Just got back from landsailing on the Alvord Desert in SE Oregon, big fun! If you boys ever get an opportunity to try it, take it! All the adrenaline of cat sailing, with even greater acceleration and top end. In beautiful surroundings! Warm!!! So the Stealth's season ended a few weeks before I'd planned. Big wind day, 20+, screamed around under main alone for an hour or so, and in a big lull, decided to launch the spin. Ran outa lake quickly, messed up the jibe, crashed, popped it back up quickly(righting pole, I'm 160 lbs), but not before drifting broadside into dense lily pads. Wind's now back up, and I'm plowing sideways into the vegetation, mainsheet fully out, unable to steer or leave the windward side to try and clear the foils. Finally jumped into the the morass and pulloed the bows thru the wind, reboarded, and continue to harvest downwind, but at least I'm drifting back towards open water. Eventually got everything cleared, and blasted around for another 20 minutes before noticing all was not well with the steering. Both bolts on the lower port gudgeon sheared 1/8" below the surface of the transom. Obviously, the side loads exerted by the weeds as the boat was forced thru them weakened the bolts. Now I need to remove the remaining bolts from the nuts/plate securing them. Unfortunately, the boat appears to have spend afair amount of it's life in salt water, so I don't expect them to come willingly. And stainless is such a bear to drill, and to do an easy out requires a fair size hole, accurately drilled. I seem to have a lot of trouble with the hole drifting as I drill it. Can anyone reccomend a higher quality drill bit? Or alternative to removing the bolt bits? There's no access ports on the stern unfortunately, and its a highly curved deck there. I do plan to work on the hull this winter and repaint the boat. The other issue is the lower gudgeon is bent. Might be fixable, but I'd rather have a new one. I don't recognize the manufacturer, it's in one of the pics, the Stealth is British, and I will ask John about a source. But does anyone know of a supplier stateside that might have it? It looks like an aluminum extrusion with an insert. Definitely not the boat's fault this time. My biggest regret when it broke, was that I was missing the rest of a great sailing day! Too few left this season(see reference to dirt boating!).
