|
|
Well we took Sea Puppy out racing today.. I thought I was going to be the race committe today but Chapel and her husband were in town and volunteered to do it. 🙂 so I got to race Sea Puppy.
I was supposed to have lots of crew and most of them ended up not showing up. Miriam was the only one left with me when we left the dock and because of her surgery she couldn’t help sail… It was looking more like a casual solo race for me than anything really competitive. Once we got out there though we took aboard Richard off the committe boat. He had helped Chapel and husband as well as her niece and friend get the committe boat out and the course set prior to the race. Chapels niece and friend were starting to get sea sick on the committe boat which was anchored so I took them onboard also ( the perked up after getting moving again.)
Again I was supposed to have a full boat.. I had invited some friends out and they called saturday evening and canceled. Then I invited my neighboor and his wife that have the slip next to me to go out and they said yes but canceled at the last minute. I ended going out with Mark a newer member of the club that was at breakfast.
We put sails up just outside the intrance to the marina and sailed the five miles down the waterway to the inlet and onto the ocean. Winds on the ocean were running 15 to 18 through early afternoon and then picked up to 20 to 22 mid afternoon when we were headed back in. Once out on the ocean we headed torward southport and ran about 6 or 7 miles up the coastline and then back.
With the new head sail arrangement I didn’t feel as if Sea Puppy were overpowering and wanting to head up quite as soon as she used to. Mabye the slight change in rake is responcible for that or maybe the fact that I put a lot of bend in the mast with the backstay adjuster when the wind started to really kick, as well as pulling in on the cunningham and flattening reef to flatten out the main. I would say the wind was 18 to 20 when we finally put a reef in the main and running a little more than 20 when we pulled the jib into 100% down from 150%. We didn’t reef the jib because we felt we needed to but simply because I had not tried sailing her with the roller furling reefed before and wanted to see how the sail set. I was very impressed. The luff of the sail has the foam strips sewn on to help with furled sail shape as well as the furler being designed to take one whole wrap in the middle of the sail before it starts pulling in on the foot. Between the two I had a very decent sail shape when brought down to 100%.
I got up this morning after spending the night on Sea Puppy in her slip and stuck my head out. It was still early though light. There was no breeze at all and the water in the marina was like glass. I grabbed my camera and took a few shots.. Here are a couple that I particularly liked.
24745
24735
Permanent link to this post (61 words, 0 images, estimated 15 secs reading time)
Well I was supposed to have a full boat today.. but everyone cancelled out on me. So I went out by myself 🙂 All the work I have put in changing the running rigging and controlls is really paying off. Sea Puppy is now very easy to single hand.
The wind was blowing around 10 to 12 knots off the coast and the seas were minimal at about 1 to 2 feet.
I sailed for a little while then came in and anchored out with LC Marie and Lickety Split… We spent the afternoon scrubbing our boats bottoms and hanging out. Nice time…
I installed a new cam cleat on the starboard cabin top for the new topping lift I installed in the mast. I used it this weekend sailing and it works like a champ. I also replaced the old cam cleat on the port side cabin top. It was getting old and the bearings in it were crumbling away.
24709
24703
It was not easy installing the new one on starboard.. I couldn’t reach where the bolts came down through the cabin top. It was several inches up under the fiberglass headliner. In the end I drilled a couple 5/8ths inch holes through the headliner to get the nuts on the bolts coming down from above. The replacement one on port was also difficult to get to the nuts on it because of the headliner.. However I was able to flex it down and use a needle nose pair of vise grips to grab them and then unscrew the bolt from above.. Time to install starboard one 1.5 hours… it was a bear even with the holes in the headliner.. Time to replace port one about 20 minutes.. though not easy it went in quickly. I bedded both of them with 3M 4200. Oh and in case you are wondering the one on port is used for the spinnaker pole lift.
Permanent link to this post (221 words, 0 images, estimated 53 secs reading time)
Oh my, my, my… what a beautifull day.. I woke up about 7am to 69 degree air and blue blue skies. It felt good. I got working and got the roller furling finished and the stantion base replaced between waking up and just after breakfast. See last post for that story.
