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2004 Sailing Digest
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This is a new feature for 2004. On
this page, I will detail, to an extent, a sort of daily vessel log,
including brief outings, maintenance, and short sailing
descriptions. I intend this to be a way to keep track of my
sailing and maintenance days, in a format that will be easy to maintain
and read. From time to time, as conditions dictate, I will
continue to post more detailed sailing and cruising logs, but I thought
it would be interesting for you--and me--to see, come the end of the
season, how many days I made it out to the boat, and what I did on those
days. We'll see how it all goes! All times listed in the
entries are approximate.
Newest
entries are at the top of the page. Click here
to go to the bottom and begin from there. |
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May
2004 Digest | June 2004 Digest | July 2004 Digest
| August 2004
Digest | September-October 2004 Digest
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Continue with June Entries | Click
here
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May 30-31, 2004 | "Cruise"
Heidi and I, along with the Sanborns on Dasein, had hoped to enjoy
a longish cruise in our respective boats to a few nearby harbors over the
Memorial Day weekend. The weather forecast had promised clearing
(finally!) skies for Friday night and through the weekend, but was also
calling for very strong northwest winds, at least on Saturday.
Saturday dawned perfect, clear, and bright,
but by 0700 the winds had already begun, and were soon gusting
impressively. We decided early on that it wasn't even worth going
down to the boat, but hoped for a better chance on Sunday. Sunday
was also glorious, but still breezy. Still, we expected it to be
better, so we headed to the boat in the morning, arriving around 1000 to
surprisingly high winds; observing the anemometer shortly after our
arrival, we noted gusts as high as 37 knots and decided to wait for a
while before deciding whether to depart or not. I sort of expected
the winds to begin to die down sooner than later.
Instead of dying, though, the winds
increased through the day: we saw as high as 41 knots on our
handy-dandy instrument that Heidi--enthralled--dubbed "boat
TV". Frequent gusts well into the high 30s were the rule of the
day, and it became clear enough by 1400 that we would be going nowhere. We
spend the day reading in the cockpit and watching the stream of hopeful
sailors departing the anchorage confidently under sail, only to nearly
universally return some short minutes later under power, much as a dog
with its tail between its legs. Calling the wind's bluff, the Sanborns
motored over to a nearby mooring for a very early cocktail hour (or three)
aboard Glissando, during which a fun time was had by all.
Heidi and I stayed aboard overnight at the
mooring, enjoying the finally calm conditions (the winds remained into the
20s till nearly 2000 that evening before finally relaxing) and bright 3/4
moon. Monday, Memorial Day, dawned gorgeous and calm, and we enjoyed
a pleasant, low-key, relaxing morning aboard, despite having gone nowhere.
On board: 1000-2359 (5/30);
0000-1130 (5/31)
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May 27, 2004 | Sailing
Finally,
after 5 full days of gross weather, the sun appeared. During a brief
3-4 hour interlude, the sun shone and it was beautiful. I rowed the
dinghy out to the boat shortly after 1100, as at the time we were hoping
for a long weekend of cruising, beginning on Friday. As I approached
the boat, I snapped a nice photo of her on the mooring and reveled in the
glorious sun. Click
here for the photo.
 After
storing some gear and taking care of a few things, a slight southeast wind
came up, and I immediately decided to head out for a sail. It was a
pleasant sail, but was somewhat interrupted a bit earlier than expected by
brisk southeast winds that brought with them, in a seeming instant, a
heavy bank of fog, seen in the photo behind me above the island. [Photo
courtesy of Dasein, 668.]
I'm sailing under main alone because the wind was strong enough that I
didn't want to deal with the genoa during a jibe that I accomplished
shortly before this photo was taken; plus, I didn't need it anyway, since
at this point the true wind was about 18-20 knots (22-24 apparent).
