My O’Day 22 Sailboat Blog

Zay is selling his O’Day 22 slipped in Lake Cachuma just north of Santa Barbara. He’s asking $2000 but it does not have a trailer. Which is the reason why he is selling his boat in the first place. He sails this boat a couple days a week and has brand new running rigging as well as the relocated mainsheet mod mentioned in an earlier post.

If you are looking for a great little sailboat and you live around the Santa Barbara area, go and check this one out.

Santa Barbara Craig’s List Link

Last weekend I took the Walker Bay dinghy home and rinsed her down a little. This little boat is pretty great. Since its completely made of plastic it means it will be around years after I kick it. A little garden hose cleaned it right up after a few months of neglect in dry storage. The O’Day is not so fortunate as I have had to spend a couple of days getting her ready for the summer. Even then there are still some more work to do before she will be ready.

I decided to take the dingy out for a little row in the harbor while I had a couple hours free on Sunday afternoon. The Ventura harbor is relatively small but has a pretty decent shopping right along the docks. I rowed between the banks and the boat docks right next to the restaurants and shops and saw some cool photo ops. Here are some I decided to share with you.

My view at the middle seat

The famous Dragon Lady Junk Boat at Ventura Harbor

The calm and smooth water between the banks and the boat docks

Look at these cute little swallows in a nest under the gangways!!

I pulled up to the public fishing dock at Marina Park at the other end of the harbor and took a photo of the dinghy. The boat docks near the center is owned by the city of Ventura and they offer both adult and youth sailing programs.

Jose from Santa Barbara whom I mentioned in a previous post has sent me some photos of his mainsheet relocation project. I have been wanting to do this but just have not had time to complete other projects on my priority list. His mod looks pretty nice and apparently works well for him. He agreed to let me repost the email he sent me along with photos of the mod. Here you go:

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I am attaching two photos of the mainsheet relocation to the center of the cockpit. I actually have not yet installed the traveller. I wanted to see how this would work, and also the $160 for the little car and track sort of put me off. as it is I do not think that will make much of a difference speed wise. My design, however, will accommodate the track and eventually I will add it to it. But for now I will spend that money on things more usefull, like the jiffy reefing controls.

I also got you a picture of my new companionway. Regular plywood, TONS of polyurethane, seems to be holding!

Last Sunday I chartered a Catalina 320 out of Long Beach with a few friends for the day. Anticipating the Catalina Island trip, I decided to take the same boat which we will be taking in July for a test run. Having never sailed out of the Long Beach/San Pedro/LA Harbor before (which i learned to be the worlds biggest harbor), I thought it would be prudent to get some experience under my belt before the crossing.

Lance on the helm

Long Beach harbor is indeed very big. Just getting out of the harbor took over 30 minutes. There were 5 of us on the boat with 3 who had little to no sailing experience. That meant the first couple hours of the trip had to be a sailing 101 crash course. They caught on real quick and we were headed out to sea.

The LA Harbor receives 10% of all the freight traffic around the world and is responsible for most of the import/export of good in the West Coast. That meant we had to play frogger with the tankers all morning until we were clear of the shipping lanes. The shipping lanes merge at the harbor so in order to clear them we had to travel nearly 12 nautical miles out before we are safe. Luckily by the time the tankers are near LA Harbor, they are practically sitting still waiting for orders from the tugboats so the traffic was not overly dangerous.

Having checked out the boat and underway around 9:45AM, we had very little wind for a few hours. We had some relaxing time ghosting along in 5 knots of wind while listening to music and playing the guitar.

Typically the wind comes out of the west but this past Sunday, we had a south wind in the morning and a northwest in the afternoon so we had to sail upwind going in and out. When the wind picked up in the afternoon we had some exciting sailing going at hull speed with reefed main and jib.

On the way we saw a couple of schools of dolphins and a few curious ones came very close to us for a nice photo op. We also had a few gulls following us along on the way back ready to drop bombs on us.

On the way in, my buddy Dan D. was on the helm and we were cruising at an exciting 6 and a half knots in a close reach with 10 knots of wind.

Here is a little video I shot while standing on the foredeck. Note the shot of the GPS to show the speed of the boat.

We got back in the the slip at around 7pm. I felt pretty good about the trip and very much looking forward to the 3 day trip coming up in July to Catalina Island.

A fellow O’Day 22 sailor in my local area has been sailing his sloop in the beautiful lake Cachuma just north of Santa Barbara. It is between Santa Barbara and the Santa Ynez Valley known for its world class vineyards. It’s already great to hear from other people to see where they sail and what they have done to their boat. Jose, the boat owner, has relocated the mainsheet to the middle of the cockpit with a traveler which is a project I plan on tackling sometimes soon. The sailing season is here so go out there and have some fun!!!