Rendezvous With Destiny

This past weekend (Friday 9-10 to Sunday 9-12) was tonsafun.  Saturday morning was the Rock Hall IP Rendezvous so we made reservations for a transient slip at Osprey Point Marina for Friday and Saturday night.  On Friday we got all packed up and ready to go by 1100, fired up the engine and did a quickie visual inspection of the engine compartment to make sure everything was alright.  It wasn't.  There's a fiberglass basin underneath the engine with a throwaway pad in it that's supposed to collect any drips and leaks.  The pad showed quite a bit of pink fluid and when I lifted it I found a puddle.  This is not good.  I opened up all the access panels and searched for leaks, ran my hand all over the parts of the engine that I couldn't see and didn't find a thing.  I'm not very familiar with a diesel engine yet so I asked our neighbor if he'd take a look.  Gayle is a longtime live-aboard and has probably seen it all.  He and his friend Mike came over and quickly confirmed that it was a coolant leak.  We checked over everything; engine, tranny, hot water heater.  Couldn't find a thing.  I cleaned up the mess and we decided that it'd be best to just keep an eye on it.

So, we finally got outa there at 1400, pretty late start for going to Rock Hall which is about a 6 hour trip for us.  We made good time though and crossed under the Bay Bridge at 1730.  We continued by sail until we were off Love Point which forms the western shore of the entrance to the Chester River.  The wind was slowly clocking around to the North, the direction we wanted to go, and we were still a ways out from Rock Hall so we fired up the engine and motored the rest of the way in.  We were greeted  into Swan Creek by a beautiful sunset and made it into the marina just as it got dark.  Perfect timing.

Saturday morning, as part of the "Rendezvous", there was a race scheduled to start at 1000. This was supposed to be a "fun" race and serious competition was not encouraged.  My cousin Steve, his wife Vicki and their son Brandon volunteered as crew and showed up smartly at 0830.  We quickly reviewed how the winches work and what to look for in a properly set sail.  We also discussed how best to humiliate the competition and opted for the water canon over the paint ball gun.  We showed up on time (Tom on time - that should go in the record books), raised the sails and practiced sail control and coming about.  With the wind coming out of the NW I knew we were going to have to jibe around the marker at mid course so we went over that too.  A jibe is when you're sailing with the wind coming from behind you and you change course, causing the sails to swing over to the other side.  The biggest concern is for the mainsail because of the boom and the weight involved and the possibility of damage to equipment and personnel.  Another concern in a jibe is how to get the genoa over to the other side. We wanted to reef it in almost all the way and then let it out the other side once we were on the new course. That was our plan and we practiced this before the start of the race.  There are 2 kinds of jibes - controlled and uncontrolled.  I was hoping for the controlled type.

The race was run in classes by the size/model # of the boat; 28 - 30, 35,38 - 40, 42 + 420, 44, and 485.  Or something like that.  Classes were released five minutes apart, starting with the 28 - 30 boats.  The start was kinda humorous because the wind was pretty much non-existent, between zero and maybe two knots out of the NW, and everyone just kinda ghosted along.  It was in this first leg that we made our best progress and ghosted from the back of the pack to the middle.  Brandon made it all happen by going up forward and poling out the genoa with a boat hook.  As we approached the first turn the wind started to pick up.  The next leg required a tack at about the midpoint because the wind direction prevented us from heading directly for the mark, R4.  It was difficult to gauge when to turn back towards the mark.  Several boats misjudged it and had to tack a second time, causing them to fall back in the pack.  We cut it so close I was a little concerned we'd come back with some red paint on our hull.  As we rounded R4 we performed our controlled jibe but the genoa didn't cooperate and we lost some time here.  The run back to GC #1 was before the wind and very slow.  At one point we were so close to another boat we could have boarded her.  Woulda been a great time to break out the water canon but we were too busy eating and talking to waste time with such foolishness.  After finally drifting around GC #1 we came into the wind and returned to the start/finish line close-hauled and moving right along.  We crossed the line behind 5 or 6 other boats.   At the banquet afterward we dined on some excellent crabcakes, guzzled some cold beer and proudly accepted a "first in class" trophy for our efforts. Woohooo!  The overall winner was John Hellwege's Dad on an IP 44.  This was his 3rd time winning the cup, a beautiful colored glass trophy that gets handed down each year.  Next year Hellwege's goin' down!  Steve and his family returned with us to the boat afterward and stayed until sunset.  We talked about the day, teased Bella endlessly and drank a toast to teamwork.  Here's a link (race pics) to more pictures from the race.

