Our long term intention is to moor the boat in Brookings, OR. but there is a waiting list for the larger slips, so we're in Crescent City for now. This works out for the best, since it's 20 miles closer to home, has a bigger chandlery, and there are repairs to be done. The downside is there's no racing fleet and hardly any sailboats in the harbor. Brookings and Crescent City share the same basic marine weather - small craft warnings offshore year-round and hardly any wind near shore. Neither port has a harbor larger than necessary to act as a turning basin.
After five straight weeks of Small Craft Warnings (and worse), I picked a day where the wind was under 15 knots (the seas were still big) and my wife Kathy and her brother Andy were available, to make the passage to Crescent City (from Brookings; see acquisition). Since the winds weren't quite what was forecast, my crew was entirely rookie, and it was the first time I had sailed the boat, I cautiously put up the #3 genoa to beat into 15 knot wind with aft quarter 20 foot swells at 11 second intervals. Perfect combination to add to the 90 minute drive on windy mountain roads to make us all a little queasy. The winds eventually shifted aft as forecast, and we ended up having a little more fun surfing down those big swells with a tailwind. The boat's spinnaker was torn to shreds in the last race under the previous owner, so that wasn't an option. Anyway, we made it to Crescent City without mishap, unless you count a slightly hot landing into our new slip. The Atomic 4 had been acting funny - wouldn't run without the choke on or idle - so between the 15 knot tailwind into the slip and the inability to get the engine to do the right thing...the scuffs buffed right out.
The rocky landing in our new slip was mostly due to the A4 acting up, which turned out to be pretty simple to fix. Knowing it was choke related, I removed the Atomic 4's carburator, and found the "need the choke" problem was due to a bad flange gasket. The flame arrestor housing was also cracked and badly repaired, so I bought a new one along with a gasket set from Moyer Marine. The engine now starts easily and runs reliably.
The boat is basically sound, but had been neglected for the last few years of its life. Some of the larger repairs are found under their own pages, but the search for rain leaks, electrical problems, adding an automatic bilge pump, and innumerable other ongoing repairs are just too dang boring to document, and are pretty much life for an old boat owner.
I'm slowly shopping for spinnaker gear and a used spinnaker. Our local club racing fleet assesses a 9 second per mile spinnaker penalty, so I'll probably buy something useful in the lightest airs, or I'll get an asymetric, which doesn't get the penalty. I really hate the idea of not flying a real chute with a pole.
My wife and I finally decided on a new name, Latis (Celtic goddess of beer and water). It took several hours to remove the existing decal names, via heat gun, plastic razor blades, and finally gasoline. And of course the renaming ceremony...