Monday 21 October 2013

Tuesday 3 September 2013

Labor Day Weekend - Rain, Fog, and Wind


Not too much sailing this weekend.  There was fog everyday until mid-afternoon, and some rain. I was going to leave on sunday, but stuck around to get a few boat projects done.  That night a storm rolled in from the east, sending 3 foot rollers into the marina.  No fun to sleep in...  See the video, this was better than it was during the night.


Tuesday 27 August 2013

Another couple of good weekends of sailing.  The first weekend I overnighted at the White Islands again.  This was the site of a previous anchoring saga, but I learned from previous experiences and my new mantus mega anchor held solid.  It looks like a huge oversize chunk of iron on my bow, but it has not moved an inch in the 6-7 times I've anchored with it.  See the pictures below.  I also like the fact that the mantus can be taken apart.  I'm thinking about buying a smaller one for a stern anchor that can be stored.

After the White islands I went south and east, then north to ultimately sail around the islands.

I also put up the spinnaker one day.  It was a light wind day, and I had some trouble with the setup.  The snuffer line was tangled the first time I hoisted it, but after a quick straightening everything worked out fine and I was able to make 3-4 knots in 6-8 knots of wind.  I think I would like one of the top down furlers.  It seems easier than the snuffer, but I think it would also take a pole or extension on the bow. With the big anchor up front, I'm worried about the tack gettign tangled in the hoop around the anchor.

The Chute is up, I think I could have pulled the snuffer up a little further.

The New York Yacht club was having a race / regatta thing in the area.  Lots of sailboats and lots of mega yachts.

From my anchorage in Pulpit harbor on the second night out one weekend.  I sailed around the islands and back to rock land.  Pulpit is nice because it is a short hop back to the dock on Sunday morning.

Lots of wild life and lots of lobster pots.  I did pick one up and had to cut it off with the hook knife.

At anchor in Home Harbor, it is a little south of Rockland.  



Wednesday 7 August 2013

Home Harbor

I made it out two weekends ago and overnighted in Home Harbor.  It is a little place off the islands to the south of Rockland.  It is a rolly anchorage as it is only protected on 3 sides and some waves make there way in.  It is a pretty spot, with a few houses on the islands around.  I made a few loops to check out the anchorage when I came in to look for low spots or boulders.  It looked OK on the depth sounder, but when I woke up in the AM the low tide was showing a few rocks about 15 feet off my stern.  My new anchor held fine.  The fog came in and I could only see about 30 feet for most of the morning, so I waited until the fog lifter at about noon to head back to port.  It was a nice outing.

Homeport

Rocks a little closer than I thought when I woke up...

I actually cooked dinner, spuds, eggs, hot sauce and beer..

This was about 11 AM, the fog came and went all morning...
The purple dropped pin is where I anchored.




The following weekend my parents came to Rockland.  It was lobster fest so we had some nice meals and sailed over to Northhaven.  It was  a great day and the wind was perfect to have the parents on the boat.  (Not too wild, but not too slow)


Wednesday 17 July 2013

Cruising and the 4th of July


It has been a while since I posted, but I've been out on the boat a few times and have been working through the bugs.  Lots of work on the auto pilot and electronics, and there are still a few bugs.  There is always work on a boat...

A few pics from the cruising and some comments.  My first overnight was to Pulpit Harbour.  It was a great harbour, and I grabbed a mooring for the night.  A neighbour came over on his dinghy to say hi.  He was on a very pretty PSC34 named Cookie.  It was a nice night, and the following week I stayed there again after having some autopilot problems halfway through a planned cruise to another island.

1st sundowner on the boat in Pulpit Harbor



My friend Eliza came to the US for the week around the 4th of July.  We spent a night in Montreal when she flew in, and then headed to Maine to spend a week on the boat.  Turns out she is a good galley wench (sp?)

We spent the first night on the boat at the marina, and had a nice lobster dinner in town.  The next day we sailed to Catine and went for a walk in the town.  We put the boat at the city dock and walked into town, about a block in we found the Tap Room.  Mmmm  beer!  The town was nice and had a lot of historical landmarks with some pretty funny signs.  The signs would explain what happened when, then have some odd info at the end like "This person was burned here, after being compelled to eat his nose"

From Castine we anchored out in Holbrook Cove, just next to Castine.  The new windlass worked great.  The first anchor set was on rock, but the second was good mud.  A tall ship anchored next to us, and was a pretty sight.


This is a new picture, and not the same spot as my first sundowner, but it is becoming a common theme...

A very nice meal on the boat, Good Galley Wench!

From Castine and Holbrook we sailed around the Penobscot river entrance, over to Belfast to check out the harbour there.  We sailed into Belfast and sailed out. I made Eliza do about 4 tacks with about 3-4 minutes between them.  It was good fun.  We anchored that night (the 4th of July) in Searsport.  This is a very open anchorage, and there was some wind, but the bottom was very muddy and good holding.  We watched the fireworks, had another nice dinner, and did our best to kill a bottle of Bundaberg Rum.  The next day we slept in, and were a little slow getting up.  But we did go for a mid-morning swim before pulling the anchor.  It was refreshing, and we used the cockpit shower with the hot water to wash off.  It worked good, and was the first time I had used it.

Old Glory on the 4th of July off the back of the boat.


The next day we sailed all the way from Searsport to the islands near Vinalhaven and anchored in a narrow anchorage next to the White Islands.  The first attempt at dropping the hook didn't hold and I pulled up a garden of kelp.  The guide book encouraged a bow and stern anchor so we dropped the main hook close to shore and the stern hook close to the rocks behind us.  This was just begging for trouble, but it was a pretty anchorage...

