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2007 Sailing
and Maintenance Digest |
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<June Entries
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August Entries> |
July
6, 2007
This is shaping up to be a pathetic sailing year for
me. Between the weather, other commitments,
and other distractions, it's hard to get to the
boat. I've had one daysail, and the three-day
cruise the other weekend. Awful.
Complicating matters is the fact that Heidi had
ankle surgery a few days ago, and is thereby laid up
(on crutches, then a walking cast) for 6 weeks.
So she won't get any more boat time for a while,
unfortunately.
Today, I was able to
wrap up work early, and I had planned to go to the
boat. But then thunderstorms rolled through,
some of them predicted to be severe. After
watching the radar, I decided to stay home, and did
some more work in the shop. But by late
afternoon, the storms had passed, so I took
advantage of the time to go and check out the boat;
it'd been a week since I'd last been there. I
brought a few things out and enjoyed the soft,
post-rain evening for a while before heading back
in.
I can't wait to go
cruising. I'm still going later this month,
though probably not for quite as long as I had
originally thought. |
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July
10, 2007: Maintenance and Sail (7.34nm)
Because of a natural break in the action at the
shop, today was a planned day off, or at least a day
in which to do other things than work at the shop.
I ran some errands
in the morning, and afterwards decided to head for
the boat. I needed to do some engine
maintenance, and beyond that I'd just see.
It was foggy on the
water when I got to the boatyard, but by the time I
reached the boat the fog had already retreated to
the breakwater, and it continued to retreat till it
was well offshore. The wind was calm. |
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During the next couple
hours, I changed the fuel filters and changed the
engine oil and filter, and cleaned up a bit.
By then, around 1430, it was bright and beautiful,
with a nice light breeze that had kicked up. I
decided to go sailing, and prepared the boat to head
out. I had a pleasant beat out of the harbor,
catching the light breeze in lots of tacks to stay
out of the holes, but when I got outside the
breakwater the wind filled in from the southeast for
a while, and I had an extremely pleasant sail in the
new 15-knot breeze. I didn't go far, and
presently the wind began to lighten up, so
eventually I turned around to head for home on the
dying breeze. |
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July
13, 2007: Sail (8.92nm)
With another day's wait ahead of me between painting
steps at the shop, I headed for the boat. It
was a beautiful summer day. At the boat, I
enjoyed lunch before heading out for a sail. I
raised the main to full hoist and then, after eying
the wind carefully, decided to tuck in a reef
instead. I was glad I did, as the wind
steadily built and became quite strong by the end of
the day. As it was, I saw 15-20 steady knots,
with some stronger gusts...and there were even
stronger gusts later after I'd returned to the
mooring.
The sail was great,
with pretty much a close to beam reach on both tacks
(out and back in). Something was going on with
the windjammers today: they were all over the
place, and at first seemed to just be headed for
Rockland. As I headed in, I noticed that they
were all tacking back out from the breakwater, but
then tacked back in towards shore after heading out
a bit. I was in front of most of them, but the
harbor entrance--wide as it may be--was quite busy
as I approached, and I dodged other boats and two
ferries on my way in. Meanwhile, the
windjammers were in hot pursuit, and as I retreated
to the mooring in the now 20+ knot winds, I watched
the schooners all heading for the breakwater, almost
like a "race". Indeed, I heard gunshots as
they passed the breakwater, and the whole thing was
too clustered and obviously organized to be anything
but some sort of event. I
In any case, it was
fun to watch, but I was glad that I had gotten in
first, as 12 schooners, ferry boats, large yachts,
and the Island Transporter barge made for a busy
little place.
It was a fun sail
on a beautiful day. |
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July 23, 2007 -
August 4, 2007: Cruise 2007
Full cruise log posted
here. |
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