New Boat

[sluissa]

Well, it's been a week, most of the paperwork is straightened out now, it's done, paid for in full, and I am now a boat owner.



She's a 1968, Westfield UK Kingfisher 20+

She's in great condition, previous owners took good care of her, and I don't think I could be happier.

[Charlie]

Enjoy it. New boats are great. Well so are old ones. I like the graphics. Is this a boat that was built to take the English Channel conditions? I seem to remeber reading about a small boat that was used for that kind of cruising.

[Pblais]

I am now a boat owner.

Congratulations! A boat is a boat and you have a nice one. I hope you won't sail off and leave us wondering how it turned out. Of course now you can start on your list of projects. The ones you want and the ones you get. Sail as much as you can would be my best advice.

[sluissa]

Originally Posted by Charlie

Enjoy it. New boats are great. Well so are old ones. I like the graphics. Is this a boat that was built to take the English Channel conditions? I seem to remeber reading about a small boat that was used for that kind of cruising.

I would assume so. This has a twin keel to deal with the big tides in some areas over there. It must be a pretty sturdy boat, this one was sailed all the way from England to Mississippi, and I've heard of boats of the same model making it all the way to Australia and even Antarctica.

I'm not confident in my ability to stand such a small boat for a very extended period of time, but if I find out it's not so bad, I just may end up taking it to far off places myself, but that's a ways off and will just become my new dream, now that the dream of owning a boat is fulfilled.


Pblais:

Are you kidding? This place has provided more insight into cruising and sailing than probably any other source I've been exposed too. I'd be an idiot to leave here. I enjoy the stories people post on here and I plan to add my own once I manage to experience some. And yes, projects have already cropped up in my mind. Improve the seal on the fore hatch, add another deep cycle battery and inspect the wiring, build/buy and fit a sculling oar, polish the brasswork, and many more small things that'll just take time, a little(hopefully) money and some elbow grease.

[Lancerbye]

Congratulations on your new baby (boat). Now the people at all the nearby chandelries have a new friend.LOL

[SkiprJohn]

Aloha,
Congratulations!! I was always curious about how the twin keelers sail. Please keep us informed. I like the looks of the hand rail too. Could you tell us dimensions and explain how it is attached to the cabin top?
Good to have a boat that size. It is so easy to cast off for a few hour's sail. The sculling oar is a wonderful idea. I had a friend who used one on his Bristol Channel Cutter and it worked well for him.
Thanks,
JohnL

[sluissa]

Originally Posted by SkiprJohn

Aloha,
Congratulations!! I was always curious about how the twin keelers sail. Please keep us informed. I like the looks of the hand rail too. Could you tell us dimensions and explain how it is attached to the cabin top?
Good to have a boat that size. It is so easy to cast off for a few hour's sail. The sculling oar is a wonderful idea. I had a friend who used one on his Bristol Channel Cutter and it worked well for him.
Thanks,
JohnL

I unfortunately don't have exact dimensions on me, and the weather will be bad for the next few days so I probably won't make it out there soon. Just eyeballing it, I'd guess the rails are about 6 1/2 feet long with bolts through the cabin top roughly every 18 inches. It's raised about an inch off the cabin, just enough to get fingers under and wrapped around without it being too tight. The rail is probably close to 2 inches wide, or just short of that and about 1/2 inch thick. The bolts are lined up with reinforced ridges on the underside of the cabin top and protruding mounting points on the top.

I will try to get exact dimensions next time I'm out there.

As for the sailing, I've only managed to go out once so far. The previous owner is giving me a few basic lessons but he's busy and doesn't have many chances to go out. The one time we did go out though, a nice 8-10 knot breeze and by his estimate (no log, speedometer or gps on the boat but it seemed like a pretty close guess to me) we were making 3-4 knots under standard jib and mainsail on a close haul. Granted, it wasn't anything huge, but there was very little heeling and it was a very comfortable sail. She seems to tend to pull just a bit into the wind on most angles other than directly downwind, so you either need to secure the tiller or keep hold of it almost constantly. I don't know if this is something specific to this boat or if other twin keelers have this feature.


Lancerbye: Yes, first day with the boat, hadn't even handed over the check yet, and due to a badly placed tree and human error, we broke the wind vane on the top of the mast in the process of taking the mast down for transport to the boatlift. Spent 30 bucks for my West Marine piece of plastic on a metal stick. I'm still going to try to find alternatives for many of the expensive things that come out of chandleries but I got a quick start on realizing how much "Marine" things cost.

[little boat]

congratulations! i've been crazy about kingfishers for years, a very salty boat i'm sure you will adore.

[mickmul]

Hi and welcome!! Best of luck - you'll get more info and support at Index the kingfisher owners association, happy sailing!!