Sunday morning we awoke to rain beating on the deck overhead.  We showered at the excellent facilities ashore and had quiche, fruit and coffee for breakfast at the Osprey Point Inn.  We were on our way by 0930 with a brisk wind and heavy mist.  Once out on the Bay it became very disorienting because you couldn't see the shore and the wind and waves kept knocking us off course.  We were supposed to be on a 210 degree heading but every time you looked at the compass it had drifted off by about 30 degrees.  It got to the point where we weren't trusting the compass.  When we finally got off Love Point we stopped the engine and checked the wind.  Twenty knots.  We put up the sails and blasted all the way home.  We still couldn't see anything until we were practically on top of it though and actually shot right through the large ship parking lot just below the bridge and almost sailed into Annapolis.  When I finally saw a marker I realized we had gone too far West and turned up into the wind as tight as I could.  We held a course of 195 degrees the rest of the way home with the wind and waves constantly trying to drive us onto the shore.  It was a wild ride, heeled over at 20 degrees most of the time and making 7.5 to 8 knots.  We cruised into Herrington Harbour at 1440 in record time, just a hair over 5 hours.

Throughout the weekend we continued to check the engine compartment for leaks and never found even a drop of engine coolant.  ???  We did find another leak though.  When we were heeled over our 2.5 gallon water bottle (plastic) went flying.  At start of flight it was full.  When we found it there was only about a gallon of water left in it.  It took a while to clean up but at least it wasn't maple syrup or something like that.

All in all, we had a great weekend.  It was really nice to spend time with my cousin and his family, we enjoyed our first race, we got to meet some of the other IP owners and we had some really excellent sailing.  Life is good.

Dang Me, Oughta Take a Rope....

This past weekend was packed fairly full. We started off on Friday with Hurricane Earl bearing down on the East Coast. As of Thursday night it, he?, she?, was off the coast of Virginia, straight out from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. The storm's course was projected to take it pretty far off the coast and our area was expected to get rain with winds up to 50 knots. Still, these were projections and hurricanes have been known to do whatever they please, no matter what the meteorologist says. I kept a close watch on the storm, getting updates on it's location every few hours and it did indeed appear to be headed out away from the coastline. We made use of Cheri's new dock-lines and doubled them up with the old ones. We cleared the decks of anything that might be capable of taking flight in high winds but we decided not to remove the dodger or bimini covers for the cockpit. I did lock down the solar panels using their wire tie downs but doing this made me keenly aware of the amount of weight that is supported by the aluminum frame for the bimini. The whole thing would probably take off like a kite in hurricane force winds.

So we were prepared for a good blow and half expected to see some kind of storm surge. What we got was an overcast day with an occasional drizzle and winds as high as 3 knots. Not even good sailing weather.

We spent Saturday clearing out our second storage shed in our attempt to downsize even more. This storage is about 20 minutes from the boat, not really convenient but it is dry. We've been using it for a backup until we could clear out some of the stuff left over from living in the house. Our primary storage shed is in Deale, about 2 minutes from the boat but it's located in a bug infested field with ticks and fleas and mice. And mud. We plan to reduce our stuff even more and move what's left into a temperature controlled spot near Annapolis. Convenient?  Not at all but at this point I think we'll be down to seasonal things and won't be needing access to it so often.

We've been watching movies on our cool-man Mac mini in the main salon. We both felt the need for a little more comfort and thought a good ottoman would really fit the bill. We found a nice one at Bed, Bath and Beyond that's just the right height for propping up your feet and also provides good storage for Cheri's sewing machine with room to spare. The padded lid even flips over and turns into a coffee table top with fiddles (raised edges) to prevent stuff from sliding off.  Perfect!  This thing just might replace the table in the main salon.  We didn't have room for the four folding boxes that came with it so we tossed two and will hang onto the others just in case we find a purpose for them.  We plan to strap this baby down to one of the settees when we're underway.  It weighs about 30 pounds empty and would make quite a projectile in a knockdown.

Sunday we had our friends Anthony and Luzma join us for a sail. They arrived around 0930 and we sat around and talked until about 1100 before heading out. Once out on the Bay we found pretty good winds, about 12 knots out of the SSE. We decided to head up to Thomas Point Light so they could check it out. Along the way the wind varied from about 12 knots to zero point nada. It was odd, all or nothing. We'd be barreling along, having a great time and then all of a sudden it would just stop blowing and we'd coast for about 10 or 15 minutes. Then it would pick up again. Went like that all day. Luzma is from Peru and brought along some great food, stuff I couldn't pronounce but would definitely eat again. Mmm mmm mmmm. All in all we had a really nice visit and a decent day on the water. We got back to the dock around 1800 and had coffee and a shot of Amaretto di Amore liqueur. This is our new tradition to top off a good day of sailing. We met Anthony and Luzma when we were in the midst of selling everything we owned in preparation for moving aboard. They bought a chair we had advertised on Craigslist and then came back and helped us all day at the garage sale and continued to help us through the most frantic parts of moving out. They are wonderful people, true friends.

