Sidewinder Self Bailer basics

Greetings to all. I purchased a Sidewinder last fall and spent some of the warmer winter days getting it and it's trailer in shape to register and put on the water. I know nothing about sailing and hope to use this sleek little craft to learn. My questions concern the self bailer. I have never had the sailboat in the water and would like to know the following:
1. Should water come in when the boat is not moving and the bailer is closed? If so, about how deep will it get around your feet?
2. Based upon how the hull is built/designed, is there any possibility of water getting between the floor and bottom of the hull or are these one and the same thing?
3. I don't seem able to force the bailer pull (black plastic in the attached photo) all of the way up so that it will torate to the left in the slot in it's sleeve. It makes it most of the way...just another 16th of an inch would do it but I don't want to pull so hard that I break the bailer. Is this a concern? It stays up fairly well once pulled up.

[www.sailmfg.com]
[www.sailmfg.com]

I have to apologize about the photo. I have never posted to a forum before and I can't figure out how it's done. I tried simply pasting the image within the text frame but that didn't work. Can someone please explain how it is done? I ran a search on how to include a photo in this forum and it came up empty.
Thank you,

Russell
Brighton, Colorado
Sidewinder 215



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2012 04:49PM by Russell.

HI Russel,

Quote:

[url=link]the link text[/url]
Or
[img]the image link[/img]

I do not have a Sidewinder. In a perfect world, your bailers will not leak.

Thank you for the info Dale. I'll try linking the images via the method you show above. I have never done this before so t might take me a few tries to get it right.

Hi Russell,

You are local to me. I live in Arvada. If I can help.....

Paul
Webmaster: sailmfg.com

Paul, Thank you for the offer. I had my boat out on Barr lake for the first time and the bailer did leak. I will look into getting a new one. After sailing for about 1 hour or so, I had about 1 1/2" to 2" of water around the self bailer. I never got going fast enough to allow the self bailer to suck out the water. Winds were very light and that was just fine for me since it was the first time I have ever been sailing. I was very nervous the entire time about getting knocked over but I enjoyed it none the less. Hopefully I can do it again next weekend. As to your offer of help, if you are amenable, I may bring my boat around some time to show you how the main sheet is rigged. Pictures might work too. The hardware that came with the sailboat is not original equipment and I think I have the main sheet rigged correctly, but it would be nice to have someone with experience to tell me if it looks right to them.

Russell
Brighton, Colorado
Sidewinder 215