Coming Home

Just a quick post launch update… We spent about a week after the launch tied up at the pier at our Mare Island build site finishing up details prior to the trip home. The boat certainly feels much more at home in the water than she did on blocks on the pier. We spent most of week commissioning the plumbing systems, and putting all the basics onboard for the trip down to Sausalito. This is about a 25 mile trip and was a good shakedown for the propulsion related systems. After some basic dock trials and a quick run around Mare Island Straits we were good to go. Our good friends Chris and Inka from Galilee harbor met us in the harbor Skiff and acted as chase boat for the first few miles. Once we got down into San Pablo bay, things were running so well that we had everyone ride home on Kama Hele, towing the skiff behind. We arrived at Galillee Harbor about 3 hours later to a very nice homecoming with all our friends and neighbors. The boat handled great and after getting comfortable with the pivot point and turn rate, maneuvering with the single screw and big rudder was predictable and drama free. We ran this first trip at 1700rpm on average, which gave us between 7 and 10 knots (varied with the current at the change of the tide). Our fuel burn was 2.5-2.75 gallons per hour at this speed. A Couple of weeks after this, we ran back to Mare Island to meet a fuel truck back at the build site (50 mile round trip) so we could get some diesel in the tanks. On this trip we were able to play with the speed and fuel burn a little more. There seems to be a sweet spot at 1250-1300 rpm where we are running 6.5-7kts and only burning about 1.5 gallons per hour. At this speed the boat feels like she is just coasting along with little effort and very little noise and vibration from the engine and running gear. With a sail rig up I think this may be a very good motor-sailing speed. Fueling went fine with no issues with the plumbing or tanks. The single camlock fill pipe and manifold system worked as planned and the big 1” tank vents (two per tank) allowed us to fill at a pretty quick rate (up to 80 gal per minute). We are now carrying about 80% of our total fuel capacity of 1580 gallons. The boat trims pretty nicely with the fuel divided among all 6 storage tanks and we still look to have decent capacity for stores and cargo. Now that we're home, our pace of work on the boat has slowed as we attempt to get back to a more "normal" lifestyle. We've been doing a lot of little domestic projects lately and I’ll post some pictures of those soon.