Where's Waldo?

[Jeremyvmd]

I donno. Try and go of barnegate Inlet whe you have a tide running out and a 5-10knt wing blowing in. You can forget it if the wind is blowing 20+. It gets nuts!

[sail149]

How easily I forget...... I have hit nasty stuff on the Chesapeake bay, even ran the back end of the non event hurricane Danny in about '99? head winds on albarmare sound ( and to much wind for bridge to open) was ugly some time ago. And yes barnegate Inlet crazy and is impassable much of the time and always ugly.
But this is America and usually wait a day or 2 and it's beautiful again, plenty of exceptions I know but compared to the Uk where it can be ugly for days and days on end.......
And usually the sun is shining in US even if it's ugly !!!

[Jeremyvmd]

The worst is when im feeling lazy and I wanna hit the wrecks cuz I can see the ocean is flat but the damn I let has 8+ footers! I've literally gone out when there is a sub 1 ft swell and a light wind but had to fight nasty conditions in the inlet. Allways hate that. But it's true rarely does the weather stay nasty for more than a few days

[rnummi]

Holy Smokes.... I just read the post. Don, I'm so glad you guys are OK. I feel a gut punch for your loss of Beta. She was an awesome boat. That being said... I've got an A27 hull for you if you need one (sitting next to me). Another one up the road in Tarpon is available for 6k. You put so much blood and sweat equity into her. Worst case scenario, bring her back here and we can put her to rights. Obviously, I have an empty covered RV storage shed. Whatever you need you don't need to ask, I can run up there if you need anything.

Rick

[smacksman]

I've just flown over the St. Johns River/ ICW junction looking down on the submerged causeway from 35000 feet. I could see the scene on the grounding perfectly!
Just boarding for Orlando/London Heathrow now. Must go.
Roger

[Vic K]

Adios Roger. Happy landing. Keep the pointy end up.

Vic

[DesertAlbin736]

I donno. Try and go of barnegate Inlet whe you have a tide running out and a 5-10knt wing blowing in. You can forget it if the wind is blowing 20+. It gets nuts!

June 2002: Ran Barnegat Inlet in this Montgomery 15 pocket cruiser. Motored against Easterly afternoon sea breeze, powered by a 3.5 HP Nissan outboard (Tohatsu clone) with 1 qt internal tank. Ran out of gas halfway through & had to refuel underway from a 1 gallon Blitz can. Actually it was a very calm day. Went out past the outer jetty & turned around to go back into the bay. Just wanted to be able to say I sailed in the Atlantic and the Pacific in the same year in the same boat. A month later I was racing in Monterey, CA at the Potter Yachters' Cruiser Challenge sponsored by Small Craft Advisor Magazine. Took 3rd place in a fleet of 14 boats. Yes, that's me in my boat in the picture Jerry Montgomery used in his ads for several years.

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Transiting Barnegat Inlet with Old Barney lighthouse in the background.

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With my childhood chum Eddie Griffin along as crew. We both grew up in Barnegat. He still lives on East Bay Ave.

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How easily I forget...... I have hit nasty stuff on the Chesapeake bay, even ran the back end of the non event hurricane Danny in about '99?

In this pic I was getting ready to depart in the same 15 foot sailboat from the small waterman's marina near the Hooper's Island Road bridge crossing Fishing Creek near Honga River on Chesapeake's Eastern Shore, bound for Solomon's on the Patuxent River, also in June, 2002. Note the cloud layer in the background. Heavy T-storm had just hit the day before and the Bay was still pretty rough with NW winds about 15-20 kts, and a pretty good chop running. Waves high enough that they were higher than the boat's transom. Although you wouldn't know it by looking at the calm waters of Fishing Creek. But once on the open Bay it was time to double reef and hang on for the ride. This boat had 250 lbs of ballast in a shoal keel/centerboard design. Empty displacement of this boat was 750 lbs.

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This past summer we made nearly the same crossing coming back from Solomons in our A25, except heading for the Nanticoke River. 65 NM From Solomons to Blades, DE on 6.5 gallons of fuel. That one was a bit of rock 'n roll too.

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You might be thinking, 'this guy must be nuts!'. It's tame compared to back in the day when I was really into adrenaline rushes. I'm the one at left in the brown leather hat getting ready to exit a Twin Beech C45H 10,500 feet over Coolidge, AZ circa 1981. Doing 250 knots head down in a no lift dive trying to catch up with jumpers that are 500 to 1000 feet below you, now that's exciting!

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[Vic K]

Don,

Have you made any decisions about your boat? Not worth repairing?

Vic

[Beta Don]

I may have it sold - We'll see

I don't think it will be too hard to repair - I'm just not interested in doing it

Don

[Jeremyvmd]

Could you give us some details or photos how you did the patch?

[JT48348]

What was the verdict on your rudder modification? Did it give you the handling you thought it would

[Beta Don]

Could you give us some details or photos how you did the patch?

The 'patch' to get her floating again was nothing more than a couple of throwable 15 by 15 inch cushions which I wedged down into the keel from the inside. On top of the cushions I placed a 4' length of 3" PVC pipe, to push the cushions down into the Vee of the keel. By standing on the pipe and wedging pieces of lumber between both ends of the pipe and the floor (I had cut a hole in the galley floor above the hole) I was able to get enough pressure on the cushions that they nearly sealed the hole completely - A small 120 volt pump kept up with the remaining leak easily

Don

[Beta Don]

What was the verdict on your rudder modification? Did it give you the handling you thought it would

What I did to mine worked very well - The autopilot had no problem steering the boat, even in adverse conditions

A27 rudders vary quite a bit, depending on when they were built. Mine was an early model which had no wooden skeg at the bottom. The rudder shaft was a piece of 1 1/4 stainless thin wall pipe with an extra support at the top since there was no support at the bottom where later boats had the wooden skeg to support the lower end of the rudder

My rudder was more like a sailboat rudder - Very thick at the leading edge because it had to cover that big pipe. The leading edge of it was rounded about like a soda can. I lag screwed a piece of pressure treated 2 x 4 to the leading edge which I had trimmed to a near Vee on the tablesaw. Once screwed and epoxied to the leading edge, I covered it with several layers of glass mat and lots of epoxy which added about 5" to the leading edge and gave it a more streamline shape

Looking at the rudder on Rick's boat, which is also an early '84, his had a much different rudder and a smaller, solid rudder shaft without the upper support mine had, because his has the wooden skeg supporting the bottom

I think your boat has a much, much thinner metal rudder, doesn't it? Your rudder already has some of the blade forward of the shaft, doesn't it? Mine had nothing forward of the shaft and without the wooden skeg on the bottom, I was worried that in a grounding, if I was to try to back off, it might be really easy to bend that hollow rudder shaft, since it had no lower support

Don

[JT48348]

Yes mine is a 1986 as you describe: a metal rudder with a decent rudder post, some leading edge.

[smacksman]

Free State was fifth or sixth one built ( HIN AMN27105M83H ) and had the big rudder as Don described.

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It worked fine for me

But I did run out of water in the middle of the channel going into the Swannee River to try and get shelter. We slowly ground to a halt on coral with 'ground' being the desriptive word. It sounded aweful! After a while I reversed off gently with more grinding noises and got away.

Although I ran aground several other times, I think the coral was the cause for cleaning off the bottom paint as seen below when I hauled out in New Orleans.

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So although the rudder stock is tube and with no bottom support as Don said, It came through my pretty severe testing OK.