[sluissa]

So, I took her out yesterday. It was just me and my mother who wanted to learn how to sail too. In hindsight it might not have been the best idea, but we both laughed, provided some evening entertainment for the rest of the marina, and still had fun and nothing got damaged and nobody got hurt.

Started out rigging up the sailboat to go out. Wind was blowing a bit, a little under 20 mph I think, according to the weather. I told my mom we should probably reef the main. She said, "Well, how do you do that." I stood there for a minute, staring at the sail, the reefing line and the reefing points, and realized I'd only heard it described before, never actually been taught how to reef and had little idea how to on this new to me boat. I told her, "Well, we would reef it, if only I knew how." We both had a chuckle at that and just decided to go out using only the storm jib. This turned out to be the best decision of the trip.

We got everything ready, me teaching her all the terms I knew along the way. She, being a good student but it was still a lot to absorb all at once. I told her to wait on the boat and I'd untie the docklines and then we'd head out. I have no idea how it happened, one minute I was holding onto the life lines and she had her arms wrapped around the pier and the boat wasn't moving, the next minute she was stuck out in the middle of the marina, tied only by the stern line to a post just too far out to reach, and me standing on the pier trying to think of something to do. There we are, with the engine running, I'm trying to give her directions, she can't hear, she's trying stuff, people are watching us, probably having a good laugh, possibly making bets to see if we come back alive. Eventually after 10-15 minutes of dangling out there, and about 5 minute from me taking a swim she manages to toss a rope to me and I pull her back over to the pier and hop on. This fiasco had put us in a weird angle, so with my meager boating skills, and the wind coming from the way it was, I was unable to get us turned around, so we just ended up backing out of the marina.

After leaving the marina and finally calming down, we had a nice little, if choppy, sail under storm jib only moving along at somewhere around 1-2 knots I'd guess. We started heading back in and everything was fine, got back to the channel, started the engine, headed back towards the marina. Docking went only slightly smoother than undocking. I'm still thankful I don't have a neighbor at the moment. We wrestled the boat in against a wind that was trying to blow us away from the pier, managed to get a stern line and a spring line attached, and I was telling my mom to hop off the bow, onto the pier and she said she couldn't reach. I finally walked up, did it myself and had us tied off.

We then sat down in the cockpit, had a nice cup of hot chocolate, and laughed about the whole thing. I was worried this whole thing would turn her off from sailing, but nope. I obviously need more practice in a marina, but the sailing part was easy enough and I'm proud enough that we didn't really bump anything except one slight nudge against a post which left neither scuff nor scratch.

Feel free to call me an idiot though. I probably deserve it and was mostly lucky, as far as the marina mishaps went at least.

[swabbmob]

First, I love the logo on the bow - matches your Icon (are you studying marketing?).

Second, I laughed for ten minutes while reading your post! My wife had to come see what was tearing me up. I laugh because I have been there. I remember the day I knew I needed to reef, but had not idea how. Of course you have more common sense out of the box, because I sailed far too many times without reefing. Thank god there was still a sterm line attached when you set your mother adrift. Most likely, one of your new (as yet unmet friends) would have sprung into action if she started drifting free.

I love your spirit and focus. You have already learned much from this forum, no you just get to practice. I see a circumnavigation in your future. I hope that I get to read about it.

Enjoy that really cool boat. BTW, Good Old Boat had an article a couple of issues back about the double keeled boats in the UK.

[psteele235]

Many of these boats have been sailed around the coast of Great Britain where there are much bigger tides than we have here - for example the Thames estuary and the Norfolk coast (Norfolk is the NE part of the bump on the right hand side of the island) so with twin keels you just sail in and let her gently settle on a soft bottom until the tide comes back in again.

You will see a lot of small coves and bays that way that we with full keels can't get near.

Great start and well done Mum! Probably a good idea to raise the main on a calm day and find out how the reefing lines work - but I'm sure you already figured that one out!

[sluissa]

Originally Posted by swabbmob

First, I love the logo on the bow - matches your Icon (are you studying marketing?).

Nope, no marketing for me. I just have a pet rabbit, and picked the icon because of that. Then when I was boat shopping, I found this boat. Just luck, or fate, or whatever you want to call it. It had something to do with the family crest of the previous owner, or something like that, but I'm going to keep it on there, gives the boat too much personality to change it.

[Pa La O La]

Hey,
So where is that picture? Brown Marine?

Gary

[Pa La O La]

I use to live in Navarre. Loved to take the boat to Gulf Breeze, sail across the bay past Ft. Pickens and over to Ft. McCray. Good anchorage too. The navy has a little marina there on the other side of the ICW. Great places along the island for day trips. Spend the week end. I loved it out there.
Gary