Bob Sutor

How wind and waves can make or break a day for sailing, but it still helps if the motor starts.

I’ve had my Catalina 22 sailboat on Lake Ontario east of Rochester, NY, for several weeks now and have been out on it twice. Lake Ontario is one of the Great Lakes, which are really very large fresh water inland seas. Though it is the smallest of the Great Lakes, it is still huge at 7,540 square miles, or 19,529 km².

The National Weather Forecast Office out of Buffalo provides very detailed information about expected conditions on the lake at various places. For example, the forecast for Monday is shown in the image to the right.

The temperature should peak at 84 F around 3 pm. Winds should be on the light side between 5 and 7 knots all day, with direction varying from the southwest to northwest and back to southwest. No rain is expected. Wave heights should be between 1 and 2 feet.

Given data like this and my work and personal schedule, I have a chance of figuring out when I might be able to go sailing. I’m a novice with some experience, so I’m looking for nice conditions to practice sailing and build up my confidence.

Ideally there would very little chance of rain, no chance of thunderstorms, wave heights 2 feet or less, and winds of 12 knots or less. Temperature-wise I’ll just have to take what I can get. More experienced sailors maybe with bigger boats want and can deal with stronger winds and larger waves. I’m looking for fun and a great time learning, not drama, at least not this year.

This morning looked to be ideal and it was the first time my wife Judith was going to go sailing with me since about 27 years ago. The kids slept in but we got up early and drove the hour up to the lake. The weather was gorgeous, the lake wasn’t perfectly smooth but it looked great, and the winds were decent.

I had a few things to do to set up the boat and so I connected the battery charger to the shore power. I ran through the safety equipment and procedures with Judith. I hanked on the jib sail and took the cover off the mainsail. We then straightened up, I put away the battery charger, and set to starting the motor.

The motor came with the boat and is of the same vintage, 1988. Before I picked up the boat, I had the marina check out and tune the motor. It’s a 6 hp 2 stroke Suzuki DT6 and it has worked just fine in my limited time using it.

So after an hour of getting to the boat, an hour of maintenance and setup, I pulled the motor cord. Nothing. The cord pulled easily but there wasn’t even the slightest indication that the motor turned over. So I did it again and then one more time.

I retired to the cabin, got out the manual, and found nothing to help me diagnose the problem though I did learn how to remove the top cover. Being careful not to drop myself or the cover into the lake, I removed it and could tell that a plastic gear-like thing connected to the starter mechanism looked a bit odd. While it moved when I pulled the cord, there seemed to be no way for it to engage the motor.

Then I noticed a piece of plastic nearby and, oddly enough, it looked like it would fit nicely on the top of the gear-like thing. Evidently this broke at the very end of the last trip when I shifted the motor into neutral as I docked the boat.

No sailing today. I could not put the boat under sail to get it out of the marina and I wasn’t going to row it out.

I loosened the bolts on the motor mount and hauled the motor out of the water, off the boat, and onto the dock. Judith and I then unhanked (removed the connectors of) the jib, folded it, put the cover on the mainsail, and put the motor in the back of the car.

There were several folks at their boats this morning, it being such a beautiful day to sail, so I flagged down someone walking by and asked about local repair places. I knew of a good one in Rochester, but wanted to know if there was one closer. He pointed me to the yacht club fleet captain who gave me some good advice about the motor I have and a possible replacement.

Here’s the deal with motors on sailboats: when you need one, you really need it. I need it to get out of and then back into the dock. There are other times you need it such as when there is no wind, there is too much wind and you need to pull down the sails, or you need the assist to keep you moving.

Having a motor which often works or probably will work or might not break in a critical way even though it is 22 years old is a not acceptable to me. Maybe it’s because I had some really unreliable cars when I was young that I have a fear of getting stranded. Getting stranded in the middle of a big lake is just not going to work for me.

