I left the marina about 9 am monday morning after topping off the fuel tank. Forecast was for 3 to 4 ft seas and 15 to 20 knot winds. I put the main up with a reef in it just after leaving the marina entrance. I was blowing every bit of the forcast. As I motored out the inlet the waves started building in the mouth of the inlet so that between the current and wind I was barely making progress out the inlet. It was rough and I was taking lots of heavy spray over the boat as I tried to pound though the waves. Finally I just rasied the blade and turned the motor off. With the blade up and one reef in the main I had plenty of power to tack out the channel and through the inlet out to marker 8 and then take a right to head down the coast. As soon as I started sailing the motion of the boat became much better and it was a much drier time. It took about 6 tacks to get to the #8 so I could turn right and get around the shoals.
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Sunday morning was beautifull and calm. We were almost wondering if there would be enough wind, but soon the breeze stiffened up and we had 8 to 12 for the rest of the day. After and early start the race committe decided to move fleets C and D from inside on te cape fear river to outside on the ocean to use the same course that the bigger boat fleets were using. We found out that morning that the Ultima one of the boats in our fleet had damaged their keel badly the day before running into something and they were not racing anymore. Of the rest of the boats in our fleet only Sea Puppy and Lokahi were able to traverse the Cape Fear River Inlet and get out to the race course. So even though we sailed even better sunday than saturday 🙂 and the races counted this time 🙂 we got second place by default because no one else got out to race. Lokahi ran a great couple of races and beat us both times. Actualy Lokahi beat a of bigger boats even. They also ran their spinnaker where we decided not to. Me, Patty and Jim had not had enough practice together racing and we had never run th spinnaker together before. Not to mention that Me and Patty had only sailed under spinnaker twice before in our lives. However we ran two great races and did well. Lokahi beat us fair and square.. their new sails a clean bottom and spinnaker did us in. Not to mention they didn’t make any mistakes and kevin ran a great race. After getting In late the day before I thought I would sleep in a bit but no 🙂 race day excitement and I was up at 6:30 starting to clean up the boat and checking rigging etc…. I found a keeper ring on one of the stays that needed replacing and also loosened the inner stays a bit to let a little more pre-bend into the mast.. Kevin came by and we introduced ourselves… He also came over with his loos gauge a little later to compare its settings against my gauge.. they showed within about 10 lbs of each other the best we could tell. Mine uses lbs and his is on a numeric scale that equates to lbs. I had my uppers at about 600 lbs.. He said that he was running his there also. I sailed to Bald Head Island on friday to go to the Bald Head Island regatta.. Hans came as crew… we were supposed to leave on thursday but the port pushpit wasn’t repaired like it was supposed to be and we ended up waiting till 2 pm on friday to get it installed and leave… at the time I was tempted to just go without it but now I am glad we didn’t. We had some really extreme weather and sailing on saturday and having working life lines and port push pit were a life saver… litterally… The sail up there on friday was a beautifull one… but long.. we left at about 2pm and didn’t get to the Cape Fear River Inlet till about 10:00… actaully getting inside took about anothe 30 to 40 minutes… it was dark with no moon… GPS comes in handy.. not to mention seeing the lights on the channel markers. The combination of the two made it a fairly easy time getting in through the inlet… The sea state was also very calm for the inlet. We took pattys Pirate Girl out today. No problems with the engine… Patty found that one of the engine coolant system drain cocks had not been tightened good and it had vibrated open which caused the engine problems last trip out.. This time everything worked. Though the prop seems to vibrate more than it should according to richard.. anyway we sailed down the coast and then back toward the inlet tacking back and forth and playing with sail trim and and various other adjustments. Patty as captain Beautifull day for racing or just sailing… about 1.5 to 2 ft seas and 10 to 15 knots of wind.. Crew of Patty, Jim and me.. we raced Angela in Sea Haven ( a O’Day 27) and Orin on La Bon Vie’ (a Beneteau Oceanus 39) First race we finished about a minute and a half behind La Bon Vie and won on corrected time… Second race we came in about 5 minutes behind La Bon Vie for second place… We during the race we played with boat trim and found that sailing her flat seemed to slow her down but heeling more than about 10 degrees also slowed her down.. about a 5 degree heel seemed to be best… Moving one person forward to about the shrouds also increased our speed by a solid 1/4 to 1/2 knot. Went out today with Judy and sailed for a few hours… 1.5 ft seas with about a 10 second period… almost flat.. steady 10 knot breeze… I ran the one main that I had not tried today and it balances the boat perfectly with the dacron 155….. i put the bungee on the tiller and didnt have to touch it for 30+ minutes at the time…… The only bummer is that this sail like the other fully battened main doesn’t have reefing points. However under those conditions I think I like this main the most of all. I had every intention of taking it easy today and just doing some clean up on Sea Puppy from yesterdays rough sail. It didn’t happen.. I was there minding my own business when Jerry came wandering down on the dock to say hi to me and Ben who was working on his boat Anago. he haad to say the fatefull words.. “Hey guys would you like to go out with me today:” lol how could we say no. Anyways it was a beautifull day in the high 70’s with calm seas and about 12 knots of wind… just perfect sailing weather… We sailed about 15 miles… with the boat just humming along at 6.5 to 7.5 knots… We drug Angela off of her boat and Jerry had a friend along and with Jerrys dog Murphy and her dog on board well we had a full crew…. Well I went sailing/racing today.. it was the first truly official race of the season for the Long Bay Sailing Association.. It was supposed to be 10 to 15 with gusts to 20…. I took Sea Puppy out single handed. And brought her back after finishing 3rd. I flew the 100 jib and daycron main with one reef…. earlier in day before it really kicked up this was a very nice combination… I needed the second reef in when it picked up… but was in the middle of race.. 🙁 I finished first race and they called second race… the race committee boat was getting pounded. I wouldn’t have raced second one anyways… that was some exhausting sailing….. I feel like ive been beat with a stick.
I finally built the hatchboard holder and installed it.. This one actually fit the boat 🙂 unlike the last one which fit the hatch boards but not the space beside the stairs. Here are a few pictures of it. I almost didn’t go out because I was tired but Hans said he would go out with me. I was very glad he did. It was a beautifull day. It wasn’t quite as cold as saturday and the winds were more in the 10 to 15 range than the 15 to 20 that saturday was. We were able to motor out of the marina and raise sail… with the winds out of the N NW it allowed us to sail the whole 5 miles from the marina to the inlet.. Then after a little while on the ocean we turned around and sailed the entire way back to the marina… It was such a refreshing change from normal wind patterns that make you motor in and out to the inlet most of the time. We had to tack quite a bit comming back in the inlet and to the waterway but Hans was game and we had a good time doing it.. It was high tide so we had a fair ammount of room to do it in. Went sailing with Ben on sea puppy wind 15 to 20 with white caps.. 1 to 2 foot seas… We left late morning and got back around 6pm.. I rigged the Jacklines (red webbing running from babystay attachment point to the port and starboard aft cleats.)  on Sea Puppy and both me and Ben clipped in once we got out to the ocean. His tether is one of the commercial 100+ dollar ones with the high speed locking mechanism. I pulled this information off defender.com for it |
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