If It Wasn't For Bad Luck.....

My daughter and son-in-law came out to visit last week and we decided to go out for a day-sail on Friday.  It just happened to be Friday the 13th but I don't give credence to those kinda things.  At least, I didn't used to.

You see, it all started out good and went downhill quickly.  We departed the marina around 1330 and sailed out to the Bay under really great conditions.  Wind was blowing 12 to 18 knots out of the NNW so we cut across the Bay under full main and genoa, 6 to 7.5 knots the entire way on pretty much a broad reach.  We made such good time we decided to run to the end of Eastern Bay and then figure out what we wanted to do beyond that.  Anchor out?  Head home?

As we approached the entrance to Crab Alley Bay Cheri mentioned something about a loose line flapping around the mainsail.  Huh?  I looked up and saw the topping lift had parted from the end of the boom.  Again.  This happened once or twice before and I was really, really sure I had fixed it.  Guess not.  One time the line had actually parted, broken, so we replaced it with new stuff.  Another time the shackle came loose.

I had a snap shackle on there and thought that would work fine but I guess with the variety of stresses at this point it's not really a good place for a snap shackle.  I need to give this some thought and research a better fitting.  Duh.

We turned up into the wind, furled the genoa and fired up the engine to keep the boat pointed into the wind without making too much headway.  So the line is flying around about 15' off the deck.  I tried to snag it with a boat hook and with my arm fully extended it was about 2" short.  Chris, our son-in-law is about 6" taller than me so he got the next shot at it.  Still no go because with the wind and the waves the line was moving around too much.  We tried wrapping duct tape around the end of the pole with the sticky side out but that didn't work either.  It finally dawned on me to let the topping lift all the way out and pull the line up against the mast to stabilize it.  I climbed up onto the mast pulpit, held the snap shackle against the mast and finally slipped the boat hook through the end and pulled the line down to the deck.  Chris then reached up through the zipper in the Bimini and re-attached the topping lift to the end of the boom.  I think this whole operation took about an hour.  Seemed like a whole lot more though.

Since we wasted so much time playing around we decided to head back to the marina.  Had a wonderful return run, 8.3 knots heeled over at 15 degrees.  Flying!  By the time we got back to Herring Bay it was dark and the wind was blowing a steady 20 knots NNW.  Pulling into the slip required more use of the bow thruster than usual and just as we were about half way in it quit on a thermal overload.  Worse yet, all the lights and instruments started flashing on and off.  What the...?  I ran down below and shut off the breakers to prevent any damage and then resumed parking the boat.

Once we were in and got shore power connected I discovered we had no AC or DC power.  Huh?  We had power on one 30 amp circuit for the air conditioning but no power at the outlets.  When I checked the inverter controller I found a message saying the charger was dead.  It actually said that, that it was dead.  It was now going on 2200 so we broke out the flashlights and called it quits for the night.

The next day, Saturday, we had obligations to get together with family so I didn't get to work on this until later on Sunday.  I got out my DVM (digital volt meter) and started hunting down the problem.  No power at the DC panel.  No power at the main breaker.  I finally found 13 volts going into the big shut off switch for the house bank but nothing coming out.  That's gotta be the problem but it just doesn't make sense.  That switch is very simple, just a set of contacts on a rotating paddle.  What could go wrong?  I suspected this was the source of all our power problems but I wasn't sure about the "dead" inverter so I decided to have the dudes from MTS come take a look at it.  On Monday morning they called me and verified that the switch was bad but more importantly, they let me know that the inverter was OK.  Once they replaced the switch all power was restored with no other damage.  They didn't have an explanation for why the switch would have died but said they'd enjoy tearing it apart to find out.  Have at it.  Hopefully we'll have an answer next time I see them.

So my Friday the 13th was actually good and bad.  We had a great day of sailing with family and I truly enjoyed that.  The topping lift problem was a challenge but we all had fun trying to grab it and we enjoyed working on it together.  The power problem was a pain in the butt though.  We ended up going through the whole weekend without power, which also meant we had no water either.  Grrrrr.

Do I believe in good luck and bad luck?  No, not really.  It's more about about challenges I think, good or bad.  Of course, next time Friday the 13th rolls around I'll probably hide in a closet for the day and try to avoid some of those challenges.

Labor Day Weekend

 Map of Eastern Bay (click here).

At the beginning of September we had four days off, Friday through Monday.  Something to do with Labor Day.  I wanted to take all four days and head south to Tangier Island to do some exploring.  As it worked out that didn't work out.