We were lucky because the motor didn’t work before we set out. I would have been really unhappy had we been a mile offshore trying to get back. I know what I would have done in that case, but it wasn’t what I wanted to do and certainly not how I wanted the first trip on the boat with my wife to end. The last time we went sailing right before we got married, the bolts holding the rudder gudgeons fell off and we were without steering. (Hmmm, maybe it’s Judith …)

So here was the conundrum: while I could get a replacement part for the motor, I didn’t have all the tools necessary to install it. I could pay someone a couple of hundred dollars to do the repair, but what might break next? Or should I suck it in and buy a new outboard, one that was presumably more reliable and not likely to get me stranded?

Like many things on the web, there’s a lot of argument about outboards: this brand or that brand? how much horsepower? one cylinder or two? two strokes or four? You don’t need to know what these are to understand that there are sizable groups of people who love any one combination and disdain all others.

This is what I did: I ordered a new Tohatsu 6 HP 4 stroke long shaft motor online. By ordering it online I saved 25% over what it would have cost locally with sales tax. The new motor uses regular gas so I won’t have to fuss with the 100:1 gas:oil mixture anymore, so that’s a bonus. I’ve been told that I want to try to use ethanol-free gas if possible.

For the Suzuki I ordered the replacement part which I now know to be a starter pinion. The motor is useless without it and I wanted to make sure I had one before they became obsolete or unavailable. I may put the motor and the part on Craigslist and try to get back a few hundred dollars. Alternatively, over the winter when I’m not trying to get in more sailing before the lake freezes, I might try to borrow some tools and install the pinion myself. Maybe then I’ll get a rowboat and put the motor on that, who knows.

With luck the new motor will be here by the end of the week. If the sun, the wind, the waves, and UPS cooperate, I just might be able to sail next weekend.

Thirty years ago I had a small sailboat and sailed it on small lakes in southern New York State. Five weeks ago my friend Kurt took my son and me sailing on his boat on Lake Ontario east of Rochester, New York. Three weeks ago I bought and trailered a 1988 Catalina 22 sailboat from Chautauqua Lake to my home south of Rochester. Two days ago my son, Kurt and I put the boat into Lake Ontario.

The number of details I’ve had to deal with has been extraordinary. The things to learn have been at times daunting. The skills I have to recall and newly get are rather scary.

Here’s a list of some of what I’ve learned and done in the last month and a half, in and around work, business trips, and other life commitments. I’ve expressed the items as things to do, but they will vary by your experience, type of boat, and local laws and regulations.

Expenses that you may not have considered

• Decide whether you want to buy a boat that will stay in the water during the season and then be stored nearby, or be moved in and out whenever you want to sail.
• If you plan to pull the boat on a trailer, ensure that your car or truck can pull the weight of the boat, the trailer, and anything you have stored in the boat. With an SUV this may mean the maximum length of a sailboat you can pull is 22 feet, though a little longer might be possible. Does the boat come with a trailer? Do you have a trailer hitch? Will your purchase of the boat lead to your purchase of a pickup truck?
• If you plan to leave the boat in the water for the season, make sure that slips are available where you plan to put the boat and you are happy to pay what they charge. One of my local lakes had no slips available anywhere, though several marinas had waiting lists. Docking fees can approach or even exceed $1000 for a season. Big boats cost more as do tonier marinas and yacht clubs.
• The marina or club where you dock the boat may require you to have insurance on the boat, but you may anyway want to have an individual policy or extend your homeowners insurance to cover the boat. This will be several hundred dollars.
• If the boat is not trailerable and needs to go into the water at the beginning of the season and then pulled out at the end, you will need to have a cradle on which to place the boat during the off-season. Does the boat come with a cradle? Plan to pay for a crane or other lift to move the boat into or out of the water.
• If the boat has a trailer, you can use that for winter storage, but there may still be charges for keeping the sailboat near the water. If you are not doing that, think about where you will haul the boat and store it. Do you have a friend with a barn or indoor storage space where you can keep the sailboat? (And if they live near me, can I keep my boat there too?)
• Find out how much it will cost to register the boat, register the trailer, and have the trailer inspected.
• Think about whether you want to share the cost and expenses with a relative or friend. Think hard about whether this is really a good idea and if you really like that person.
• You will almost certainly need a motor to get the boat out of or into the docking slip. These can be shockingly expensive if you need a new one. Try to buy a boat that has a relatively new motor in good condition.
• If you need to buy a GPS or VHF radio, tack on $300 to $600 to the cost of the boat.
• The Coast Guard requires certain safety equipment. If your boat doesn’t have it, you will need to buy it.
• Dock lines and fenders can cost a couple of hundred dollars. Boats frequently come with these and other accessories and you might want to ask if they are available if they are not obvious.
• Boats have hundreds or thousands of little parts and each one costs three times more than your best guess. Learn where you can get parts online or in local marine shops. Check out West Marine. For things like cotter pins, clevis pins, turnbuckles, stainless steel screws, and light bulbs, buy some extra to have on board.
• You need a set of tools to have on the boat. These include screw drivers, pliers, a knife, one or more adjustable wrenches, and maybe some hex wrenches. Don’t forget the duct tape (now available in designer colors), superglue, and WD-40.

