Wing in the Water

There have not been any updates for a while because Wing actually went in the water fairly shortly after the last update and I have been spending my time finishing up fitting her out and actually sailing her.  There will be more updates on the work I have done over the summer before she went in but for now here are some photos of her in the water.

Here she is right after she was launched on the 13th of August this year:

 

I was not able to be there for the launch but arrived as soon as I could later in the day to see her water.  It is interesting to see how small she is compared to a lot of the other boats: compact and beautiful!

 

She had been out of the water for at least three years and I was rather worried she would leak quite a bit before she took up.  To help things along a friend and I filled here bilges with burlap a few days before she was due to go in and then soaked them with seawater:

 

The yard also put a sump pump in her to help the bilge pump along for the initial take up but in the end things went very smoothly: she leaked much less than everyone expected when she first went in and by the end of the first day the bilge pump was able to keep up and the sump pump could be removed.  After 48 hours there was only some weeping through some of the seams near the garboard and some of the keelbolts; the bilge pump was only running for a few minutes per day.

 

 

This seems to be her stable state: slow weeping through some of the seams and the keelbolts and the bilge pump running for a few minutes each day.  I think the seam between the starboard side of the keel and the garboard needs a bit of re-caulking and ultimately I will need to drop the ballast keel and inspect the keelbolts but the leak rate is very manageable at present and I hope to be able to put any major work off for a season or two in order to get more sailing in.

 

There was still lots of work to do before going sailing.  The yard was able to put the mast in on August 23rd:

 

 

We were able to get the sails put on by September 1st:

 

 

We did not get the engine finally up and running until September 21st.  On that day I was finally able to go for a trial run under engine with the friend whom I have been working on Wing with.  This was the first time I had Wing off the mooring! Here is a photo of me on September 21st at Wing's helm for the first time!

 

 

Finally, on the evening of September 24th, I was able to get Wing out under sail for the first time:

 

 

I was able to get out several more times before the end of the season.  More about that as well as further posts about the work I have done on Wing over the summer to get her in the water are to follow (and of course I will be posting more about my journeys on Wing next Summer)!