning to sail dinghy's at the Cal Sailing Club, but life kept getting in the way of making real progress. There was also always a huge line for dinghy lessons, so I ended up doing windsurfing pretty often. I wish I had been able to learn more and get into keel boats while I lived out there.

[BlackbirdM3]

San Francisco Bird Boats on the wing... Hummingbird (mine) leading Curlew (the oldest of the Birds, the second one built.) in a close match up wind yesterday morning as we both headed home from the race on Saturday. Curlew peeled off and went back to the SF Maritime Museum at Hyde St Pier, and we continued home to Sausalito.

A pic from the boat, and from a friend who randomly happened to be out on the bay on a different boat.

Will

[Exodus_2pt0]

Yall making me jealous with all these sailboats. Part of my retirement plan is to learn how to sail during vacations, and be licensed by the time I retire. Then sell the house and purchase a boat to retire on.

My wife however, is not on board...

For now, this little 21 footer will have to do. My Wife has been slalom skiing her entire life so she enjoys it.

[2mAn]

2mAn you have a house now, so, a boat should be your next DD.

actually a vintage racecar from a few years ago has resurfaced ... and with some neighbors who have racecars too, I gotta show em whats up

Will, Hummingbird is cool. I'd keep it too

[roguetoaster]

BlackbirdM3 What are you naming her? Hummingbird?

2mAn you have a house now, so, a boat should be your next DD.

[BlackbirdM3]

BlackbirdM3 What are you naming her? Hummingbird?

Its bad luck to rename a boat, and Hummingbird is her original name, more or less. Originally she was Humming Bird, but someone simplified things decades ago, so the name will stay. Hummingbirds are cool, so why would I want to change it? I think its a great name.

Will

[2mAn]

BlackbirdM3 What are you naming her? Hummingbird?

[BlackbirdM3]

Spectacular!

Doing a boot or other detail striping?

Nothing much to share from me, just using mine as it should be. Did see the Pride of Baltimore II crusing down the bay.

Yes, I painted the cove stripe (arrow on the side) gold. I found the paint in my dads desk 40 years ago, and it was probably 20+ years old at that time. It has so much real gold flake that when I cleaned my brush, I was able to evaporate the acetone off and dump the gold back into the bottle. Its not a super bright gold, but a very natural looking gold. Probably similar to what she had when new.





Please ignore the fiberglass repair that isn't painted in these pics. It was still soft when I did the paint. It has since been painted.

I'm working on new toe rails for the boat, but they won't be on for the race on Saturday. It has been a mad thrash to get all this work done. I'm pretty beat, but I can't wait to get the boat out and see how she sails with new sails, and a much smoother hull.

Have a look here if you want to see pics of Hummingbird from the past. Most of the pics here are ones I scanned from a photo album that came with the boat. These were mostly taken 20+ years ago when she went through a serious refit.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/196954...7720316665181/

Will

[2mAn]

So, this happened...

55+ hours of sanding, 4 hours of actual painting. The paint was rolled and tipped (applied with a roller, brushed out.) and yeah, its like glass. I can't wait to show up at the start line of the Master Mariners race (the oldest sailing race in the US.) with her looking better than all the other Bird Boats in the fleet. I doubt I'll win, but I'm going to see how well she does against the others. I think this might be the first time she's raced in 20 years.

Will

Dang Will, you are an animal.

[roguetoaster]

Spectacular!

Doing a boot or other detail striping?

Nothing much to share from me, just using mine as it should be. Did see the Pride of Baltimore II crusing down the bay.

[BlackbirdM3]

So, this happened...











55+ hours of sanding, 4 hours of actual painting. The paint was rolled and tipped (applied with a roller, brushed out.) and yeah, its like glass. I can't wait to show up at the start line of the Master Mariners race (the oldest sailing race in the US.) with her looking better than all the other Bird Boats in the fleet. I doubt I'll win, but I'm going to see how well she does against the others. I think this might be the first time she's raced in 20 years.

Will

[BlackbirdM3]

If anyone needs a calendar for next year, and they want one with sailboats, support a good cause and get a calendar featuring my photography (No I didn't pick any of the pics, and no I don't make any money off the deal.) https://www.sfmastermariners.org/mmb...-mmba-calendar

Will

[BlackbirdM3]

That Hummingbird is beautiful. I love the keel as it's the same as the J-Class yachts.
I doubt I'll ever get into sailing, I have a sabot and can't even find time to get it wet.

Its my understanding that there were actually 5 different keel designs for the birds. I've only seen this design used however. I don't know if any of the other designs are still on the boats or what the story is. To this day, the Birds are some of the fastest 30 footers on San Francisco Bay. You read that correctly, 100 year old design that can still go toe to toe with more modern designs. I think that says a lot for the design, and why the fleet is special. I've seen this in person, I had Hummingbird out for Fleet week back in October. It was dead calm in Sausalito, and we struggled to get out into the main part of the bay. Once out in the bay the chop kicked up, and so did the wind. Bigger boats were reefing their sails, yet here we were flying everything we had like there was no wind, yet it was gusting to 30kts+ The boat came alive and showed her heels to everything around us. Water over the bow, we got wet in the cockpit, but she set over on a nice heel and cut through the chop like it was no big deal. The boat did exactly what it was designed to do a century ago. Down around Alcatraz the chop swells were 3+ feet, yet the boat didn't care. We were looking for a place to hove to so I could shoot the airshow from the water, but it was just too rough and windy, so we went around Alcatraz once more and by that time my friend was kinda freaking out as she'd never been out on a sailboat that small in that much wind, and so I made for the lee of Angel Island. The fun was done, but it was an eye opening experience to see just how good the boat was in typical summer conditions on the bay. We were the only boat out there without reefed sails and it was awesome.

Here are some pics of a couple of the other Birds in the fleet that I shot during a race back in July. I wasn't ready to try and race Hummingbird so I was aboard the 1929 cutter "Water Witch", built in Oakland. Water Witch is an amazing boat that I love seeing out on the bay.









This is such a cool shot, here Cuckoo luffing her sails, Freda (gaff rig with the off white sails), the oldest (1886 I think) privately owned yacht on the west coast, and Yucca, built in 1931 and still one of the fastest yachts on the bay, all in the same frame.

Here Oriole (11) chases Kookaburra (3) with Yucca off in the distance. I have Kookaburra's old set of sails for Hummingbird and can't wait to try them out.

Overtaking Oriole (it took a long time to catch her)

At the start of the race Cuckoo and a couple other smaller boats decided to port tack the start, on the start line. A bold move if you ask me as we had 30 boats starting on a very small line, all at the same time.


One of my favorite shots from this year. The Golden Gate shrouded in fog, Pt Bonita Lighthouse in the background with the light lit, Oriole and another boat on starboard tack across the bay.


I have to admit, I'm super excited to take part in the races with my own boat, yet I'm equally bummed that I won't be able to shoot pics like these since I'll be driving the boat, and its one thing to shoot from a 60+ foot boat that doesn't pitch like a 30 footer does, but after trying to shoot at Fleetweek, a Bird makes for a very poor shooting platform.

Will