Choosing a sailboat

• You can never do too much research. Use the web to narrow down your choices both by manufacturer and by length of boat. I’ve read that you should learn to sail on a boat less than 27 feet in length.
• Once you have a few candidates, think of the age of the boat. A boat older than forty years may be very much past its prime and just be a money sink. A younger but abused boat may also be a bad investment. Check out Craig’s List to learn about boats of various vintages and how much they should cost.
• Learn about how the manufacturer has changed the boat during the years. For the Catalina 22, there was a big model improvement in 1985 that fixed a lot of problems and reconfigured the cabin. When I was looking, there were quite a few pre-1985 used boats on the market and far fewer ones built since then. There were also later changes, but my price range narrowed things down to a Catalina 22 built somewhere between 1986 and 1995, roughly speaking. I ended up with a 1988 that was in very good shape. It was farther from my home than I expected it to be, so my son and I had to tow it about 145 miles to get it into our driveway.
• Older sailboats can be hard to sell. You may be able to get one for free if you wait long enough. Seriously. If you get a free boat, expect that you’ll also probably be giving it away when you tire of the sport or decide to move to a larger sailboat.
• I bought my boat from a broker at a marina. This worked out well because it eased the transfer of the boat from an Ohio owner to me in New York, and they tuned the motor for me. Caveat emptor if you buy from an individual. Read the Craig’s List warnings.
• Make sure you can still get parts for the boat. This is one of the things that attracted me to getting a Catalina as my first boat (in my modern age).
• Avoid boats that been heavily modified by the previous owners. I’m not talking about their adding great electronics or fittings, I mean their making significant changes to the fiberglass or rigging. In computer terms, avoid boats that have been hacked or kluged.
• Ask yourself if you really want to buy a boat made by a company that has gone out of business. An O’Day in great shape will likely be a fine choice, but do your research. Again, it depends on what you know and what you’ve done before. I was looking to reduce the number of variables and stress opportunities with this boat.
• Learn the differences between fixed full, fin, and wing keels, and retractable swing keels. This will affect the weight of the boat, the draft (how far below the surface the boat goes), and therefore the depth of water in which you can travel.
• Either read a lot about how to inspect a sailboat or have a friend or professional surveyor do it for you. Things that are expensive to replace: the motor, the sails, rusted structural elements, cushions, and holes in the body. A surprising number of boats I looked at had trailers that were in horrible shape. Admission of guilt: there were several things I forgot to look at on my boat, but they all turned out to be in really good condition. I dodged a bullet, but I learned my lesson.
• Learn to say phrases such as “boom vang” with a straight face.
• Like many things these days, have a good sense of the online community around your intended boat. Strong, welcoming, and helpful communities can help you make this adjustment to a new phase of your life.

Also see: “Sailing: 5 books to get you started”