I invited Mike and Cary to go sailing with me and Hans but Carey had vehicle issues and Mike was getting ready to leave the country for work. So it was just me and Hans…
The forcast was for 15 to 20 knots of wind and around 4ft seas.. what we got were 12 to 14 knots of wind and maybe 2ft seas.. We had a great time. The roller furling worked great.. the smaller furling line plus the new hardware to handle it worked increadably well. There was no snarled up line at the furling drum and the sail went in and out with ease. We were out for around 6 hours. 🙂 what a nice day.. the temp was in the mid 80’s and the wind was blowing.. lots of high fluffy clouds that gave some shade throughout the day.
I got back in from anchoring out this morning and went to breakfast with other members of the sailing club. I planned to get up with hans and go sailing.
After breakfast I went down to the boat and started putting the fairleads on the stantions on the port side of sea puppy and also the turning block with cam cleat attached to the toerail on port to secure the furling line….
Hans showed up about then and sat down on the dock as I got the two fairleads on and the small stantion mounted block roughly mounted.. About then the clouds which had been closing in all morning started to mist rain over us. Gradually increasing to a heavier steady rain. Hans had big golf umbrela he put up and I rigged the umbrella I keep on the boat to the main sheet and boom so I could sit in the hatch and stay dry. We sat and talked and watched the ran come down over the marina for a couple hours. 🙂 another cup of hot chocolate went down nicely as well as we sat there.
I got down to the boat about 7:30 or 8:00 pm and it was still light out. So just spur of the moment I decided to motor out to waities island and anchor out for the evening.
One of those deep seated needs/desires of mine is to do this sort of thing. Only I always seem to just end up doing the day trips going out and sailing. When I invite people out they always need to be back to make that date in the evening or take care of the dogs or any one of a thousand things that people are responcible for. I understand it and even have my things that I have to go do in lieu of hanging out on the boat sometimes, but this evening I didn’t have anything and there was no one else to worry about. Talk about that feeling of ultimate freedom..
This is a preview of 2006 August 11th anchoring out for the night at waities island . Read the full post (1244 words, 0 images, estimated 4:59 mins reading time)
Well this morning before going to breakfast I rigged up the lazy jacks and tested them out.. No pictures yet but I think they will be a big help… one thing I don’t like is that with them on you can’t get a neat flake on the boom.. however they do mostly contain the sail to get it down quick if not super neat and tied down. When not in use they pull out of the way under the boom and down the side of the mast.
Permanent link to this post (88 words, 0 images, estimated 21 secs reading time)
So this morning after sleeping on Sea Puppy last night I went to breakfast with Hans, Breck and Angela. We spent the requisite one and a half hours over breakfast 🙂 and then Hans and I went and helped Breck run a couple of lines through new blocks he put just over the spreaders on his mast. Hans went up the mast in the bosuns chair to feed the lines through… Hans being Hans couldn’t not ham it up so here are the pictures to prove it 🙂
24485
Judy and I went out on Sea Puppy yesterday afternoon… we got a late start and there was no wind and mild thunderstorms rolling in. We kept hoping it would get better but after getting drizzled on several times and then after we got to the jetties having a thunderstorm go over we decided to just anchor up for a while and kick back with a couple of mugs of hot chocolate… . I really recomend swiss miss chocolate sensations instant hot chocolate.. if you make it really strong it is to die for 🙂
After going to a job this morning I came down to little river and met Judy about noon.. there wasn’t really any wind so we hung out with Breck on Runnaway for a while then went to lunch with Breck, Patty and Hans.
After lunch …. a long and late lunch… we went back to sea puppy and headed out… halfway to the inlet it started to drizzel on us but we were detirmined… on we went… after gettin to the inlet we stopped the motor and realized there was no wind at all… then a thunder storm rolled over and rained on us and gave a little wind but not much.. within a few minutes I decided to just go back in the inlet and anchor out for a while.. so we headed in and anchored up behind bird island. the thunderstorms had brought some much cooler air, to the point that we were getting cold.. I only had one foul weather jacket on board so judy got that.. I need to remember to keep more of them on board even in summer.
|
|
Recent Comments