We had things to take care of on Friday and by the time we got our act together it was 1630.  Knowing we were getting low on fuel I checked the tank and found it was down to 1/8.  If this was my car I'd be pulling into a gas station.  Our boat has a slightly larger tank, 160 gallons, which meant that we probably still had about 20 gallons which could reasonably last us until late February.  Thinking we were gonna take a long trip I would feel better with more so we added that to the list of things to do prior to leaving.  We departed from our slip and headed to Herrington Harbour South for fuel.  Cheri and I had heard separate weather reports neither of which agreed or supported our going south in any kind of hurry.

We motored over to the fuel dock to fill up.  I glanced at the wind sock as we approached and it indicated the wind coming out of the east.  I decided to get a line onto the bow and then drive the stern around to the dock.  As I made my move the wind shifted around to the south and caught me with the nose straight into the dock and the stern sticking out in the channel.  Cute.  I quickly used prop walk to bring the stern around the other way and we tied up properly at the dock.  Transferring 120 gallons of diesel takes a while and the hose didn't have a clip to hold it on so I sat there the entire time.  Final bill came to $419.06.  Yikes!

We cruised back out into Herring Bay at 1830.  We had maybe 1.5 hours of good light left and the wind was still blowing 15 knots out of the south.  Our new destination became the Rhoade River, about 2.5 hours to the north off the West River.  We thought we could anchor overnight and figure out where wanted to go from there.  Maybe north of the Bay Bridge to the Sassafrass River, home to my ancestors on the Eastern Shore.  That'd be cool.

We set our sails, main and genoa, as soon as we got out of Herrington South.  We settled onto a course of about 030 magnetic to keep us clear of the shallows off Shady Side.  We were zipping across Herring Bay at about 7 knots running on a broad reach.  Waves were low and lumpy about 3' to 4' coming from behind on our starboard quarter.  Sweet ride!  We were enjoying it so much Cheri suggested we can our plans and head across the Bay to the Wye River, our not-so-secret hide out.

I brought the boat around to 075 and we headed across the Bay on a beam reach.  Waves were hitting us on the side now but we were running at 8.3 knots.  Flying!  We made it across the Bay in no time, less than an hour, and continued up Eastern Bay at 7 to 7.5 knots.  Once past Kent Island the sun set and we continued on in darkness.  We sailed on in the moonless night, heeled over at about 10 degrees, quietly cutting through the water.  The shore lights mingled with other lights around us and we occasionally turned on the radar to confirm there were no other boats on the water.  We turned up into the wind as we came into the Miles River, furled the sails and continued on under power.  We arrived in Shaw Bay on the East Wye at 2130.  We shined the radar one last time to verify positions of boats already at anchor and wound our way through to a good location closer into shore.

This was a dark night with the moon not up yet (waning) and just the stars all around.  The lights on the shoreline were far enough away that they didn't provide any illumination.  The moon was waning, only 25.8718720226389% full that night.  Waxing?  Waning?  Yeah, we had to look it up.  If you can see the moon in the evening it's waxing (getting bigger).  If you see it at dawn or in the early morning it's waning (getting smaller).  Here's more...if the shadow is on the left side then it's waxing, on the right it's waning.  BTW - the shadow is not caused by the Earth, which would instead be an eclipse.  The moon is always lit up 50% by the Sun and the "phases" are due to the angle we see the moon from as it rotates around our rotating Earth.

With the anchor set I shined the flashlight down on the water around us.  I was greeted by 10,000 jelly fish.  Wave after wave of jelly fish.  It was incredible!  In a cubic foot of water there had to have been 100 jelly fish.  I've never seen anything like it.  Musta been a jelly fish convention. I googled it and found that there can be jelly fish "blooms" when the conditions are just right.  Usually in the Spring though.  I'm still thinking this was some kind of a convention.  Republican jelly fish or something.

Saturday we motored further up the river to our cove.  What to my wondering eyes did appear?  Three other boats already anchored here.  Bummer.  I think this is the first time we've come here and not had the place to ourselves.  I gotta admit, it is a fairly large cove and three or four boats are not going to get in each other's way.  I'd just come to think of it as my private get-away.  Guess it's time to search for another spot.

We settled in for the rest of the weekend.  Quiet, decent weather but no swimming with all the jelly fish.  Caught up on my reading and spent some time in the tender rowing around the shoreline.  Very relaxing.  On Monday we headed home around 1400 with a nice breeze out of the NNW which took us all the way home on a single tack once we rounded Tilghman Point into Eastern Bay.  All in all this was a mighty nice weekend.  The weather is cooling off with daytime temps in the 70's.  Good wind, 15 to 20 knots.  Excellent sailing (with some night sailing!) and quiet time at anchor.  Cigars too!  Who could ask for more?