Storms and the Coast Guard

We invited my mother to go sailing with us. It was a weekend of many misadventures including many groundings, near drowning, lighnting, squalls and the coast guard hovering over us twice in a helicopter. Nothing to give you performance anxiety like a dude staring disdainfully down at you from the air.

Captains log

We brought a book on board to try to keep a proper log, but there never seems to be time. We are too
Busy having adventures to stop and write them down, but we learned something very important. Do not jump overboard without a life jacket while holdng an anchor.


-- Post From My iPhone

Sailing and a raft up

Cartopping a seven foot dinghy, that was also covered in wet alkyd enamel. It's definitely going to need a re-paint. We had several misadventures all rolled into one. Matt rowed out to the boat, got the engine started, came over and docked so we could load up with provisions. Then I took the tiller to pull away from the dock. It was too close, and I was going to hit another boat on the dock, but Matt pushed Dalloway away from the pier and fell into the water with his Iphone in his pocket. I motored around the mooring field and came back around to pick him up. Bill and his wife were there and caught the dock lines for me while Matt dove back into the water after his keys, still with his Iphone in his pocket. It was an expensive mistake.

On the bright side, we heard news that our ladder is safely in the club garage, we just need someone with keys to help us get it out.



We motored three hours south to raft up for fourth of July with friends on the "Sea Dove".

Saturday was a good windy day, we had the mainsail and the jib up but the app on my Iphone that was supposed to gauge speed wasn't working. We were moving faster than we did with the motor on though. One of our friends cried because of how far we were heeled over. I won't name names.

To her credit, we did lose both the registration number placards, they were ripped right off the boat. We'll have to hang off the decks to put new stickers on.

Sunset over the flotilla that night.

We took turns taking the dog ashore for potty breaks. Too bad the paint was still wet on Sunday.
There was no wind at all on Sunday, so we had to motor the whole way back. I hit poor Matt on the head with the boom by accidentally jibing, and then he accidentally put the motor into reverse on high throttle and it kicked up and hit him in the head again. Then later he hit his head again inside the cabin. Poor guy. I'm surprised he wasn't passed out on the deck, but he's a trooper and he was OK.

Sails!

We got the sails up last weekend and really got her rocking and rolling. It was AMAZING!! The mainsail and jib are original to the boat. The mainsail looks good, but the jib shows some wear and bad staining, probably from laying in dirty water back when the boat was a bathtub.

-- Post From My iPhone

Launch, Re-launch, Victory!

Originally we were under the impression that high tide was at three PM -- so we went down Friday night, with an appointment to have the boat launched at "high tide". We were scrambling along trying to get a few last minute jobs done that really required electricity when Bill, who had agreed to launch us told us he would put us up in the hoist at noon so we could paint the bottom of our keel. This sounded like a good plan, but as always we were running a little behind and really needed to finish packing our gear onto the boat and unloading our tools onto the ground when around 11:30 we were faced with the business end of the boat lift. I hastily threw our pile of food, sails, clothes etc from right next to the boat to a spot out of the way, and Matt handed down the drill and extension cord. With help from a few other members we hung bumpers on the starboard side and prepared to be moved. Bill, handling the lift was a pro, only took once and he had it lined up perfectly. She was in the slings and in the air in about ten minutes.

I dabbed paint on the rusty keel bottom while Matt finished attaching the handrails up top. The jack stands were all heavily set in old dry mud and grown around with vines. After about forty minutes Bill announced that the water was there and we were ready to go. Again, we shifted all the gear we could and we were off.

Another skipper helped Matt knock the stands down, as they had to be wrenched free of the vines.

Just one hitch -- since she'd been put there 7 years ago the trees got a little taller.

A few quick turns had her free though.

Everything looked hunky dory here, so we got some help from Dale, another kind member who took pity on us and helped us start the motor and power over to the loading dock. We were tied there for about ten minutes when Matt announced that our solitary through hull was leaking. He went to find some caulk to try a quick fix when a 35 foot yacht and another member in an inflatable dinghy cruised up to the dock with very little control and collided with the outside of the Dalloway, crushing both our boat and the other boat's owner between the floating dock and the larger boat. Thanks to the quick responses of two other members, to whom I am exceedingly grateful, disaster was narrowly averted as they pushed the larger boat back to release the trapped owner and back the yacht off of our bow.

After a subsequent conference with several senior members, it was determined that the original through hull needed to be removed and re-bedded with an improvised backing plate. This called for another ride in the slings, which ended with us climbing back aboard with the lift parked behind the clubhouse. In a record time of less than forty five minutes Matt fabricated a backing plate, removed the old through hull, rebedded it with 4200 and reattached it. In the hustle, I lost our extendable ladder and 50 foot extension cord, but we got the boat back into the water, and floating nicely. Again, with help from other members, we took a brief but awesome tour of the area, and then settled at our mooring for the evening.

Double time under a deadline

We're planning to launch this Saturday! I finished up the last two cushions today and Matt is working until all hours trying to finish the dinghy. I think it's taking longer than projected, but when it is done we will have a seven foot dinghy with two skegs and wheels to make it easy to launch. We still don't have charts, but I'm going to give the Iphone INavX app a try. It's only fifty bucks and has great reviews as a chartplotter/gps.

Everything is coming together

The water tank is installed and plumbed, the sink and faucet are installed and plumbed except for one fitting that just came in the mail today. The curtain tracks are in and the curtains are up. The running lights are hooked up and Matt fabricated and installed an instrument bezel for a cockpit light, the switch for the light and the running lights, and the depth meter. He also sewed the new halyards onto the ends of the old ones and put them over the mast so we now have completely rope halyards. He even put eye splices on with all new shackles. We have a lot of old blocks, some very high quality old ones, some mediocre newer ones. All but one appear salvagable. The chainplates are back on and bedded in butyl tape, but we didn't re-attach the shrouds yet. Matt also installed the sole in the head and I painted it with alkyd enamel. He ran the wire for the transponder for the depth finder, and installed the puck up at the front of the keel.

Last but not least, the bottom paint is now on, and I shined up the hull with vertglass.