You’d think by now

Working down the river, I figured that maybe the best thing to do the first night would be spend the night at Ram Island. The breeze was light and out of the Southwest as it was to be the next day also. To have a comfortable nights sleep out of the swell(there’s always swell)I came in close to the beach and near the dock that’s there. After all it’s going to stay southwest, a great way to start the trip.
What I neglected to do was read the little red blurb titled Hazardous Weather Alert on the report which was clearly for someone else far away. I ate a simple dinner and nodded off at around 7:00, only to be woken by the boat slamming into waves and pointing in the exact wrong direction. The breeze was now 18-20, and dead out of the east! To add to it I had anchored in the very wrong spot for that wind direction. The jetty was now parallel and not far off, not to mention the beach was somewhere behind me, couldn’t see it, but heard it close.
What to do? If I picked up the anchor and didn’t back to the helm and engine controls in time I’m either be on the beach and or making unwanted friends with the dock. Shortest voyage on record! The best course I decided was to hold pat and stay. I had a lot of confidence in my Rocna anchor and would let it do what it was designed for. I got lucky this time.
I woke in the morning to a gentle southwest breeze, had breakfast and started making my way down the Sound to Duck Island roads, the next stop.
And I do read those blurbs now - religiously!

The official start!

It’s 2:09 and I’ve closed the front door to the house for the last time for quite a while. All that’s left to do now is walk back to the Seaport find the dinghy and row out to Star who is now sitting quitely in the anchorage to the North.
The trip down from Marblehead which usually takes 4-5days took two weeks, thanks to Florence and her effect on all the New England weather.  Considering I had to wait in Marblehead, Plymouth, and
Cuttyhunk it really wasn’t suffering after all.
But I was chomping at the bit, and ready to go!
It’s so easy to make big plans...in warm dry shop that doesn’t bounce around. Yup I think I’ll take Star from Montauk straight to Cape May. That way I’ll miss all that travel time down the Sound and not have to go thru Hells Gate. Makes perfect sense to me, that is until you get your ass handed to you on the way to Plymouth because you left to early and the three day Easterly hadn’t died down yet. Been a long time since I left breakfast, last nights dinner, and three nice glasses of wine for the fish but there it is.
So I put my tail between my legs and headed for Mystic and not Montauk. No way, I wasn’t ready and Star is not an offshore boat. Had a wonderful weekend with Sue, replenished the larder, and was looking forward to a calm trip down the Sound. Who’s afraid a little Hells gate anyhow?
Heading down the river my thoughts went to what was ahead, to much to imagine, for now it’s the next buoy wait....red right return oh shit.

A great summer

The summer of 2013 was a good time for Star and her owners. Star spent the summer up in Marblehead and I think she thoroughly enjoyed it.

The delivery trip from Mystic to Marblehead was very successful, and a few lessons were learned. Though more on the trip back to Mystic.

It was nice to have Sues father on board, and make it possible for him to sail again. It felt like we were doing a good thing and just that in itself made the trIps back and forth to Mystic worth it. Being a sailor for as many years as he had, then facing the prospect of not ever going again, could not have been very comforting.

As I said lessons were learned, and in the few times when things got tense, we got by them and were still able to enjoy the day. I guess that's what family is all about.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Baby it's cold outside !!!!

It's in the teens here in Mystic, and it's hard to believe that Sue and I went sailing just a few weeks ago.

At this time last year I was getting ready to fly back to Charleston to continue the voyage down along the intercoastal. Once down there I'd have to make a speedy exit from the boatyard considering I really wasn't supposed to be there in the first place.

My whole time down there was because I horse traded with a canvas shop located at the yard.
The deal with the shop owner was I would teach the people at the shop how to build a proper dodger, and in return I could keep wandering star in the slip that came with the shops rent. The boatyard was told by the owner of the shop that I was having work done by them, and therefore had to be in the slip. The boatyard caught on that I wasn't one of there customers and I was soon persona non grata.

They didn't throw me out being January but still, when it was time to go no time like the present!
Arriving at the yard on a Sunday was perfect, I spent the day preparing Star for the Great Escape. Before I left for the northern tundra I somehow had hoisted and secured the hard dinghy (9', 200lbs) on to the foredeck. Now I had to figure out how to reverse the process(and not rip the lifelines out of the deck. Thank goodness for winches, and lots of line. Once splashed, the sails where next, and so on.
By the time I was finished it was12:00am and I was a tired little puppy. But everything was ready down to the exact dock lines that would have to be let go and in what order. I even turned the boat around and had it facing down river. Ha they'll never catch me. Actually in most likelihood they won't even know I've left!
The goal was to get up and off the dock early before any of the yard guys showed up. The last thing I needed was a yard bill for a months dockage, even though.....
The engine started right up, I threw off the lines and headed down the river in the growing light of the dawn.
With nothing but freedom and time I was on my way.

