Bahia Experience at Cal Sailing Club Berkeley

[Cal Sailing Club]

Cal Sailing Club (www.cal-sailing.org) has had a Bahia since March,
and four more since May. These five boats are the greatest thing
since sliced bread; they've become the most popular boat at the club
and rarely sit unused in the yard. They're used for everything from
teaching beginners to racing in some of the strongest wind the San
Francisco Bay can kick up. They've even been used to rescue other
boats that have broken down. They compare to other, fiberglass boats
commonly used for sailing clubs and rentals the way that Hondas
compare to Ladas.

Howsomesoever, any new boat is gonna have a few problems, and I wanted
to pass on a few things we've learned. I saw that other owners have
fallen victim to the poorly designed rudder pintle cap. We drilled
and pinned ours (5/32" cobalt drill, clevis pin).

Rudder plate screws--remove, loctite, replace, or you lose them, and
the replacements are a little hard to get since they're metric
stainless.

Rudder downhaul cleat--replace the cleat with a clamcleat 357 auto-
release mini racing cleat, which will flip open and uncleat the rudder
downhaul if you ever hit anything. Otherwise you risk damaging your
hull if you hit something. And don't forget to tighten the rudder
clamp wingnut. We have our wingnut handles tied to the boat after
losing a few.

Trapeze--if you don't have the traps, get them. They make the boat
about 5 times more fun. This is one of the best trap boats you can
get on. Those little footholds on the seat are ingenious!

Masthead float: the LP float is way too small to keep the boat from
turtling or going mast in mud. Ours had holes in it that made it a
masthead weight. We adapted the Hobie Baby Bob float and it's
adequate to keep the boat from turtling in light to medium wind. Out
in 30 knot wind, you're still gonna turtle.

Centerboard uphaul downhaul. we gave up on the friction device and
added an elastic downhaul and a solid uphaul. It required one
clamcleat and one fairlead screwed to the cockpit floor alongside the
centerboard case plate. Turning blocks are lashed to the existing
padeyes for the gnav control lines. The boat is incredibly hard to
steer if you let the centerboard go too far down.

Loose screws--use sikaflex or other caulk to hold them in place. I
saw other owners had lost centerboard plate screws, we lost screws
from the handles under the hull that provide hand- and foot- or knee-
holds for righting.

Hoisting--we put a line around the top gudgeon, and attach the sling
to the Ubolts and this line. see
http://www.cal-sailing.org/library/BAHIA.pdf

Insulation--the stainless fittings on the spars and the Ubolts aren't
insulated from the aluminum they are in contact with. We're already
getting corrosion from salt water, and will need to go over the
stainless/aluminum contact points with anti-corrosion compound.

Shroud tensioners--I saw other owners had their tensioner pins bend,
as did ours. We replaced ours with Ronstan shroud adjusters with
larger pins. The downwind shrouds go slack when the boat is sailing
on a close reach in strong wind, and the shrouds can pop into place
with a loud BANG after you tack. Tape the tops of the shroud
adjusters around the shrouds to avoid this, it's pretty scary.

Main halyard cleat--replaced unreliable clamcleat with a horn cleat.

Sheets--we got sick of the LP main- and jibsheets pretty quick, and
replaced them with 5/16 regatta braid.

Anchors--we sail in shallow water with a mud bottom, with rocky
shores. We carry aluminum anchors in a mesh bag, tied to the mast
base.

Gnav breakage--we sail the piss out of our boats, and have broken the
plastic ends on our gnav struts twice now. The dealer (Svendsen's
Chandlery, Alameda CA) is trying to get these parts for us from LP in
UK.

That's it for now. If you're ever in the SF Bay area, contact us at
ex...@cal-sailing.org and we'll try to get you a tour and ride!