Tolman Owner's Gathering PNW 2006

[ TOG_06 PNW Photos ]

The second PNW Tolman Owner's Gathering (TOG, if you count the launching of Stephen's Jumbo as the first...) was a lot of fun. We had five Jumbo's represented including Ray & Anne's diesel Jumbo. Dave Wright brought his standard down and we all braved the 100+ degree heat Sunday afternoon for a TOG potluck. Yes Bruce, there was fresh blueberry pie as well as cheesecake and lots of other good stuff too. Be sure to see the photo of Jesse M. who came prepared to guard his steaks against any clear and present danger.

Dave's standard and our Jumbo were the only boats venturing downriver so after giving everyone rides Sunday afternoon we headed across the river to anchor out for the night. We ended up rafting up to the WSC docs that were waiting to be relocated and we had a much-needed evening swim to cool off.

On Monday morning we headed towards the Columbia, traveling through downtown Portland and the Multnomah slough. This was a slower route but it offered lots of things to look at and it kept us out of the larger waves on the Columbia proper.

Dave's standard had no problem cruising along at about 20mph. He put up his Bimini top and kept his cool even when the temperature hovered above 100 again. We spent the afternoon swimming on Sand Island at the state marine park there and had pizza delivered to the dock. Talk about roughing it! ;-)

It was getting windy as evening wore on and Dave decided to head back up the slough for a more protected anchorage. We were nestled in a corner slip and had a breezy but quiet night on Sand Island. In the morning Dave was heading back via some more exploring and we spent the day with our daughter swimming and goofing off. Later that night we dropped off our daughter in town and made the 45 mile trip to Cathlamet in about two hours.

On the way to Cathlamet we had to round Cape Horn. It's not named that by accident. We were able to handle the substantial (3-4ft. chop) during most of the trip at about 20mph but we had to slow down rounding the horn. We took at least one sheet of solid spray over the bow. I don't think the stem went under but the two holes I have up there for the painter and drainage acted like water cannons and we gave our lexan windows a good cleaning.

The next day we went on down to Astoria taking advantage of the last couple of hours of an outgoing tide. It was nice to cover the distance in just a couple of hours that we usually take 5-6 hours in our sailboat. Roy & Anne met us there the next day along with our kids. We did some usual sight-seeing and had a nice time then headed back up to Cathlamet on the last couple of hours of the incoming tide. Again, we were spending less than two hours on the water when we usually would have spent 4-5.

Lessons learned:
The Jumbo is GREAT for this kind of stuff. We were warm and dry all day and night. Regardless of how snotty the chop was, and it can get pretty snotty in Astoria Bay, we were able to keep up our speed and we did the whole trip (240 miles) using less than 50 gallons of gas. With our two tanks holding about 40 gallons each at the beginning of the trip, we had fuel to spare. The jumbo gave us a comfortable ride and the Suzuki 140 gave us great fuel economy with power to spare. Our best cruising speed seemed to be at about 4100 rpm which was about 23-25 mph depending on wind and how much fuel we had.

The standard was doing well too, especially for the gunkholing kind of exploring Dave was doing. It would have slowed down in the larger chop in the lower river but I don't think Dave would have had any difficulty.

Both boats had something to keep folks out of the sun. Dave had a nice Bimini top and we had our pilot house. Having the tops of the pilot house and cuddy both insulated kept us cool. I think that makes a real difference.