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Old December 11th 09, 01:42 AM posted to rec.aviation.owning,rec.aviation.piloting
Brian Whatcott
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Posts: 915
Default Reflections on a year of aircraft ownership

a wrote:

... there use to be the AMU. I think it
was aeronautical money unit. It equaled $1000.00. Therefore your
$150.00 was only .150 AMU. Doesn't sound so large.
In a sailboat context, that's 0.15 boatbuck...
Brian W
What kind of sailboat do you own?

A SouthCoast 22. That's a swing keel. I keep it at the house. But it
wants three people for anxiety-free mast raising, and that's a problem.

My younger son has a better way. He recently rented a lake-front place
with a personal mooring out front for his Hunter 25 - and space for a
trailer too....

Brian W


Brian, for what it's worth, I could 'walk' the mast up on the O'Day 25
with the side and aft standing rigging in place. It was designed to
pivot at its socket. I'd run a line near the top with a quick release
knot and have my wife cleat it to the anchor cleat on the bow when
it's upright. then I could attach the forestay and yank on the free
end of the line to release it. The boom goes on after all of that. It
may be your mast is a lot heavier or it didn't pivot into its socket.

I would not want to go through that every time we went sailing, but
the boat once rigged stayed that way all season. It did not trailer
well, I wish it did.


As bought, the boom and sails were available, but the mast was gone.
There had evidently been a mishap, cos several of the stays were broke
near one end. So I found a mast from a Hobie 16 - which had a slightly
longer (25 ft?) and rather stout mast. Actually an old boy offered me
the whole ball of wax on a trailer for next to nothing, because the
trailer had been sitting out front too long...
I rigged a jack staff with a second winch at the trailer head, and
made a wooden tree to fit in the rudder pintle, so that fastening the
winch line to the forestay allows the mast to wind up without too much
stress on the mast footer. But half way to vertical, the mast is apt
to sway sidewards way too much, without a steady line on the foot of
each side stay held by an innocent bystander...

Brian W
p.s. Obligatory flying note: with the thermometer standing at 33 deg, I
thought I would fly the plane in the hour before dark this evening.
...If I could start it....
There was a placard by the ki-gas primer: "Positively One stroke only
in ANY conditions" and biding by that rule gave me several stuttering
start/stops in previous chills.
So I finally got the bit between the teeth, and treated it more like my
previous C-150 which took FOUR ki-gas strokes on a cold day. This time,
with THREE strokes, and a follow up with one stroke, it was running on
the second pull (of the manual start handle)

I think I know why that placard was there - despite low hours on the
engine - one cylinder had been replaced after perhaps 100 hours by the
prior owner.
The easiest possible way to need a pot replaced, as you may know, is
to over prime and get not a stack fire, but rather a back fire. *Bang!*
and it's gone...

Pumping the throttle can do that....

Brian W