A Winters List

Star went for her last sail for 2012 on Sunday December 2nd. A great ending to a great year for Star.
We sailed every month of the year thanks to Sue.
Now it was time to fix the broken stuff(can't do it during sailing season!), and make all the improvements that one dreams about while sailing. "Ya know if I just did this...."
The list would include a "new" traveler, rebuilt from one the yard had after chainsawing up a 34 footer. How is possible that no one wanted that boat?
The genoa is rotten along the out edge, which I fixed but for some reason still looks horrible. I'm either going to turn it into a Yankee, or a jib with the exact same dimensions as the blade jib I built and set both up on the head stay for running down wind with poles. Everyone knows that's the proper setup when in the South Pacific Trades!
A new removable stay set in between the windlass and the headstay, for a small storm jib I have. This will take the pressure off headstay, and jib when it's really blowing and the boat wants to shake itself to death in the gusts. You need something up forward to to help the boat stay head to wind on even tacking in a lot breeze. Just the main alone especially when reefed doesn't work.
Along with the new stay there will be a set of shrouds coming from the same connection point for the staysail stay at the mast down to the rail aft of the spreaders but not so far aft as to interfere with sailing downwind. I never have the main against the rig when downwind - I put too much time into that main to have it wear out on the spreaders etc.
The forward hatch's hold down was busted and the isn't any weatherstripping so I came up with a hold down that actually bolts the hatch down against a strip of closed cell gasket material that should
keep it water tight. Everyone knows how important it is to have sealed hatches when crossing oceans!
The cockpit locker needs the same business, since if the cockpit were to fill that's a huge opening to the innards of the boat.  Can't have to much on the outside because its we're we stand and sit. Any kind of fittings will rip into you if the boat took a wave and the crew got thrown against them. What to do, What to do?
The wind vane self-steering will get a new blade for the oar part. The original was just for an experiment and ended up working great. It just goes to show how rough these things can be and still work. The new one will be fiberglass with a strip of stainless welded the the shaft inside the glass foil to make it strong. I will carry the old for back up. I also need to figure out a new counterweight system so I don't have to break down the Bimini each time.

A Year Ago.....

It's 6:05 as I write this, a year ago I was probably in quite a state considering I was about to leave my home and family to explore the East Coast by water.  A twenty six foot boat would become my home for possibly the next year, and maybe more - or maybe less. Who knew?

The important thing at the moment was to not think in terms of years or months but figuring out how to get thru the next few hours, loading the boat, getting off the dock before dark, but most important saying good bye to Sue.

I always promised myself during this whole process that I wouldn't in the very last hours and minutes be in a state of panic and disarray.  A seemingly common occurrence amongst those who are about to to leave the safety of home and hearth, and venture into the unknown. Yet here I was, not concerned about toilet paper (really bad choice), or even a tooth brush, but instead fighting to get the dinghy's sail rig into an already full awning tube bag that would only fit on deck for the rest of the trip.

"Why are you taking that"asked Sue, in a way that a person would ask concerned about the sanity of said person. I couldn't answer I just new at that time it was really important.

I'd shoot a glance at Sue who calmly standing on the dock watching me in a frenzy jump from one task to another, had a look on her face that said slow down, there's no rush, what can I do? Here she was sending her husband off for possibly a year. We would meet in Stamford and she would help bring the boat thru New York to Staten Island. There was a plan to meet in Washington after I sailed up the Potomac, then again in Charleston S.C., and again in the Bahamas. But that was weeks, and months away.
It was getting dark and all I could think of was getting over to East harbor in Fishers Island. A place I would daydream about a thousand times in my head while planning the trip. This would be the official beginning of the adventure.

The packing or "throwing things down below" was at an end. It was time to leave. Its strange but since the time that the idea was hatched I never thought once that what I was doing was either wrong, or destined not to happen, it made it possible to just say goodbye to Sue as if I would see her the next day. This would happen thru out the trip, either saying goodbye or seeing each other again after months. It always felt as if only a small moment of time had passed since seeing each other last. I so wrapped up in my own little world, it wasn't till much later in the trip that I would recognize how truly lucky I was to have a place in this women's life.

All bundled up and ready for home

Poor Star, sitting all forlorn by herself in a strange harbor and stranger boatyard, with no one to keep her company.
 For the last 6 months the boat never really failed me, the engine always started, the rig stayed in the boat no matter how hard I tried to shake it out of her.  In most weather conditions she tracked well, even though the owner snapped off the centerboard (a vital piece for direction stability) the second night out.

And now I left her in the hands of others that may not have the same sense of  - well - connection to her that I do. But she's going to come up to New England and have a life up here, between berths in Mystic and Marblehead her cruising ground will extend from the Connecticut shore to the top of Maine and maybe beyond.

We traveled together from Mystic to Dinner Key, and then back up to Titusville, where she now sits waiting for for her ride. From September 14th to March 23rd, not bad for a 27' ft boat with an eight horsepower engine.

Snippets of the trip keep popping up in my head, I suppose thats going to happen for a long time. I do wish I kept a better journal or blog but after a long day the last thing I wanted to do was email an update on an iPhone keyboard with the boat rocking and rolling.

I'll keep updating the blog as I remember things, I have more pictures from the trip on the iPhone to transfer. Oddly enough I have more time now to spend on the Blog.
This is so much easier on the computer.