Sixth Port Day in Apalachicola - Waiting for a Weather Window

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's)

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 209 - October 26, 2017

This morning we woke up on Daydream in the Wefings Marine shop! Marc came by in the morning bearing gifts: some lightly dressed sashimi, some smoked tuna and some smoked mullet! No matter what else happens, we will eat well!

There was no sightseeing today. Today was all about getting Daydream ready to cross the Big Bend on the plane. Yesterday the trim tabs were fixed and the Stingray3 fin was installed, but the new 11 pitch prop had not arrived. We have been running with a Michigan Wheel 14-3/8 x 15 prop since Harbor Springs, and we could not get Daydream on the plane with this prop for love nor money. Putting the throttle down simply resulted in pushing a huge bow wake and maybe getting to 9 miles per hour. We have been quite anxious to see if what Marc is doing is going to change this for us.

 After coffee and toast, we could only wait for the new prop to arrive. I wrote my blog post, and we continued to look at the weather sites, mainly SailFlow. It  looks like Monday might now be the best day, but we will reassess that on a daily basis.

The new Honda aluminum 15 x 11 prop arrived on the FedEx truck shortly after lunch, and Spencer put it on the BF-150. Now everything that could be done has been done, short of re-powering with a new 200 hp outboard.

Stingray3 fin and new Honda aluminum 11 pitch prop

Now there was nothing left to do but to get out on the water to see if we had succeeded. Spencer hooked the trailer up to the pickup, and drove Patty and me back to the Battery Park launch ramp in Apalachicola. Marc joined us shortly, and we put Daydream back in the water, and we did our tests.

My assessment is that it was a qualified success. Watch the iPhone video that Patty took from the shore as we passed and please let me know what you think, either in a comment or with the contact form (I can reply by email if you use the contact form).

Marc, Spencer and I took her out for the first test. We got the speed we were looking for. Downstream at wide open throttle with a 2.5 mph current pushing us, we were knocking at 20 miles per hour. At 5,200 RPMs we were running at 13 - 15 mph. But I say it was a "qualified success" because Daydream is still very heavy, and it does not just pop up effortlessly and gracefully on the plane like it does when it is lightly loaded and propped for the San Juan Islands and Strait of Georgia. 

Marc commented that he had never seen a C-Dory 25 that sat so low in the water. Getting on plane was a delicate balance of managing the trim tabs, the engine attitude and the RPMs. Handling at speed is not nearly as responsive as it should be. By analogy to the animal kingdom, Daydream is still a slug, but a faster slug!

For the second test, Spencer removed the Stingray3 fin, since Marc wanted to be sure that the fin was not actually reducing the speed. We went out into Apalachicola Bay and satisfied ourselves that it wasn't. In fact, it was running just a little slower. So we came back in and Spencer reinstalled the Stingray3. 

Second guessing ourselves, we wondered if we should have gone to a 13 pitch instead of an 11 pitch prop, which would have given higher speeds at lower RPMs if it worked at all. Back in our home waters, we run in the mid teens at 3,800 - 4,200 RPMs. But that ship has sailed, and this is the prop that we will use to cross the Big Bend of the Gulf of Mexico and finish our Loop.

At least our crossing time will be half of what it would have been with the 15 pitch prop. And we are not going to worry about how much fuel we use for the crossing!