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.