It sure was nice to sail again; it was more
than a week ago that I had my most recent sail. That's bad for
me! Sadly, the fog brought a return to the gray and damp of the
remainder of the week, with more forecast tomorrow. I sure am lucky
to be able to take advantage of such brief--but much needed--good weather
windows! Shortly after this photo was taken, the fog seen
lucking outside the islands blew in startling quickly on the heels of the
southeast wind, and within only a few minutes had engulfed the entire
area. Check out the two photos below, taken only a few minutes apart
and from close to the same vantage point. You can still see the
leading edge of the fogbank in the upper right corner of the second photo.
OK, so this turned out to almost be a full
log.
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On board: 1130-1600
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May 26, 2004 | Shoreside Boat Check
After two more days of rain with intermittent showers alternating with
drizzle and then back to rain again, with the added enjoyment of fog, low
overcast, and temperatures in the 40s and low 50s (it's almost June--come
on!), I drove past the boat to check her out once more from
shoreside. She looked OK, but lonely. Hoping for some cruising
this weekend (Memorial Day); we'll see!
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May 24, 2004 | Quick Boat Check
After several days of not being on board, I took a brief visit to check
out the boat, the mooring lines, bilges, and to drop off a bag of stuff
that had been accumulating at the house. The weather was gray,
foggy, and chilly, with drizzle; I happened to get aboard during a break
in the rain, after some strong thunderstorms overnight and more predicted
later in the morning. As I arrived back at the dock in the launch,
the rain began, indicating perfect timing on my part! All was well
at the boat.
The new scupper hoses are not draining the
cockpit completely. The loops, as some had postulated, allow a small
amount of water to remain in the cockpit--grr. Fortunately,
rainwater does drain out, leaving only the small 1/2" at the forward
end of the cockpit. Nonetheless, this is a problem I must address in
the near future. Sigh.
On board: 0815-0845
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May 21, 2004 | Shoreside Boat Check
All appeared to be in good order when viewed from the shore. I had
other plans and could not go out to the boat this day, but I try to at
least check on her from shore almost every day that I don't make it out.
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May 19, 2004 | Sailing
Time for another great sail! The winds, which had been light at
the mooring, surprised me by gusting strongly almost as soon as I had
released my mooring. Before long, the apparent wind was an
indicated 26 knots going upwind (for a true speed of about 20-21), and I
was forced to stop the boat and tuck in a reef before continuing; the
wind later settled down to a more reasonable 18 apparent. With the
reef, the boat was more comfortable, and I had an enjoyable sail for an
hour or so thereafter, before the funny breeze died completely, leaving
me two miles from the mooring and forced to motor home. All in
all, a very pleasant sail.
On board: 1200-1600
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May 17, 2004 | First Sail
Full log posted. Click
here to read it.
On board: 1100-1500
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May 15, 2004 | Maintenance
It was a hot, sunny, summerlike day. I had some things to do in
the morning, but headed out to the boat at around 1000 to check things
out and work on some minor rigging projects: final preliminary
mast tuning and pinning the turnbuckles. There were vestiges of
light breeze here and there, but it was pretty calm in the
anchorage. I fiddled around with my rigging for a couple hours,
trying out a new turnbuckle pinning technique from Brion Toss, in which
short pieces of welding rod (316 SS) are bent to fit through the
turnbuckle holes. I expect to post a more detailed description of
this in the near future. What wind there was earlier had
completely died by about 1300, so reluctantly I decided to return to
shore and go home to work in the shop.
On board: 1000-1300
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May 14, 2004 | Maintenance
Because of the higher winds on launch day afternoon, I couldn't get
all my rigging projects done. With a relatively calm--though gray
and foggy--morning, I decided to head out to to the boat to try and take
care of the mast rake adjustment, reassemble the furling gear, install
the genoa, and take care of some of the other details that I hadn't
gotten to on launch day. Click
here to read more.
On board: 0900-1200
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May 13,
2004 | Launch
Full log posted. Click
here to read it.
On board: 0730-1600
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