Monday we again had some friends come by for a sail. This time Sharon and Fred Carr joined us from Silver Spring. Sharon is Cheri's music teacher and Fred is the assistant Pastor at our church. They helped us out last month by letting us stay in their home while they were on vacation up in Canada during the final week our boat was being repaired. When we stayed at their place we noticed a buncha pictures of lighthouses so we thought it'd be good to run by Thomas Point Light (again) and Bloody Point Light on the other side of the Bay (the picture here is of Bloody Point Light before the 1960 fire and explosion that brought it's useful life to an end). Winds for this day were projected to be about 2 knots so we were planning to have to motor our way around. When we got past the breakwater though, we found that there was some good wind out there. It was blowing out of the SSE and we started out for Bloody Point.  When got out into the middle of the Bay I gave it some thought and realized that if we returned from Thomas Point to Herring Bay we'd be tacking the whole way, making for a longer trip.

With that in mind we changed our course and sailed on a "broad reach" up to the South River. Sailing with the wind coming from behind can be uncomfortable because you're traveling with the wind and not getting much cooling effect. You're also traveling with the waves and the boat tends to roll a lot. Sharon started feeling queezy shortly after we came to this new course and we sent her up on deck for some fresh air. This helped and she was feeling better before too long. As we got close enough to see the lighthouse we found about 3 different sailboat races going on in the area and decided not to interfere. We changed course to 115 degrees magnetic and headed East across the Bay. We were now sailing on a "close reach" on a "starboard tack" (aargh, sounds so nautical, can I hear ya say "lardy dar"?). The wind was holding nicely through the afternoon and had in fact increased to about 25 knots. Seas were getting a bit choppy. Fred tossed his cookies and we decided to reduce sail and try to make things more comfortable for our guests. We doused the genoa and ran under a full main and staysail. As we approached the Eastern Shore we crossed the original channel of the Susquehanna River with a depth of 175' (Chesapeake Bay Chart). Approaching the eastern side of this natural channel the depth quickly goes to about 9' so we came about and headed back across the Bay, this time "close hauled" on a "port tack". Now we were headed on a course of 240 degrees magnetic which should take us directly into Herring Bay but it also brings us about 45 degrees off the wind and the waves, which makes for some pretty lively sailing. The wind is now blowing a steady 30 knots and the waves were building up pretty big. We buried the bow at one point. We had wind howling and spray flying and poor Fred was puking on a regular basis. We rode like this for about two and a half hours with steadily worsening conditions. Things didn't let up until we rounded red #2 in Herring Bay which lines us up with the entrance to Herrington Harbour. By the time we got back to the slip Fred had lost about 25 pounds but he was feeling much better. We sat in the cockpit with coffee, Amaretto and cookies and talked about our day.

I gotta admit that I had mixed feelings about this day.  Fred and Sharon are dear friends and we wanted this trip to be a "thank-you" gift for all they did for us so we really felt terrible that it was so rough on them, Fred especially. On the other hand, this was some really rockin' sailing, wild and woolly and I thoroughly enjoyed that part of it. No, I didn't prolong the trip and Fred's misery just so I could enjoy the day. When he first started feeling bad we were already at the farthest point from home. Should we have returned under power? It wouldn't have bought us anything. We would have been on the same course, at the same angle to the wind and waves and I seriously doubt we would have made better speed. I guess the real question is would I have prolonged it if I had the choice? Let me think on that for a while.  Somewhere it's probably written down in some ancient book that if you make your Pastor puke then you're gonna go to Hell.  I'm pretty sure about this.

On our sail home from Rock Hall on 8-29 we encountered a problem with the mainsail and were unable to unfurl it (click here to read the original entry). I resolved the furling problem a few days later. The main halyard isn’t supposed to be under tension. When I eased up on it I was able to slowly unfurl the sail all the way with my hand by turning the furling mechanism inside the mast at the bottom of the sail. The mainsail was rolled up loosely inside the mast and pockets of sail were being pulled out through the slot. As I saw this happening I would re-furl the sail just enough to get it back inside the slot and then continue unrolling it. Once I had the entire sail out I adjusted the topping lift a bit tighter to get the boom just above horizontal. With this done I was able to furl the sail using the line from the cockpit and it worked beautifully. I maintained just a bit of tension on the out-haul as I furled the sail and it went in very nicely.

John Hellwege of Gratitude Yachting clued me in on the mainsail halyard being over-tightened as the main cause of this problem. He said the second biggest cause is an aged sail which will stretch and sag at the outer edge (leech).  Sails can be re-cut to correct this problem and extend their life.

My other problem was the sump pump for the forward shower.  I found a nice replacement for it from Jabsco (p/n 37202-2012).  I put it in and found that the real problem was that the power line was shorted and the voltage was drifting between 2 - 13 VDC.  This was causing the original pump motor, the old lump of rust, to overheat because it didn't have enough umph to crank the pump.  I thought it was shorted windings and didn't bother to check things any further.  My bad.  I haven't had enough time to trace out the wire all the way but I do know the problem is under the forward bunk because I've traced it from the switch to the bunk on one side and the pump to the bunk on the other side.  Hmmm.  Let me see now.  The most recent work done on the boat was also at the forward bunk.  Coincidence?  I don't think so.