So middle of the night, the second anchor starts dragging.  A nice pendulum swing and we are headed towards shore.  I was watching it and caught it well in time, but what happened next was almost comical if it wasn't 1AM.  I started the motor and pulled up the tail anchor.  As soon as I put the boat in gear, I heard a sickening swish and then thump thump thump of the dinghy painter getting pulled into the prop.  (I usually keep a very short leash to avoid this, but had forgotten my trip to set the anchor earlier in the dinghy...)  So, there we are, drifting to shore with a rope  around the prop.  About this time Eliza woke up, I had her grab the rope knife (Hook knife on a stick) and I jumped into the dinghy and cut the line.  We motored the boat and set the hook and everything worked out, but the next morning I had to go for a very cold swim (we were now on the edge of the Atlantic and far away from the river) to cut the rope.  It worked out and we headed home, after a great 4 day trip.



Sunday 26 May 2013

Video for the finding and working on the Atlas

Boats to Build, lots of work left to do, but the boat is starting to come around...






Monday 20 May 2013

Splashed the Boat, Went Sailing!!!!




It was a big week.  I took the week off to go and get the boat into the water, get everything commissioned, and hopefully spend a lot of time cruising around Penobscot bay in Maine.  

Atlas (the boat) was stored in Journey’s End Marina’s storage and they were supposed to complete a list of winter work and have the boat ready to be splashed Monday morning.  I had given them the list of work in November of last year, and checked in a a few times to get feedback on progress, etc...  Unfortunately, when I arrived at the marina Monday morning it looked like maybe they had started the work on the boat late the previous week.  The woodwork was just getting the first clearcoat, the electronics were not done, the autopilot hadn’t even been started, the fiberglass hadn’t been done.  In short, nothing was completed.  I guess I should expect to be on “Boat Time” at the marina so there wasn’t much to do but just roll with it and try to get as much done during the week as possible.

The boat finally was put in the water late Tuesday, but everything was still taken apart so it basically went into the water and strait to the dock for the next few days.  The jobs slowly got done over the next few days.  Thursday, the electrical pannels were put back together enough that I could move the boat, so I went for a short sail that night.  It was good to get the boat out and everything seems to be in order.  Engine, Main, Genoa etc... all make the boat go and worked ok.  Doing everything singlehanded without an autopilot is a bit rough, but it can be done.  (they did it for centuries, I should be able to manage for a day)

Friday, the guys at the marina got the autopilot in.  My biggest fear was that it would all come together at the end of the day and there would be a glitch / problem and I’d be stuck without being able to use the boat for the weekend.  It all came together about 3PM.  There were a few glitches during the day.  We had to re-fabricate part of the bracket for the linear drive for the autopilot, but it was in at the end of the day and was able to move the rudder at the dock automatically at the end of he day.  We didn’t have time for a sea trial before the guys were off for the weekend, so I took it out that night.



What happens when you take untested equipment out for the first time by yourself in 20 knots of wind?  Well it worked great for about a minute, then a fuse blew and I lost all electronics at the helm.  Not the end of the world, but back to the dock after about 15 minutes away...  Total sailing time for the week, about 45 minutes.

I spent friday night troubleshooting the blown fuse issue.  I think I figured it out and got everything running again.  It looked like a bad connection on a wire and a really small fuse (2.5amp)  running about 3 screens.  After a few fixes and another trip to Wall Mart, everything looked to be up and running OK. This tie I cycled the autopilot really aggressively at the dock to ensure it was working.   








Saturday I left the dock and had a great sail to Pulpit harbor.  The boat was working good, the wind was doing it’s thing, and I made it into the harbor about 3PM and picked up a mooring.  It is a nice bay, and I took the dingy into the dock and went for a walk on the island.  After a nice walk I took the dingy for a bit of a drive under the bridge on the east side of Pulpit harbor.  Very pretty place!!!  I think it is just a quirky thing about this dingy, something I would have no way of knowing as I had just bought it from the boat owner... but apparently if you run the motor out of fuel, it stops...  Luckly I was just up a creek without a motor, I did have two paddles.  I was however about a mile away from my boat, against both the tide and the wind.  There was a rough spot going under the bridge as the pass is really narrow, so the effect of the tide was about double.  It was good exercise but I rowed back to the boat without much trouble.  

Most importantly I was able to have a nice sundowner drink on the boat while watching the sunset.  Step one - buy a boat = check, Step two -cruise to cool places and enjoy beverages abroad = check....

I’ll make a few detailed posts on the areas, boat projects etc... but Saturday and Sunday were spent cruising to Pulpit Harbor, North Haven, Long Harbor, and the Basin entrance.  I made it back to Rockland Sunday night, hit just about everything while backing into the slip by myself (but I did eventually make it without any help - with just some minor losses in paint..), and woke up Monday to put everything away in the rain and drive back to Montreal.   All in All, the week was a success.

Bob - The previous owner

Old Name Removed, Getting Ready for the new one.
















Saturday 26 January 2013

Pensacola to Key West

I took a trip with ECY from Pensacola Fl to Key West Florida.  The trip took about 5 days (we left Monday morning, and arrived Friday morning). It was a good trip to get some offshore experience.  The first 2 days were beating into 10 to 15 knot winds, the third day was spent mostly motoring, and the last 2 days were in gale force winds from the north with 12ft waves.  It wasn't a smooth ride, but I was happy to see a few different conditions.


The boat was a 44' Morgan center cockpit


Bohita(Sp?)