Well I finished up a few more details before taking the Beagle out for her first deep water sail.

First off... for some reason the original Beagle had a fake windowed extension jutting out of either side of her stern, which Marquardt's book on the ship called a "false quarter gallery". So, a good use for my leftover basswood strips was found this week making them.

It looked like the clip-on extension I made for the rudder was going to eventually damage the copper tape, so I decided to glue on a more permanent and much larger Plexiglas extension. If this doesn't hold I might re-do the rudder entirely.

Next I glued on a plastic disk to the underside of the hull so I can mount a small Tamiya "submarine motor". It uses one double A battery and attaches with a suction cup, so I guess I'm set for the next becalmed sailing day or indoor sail.

Finally I added red ribbons to the top of the fore and mizenmast to help gage the wind direction.

So on Saturday we took the Beagle to the Hourglass Pond, a favorite sailing spot of the local r/c club, Indy Admirals. Its over ten feet deep in places and pretty wide, so in preparation I bought a life vest in case I needed to do a recovery swim. I'm pretty fit, but swimming isn't my strong suit, especially if I have to try to carefully pull a flooded model ship back to shore.

The wind was pretty steady, gusting a few times, so I got to watch her heel over heavily several times as she chugged along. The tension on the mainmast rigging got a bit loose, so I had issues rotating the mainmast sails fully. Several attempts to tack were all defeated as I couldn't seem to get the main turned over enough to grab the wind on the other side.

But anyway, it was a fun 90 minutes of sailing. After I took her out I discovered some water had gotten down into the hull, but not too bad. A little sponge work and she was good to go.

(Had to take one final pic before sailing... just in case.)

(A big white catfish surfacing a bit close. There be sea monsters here! Man the whaleboats!)

Meanwhile, Indy Admirals were co-Hosting the 2011 SubRegatta at the Carmel Reflecting Pond, so I got to meet several members, as well as see lots of subs in action.

Week 43