Sailed Wandering Wallace For The First Time

She is quick, and responsive, with lots of sail area in the wind. I had her healed over screaming at the wind, 30 degrees. Spent most of the morning healing at 20 and 25 degrees, and she sails fine.

Her outboard arrangement is pathetic. Engine is way too high out of the water. Wallace, was your engine a long shaft? Mine is a normal shaft, and it is too short. Doing some head scratching to correct this, not sure what yet. I was unable to get back to my slip, landed in another slip waiting for the wind to go down.

Great to hear you had her out!!

Long shaft is the only way to go and even then will be inadiquate in heavy maybe even moderate conditions. That's what I mean by an inboard being more "reliable" on boats this size.

There is a rather large compartment along the stern, that I am sure is large enough for a small Inboard motor. Craigs List has ugly old boats that run. I wonder how much of a trick it would be to R&R one of those from one to my Sloop?

Trim down to motor, trim up to sail. Change the sailboat to two rudders and pedestal helm, and have the inboard also hooked to the pedestal steering.

I got this out of the horse barn this morning. I will use it to move my stranded CM32 from the north side of the docks, to my slip on the south side. Moderate winds again today. The 150 HP engine on my power boat should do the trick.

Gives me an excuse to get the power boat out on the lake. I will wait till it cools off this evening, in the 90's on April Fools Day. I purchased this to be my wife's boat, so she could go out on the lake with nothing to do but turn the key. Easy on, easy off trailer. Sucker flies across the lake. We have had it up to 50 ish mph. Too darn fast. We mostly putter around slow looking at wildlife like ducks. Sucker ate $100 in fuel this a.m.

Last fall I nearly purchased a MacGregor X so I could get a power sailor sailboat. Problem is, to get any power, you need a larger engine than they recommend by MacGregor. Say 115 HP. To get an X, and then upgrade it to a decent sized engine, you are going to have about fifteen grand in the beast. Then you will have a power boat that is slow, and a sailboat that is slow. All the trade offs make it a boat of compromises.

I purchased this boat for almost nothing, was sitting in a rich farmers building, and he was tired of it. It has a 150 HP engine, the boat weighs a little less than an X MacGregor and has no compromises. Blend this with my 32' sailboats, and I have a boat for any circumstances.