August 10 to 19 Cleaning Dining Paddling Planning and Oh Yes Sailing Too

Not all sailing in this period.One day was devoted to cleanup after the cruise, replacement of the last cherrywood batten to hold up the cabin liner after installation of the new screens in the salon (Thanks, Tony!) and topping up coolant in the engine.One day we had a lovely dinner with Craig and Katherine of Sangaris at the Club. I accepted their invitation to crew for them on their passage back to Boca Raton, Florida this fall. I expect this will be about three to five days, to the Chesapeake. The start date is not yet set, but probably sometime in October. So the departure may be while Lene is vacationing with our niece, Yael, in Israel, which will require some cat sitting coordination.Another...

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The VX One A Hybrid Whatsit

The VX One is one the new generation of hybrid racing designs, in this case a design that targets the longer (17 to 19 or 5 to 5.8 meters) dinghy market in the U.S.. The VX One is that modern mashup of dinghy, skiff, and keeler concepts. It borrows most from the skiff world; the fat arse, narrow bow sections, flat rocker, assymetric and roachy full-battened sailplan. To calm it down a bit, it has a lifting keel of about 60 kg (135 lbs.). The VX Ones length, sail area, overall weight and, no hiking assists, it is raced as a hiking sailboat, puts it out there as a modern market alternative to Americas longer traditional hiking dinghy classes; the Lightning, Thistle, and Flying Scot. Conceived...

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November 15 to December 7 Mostly About The Anchor Chain and Next Summer

Four trips to the boat but only eleven hours work, scraping rust off the anchor chain. It is hard work with a stiff paint scraper and I cut myself one day after which I wore heavy work gloves. The problem is that it takes almost an hour to do a foot of chain and and ILENE has 300 feet, over 100 feet of which are heavily rusted. The guys at the yard told me to buy new chain but I priced it at about $1300 plus tax and shipping. Wow. Keep scraping, Roger! Here arerusted links draped over my denim clad knee, with "cleaned" links in the upper right. But another guy in the yard suggested a "hot dip" regalvanizing process that can be done by a firm in Jersey City. I checked it out and they will do...

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January 2 Cooleys Landing Marina Ft Laud to Anchorage NE of Belle Isle Miami Beach 35 6 Miles

Backing out of the slip was complicated by my failure to untie the steering wheel or the line securing ILENE to the port aft piling. But these got done at 6:45 a.m. at slack water and we were off in dawns early light, down the New, under the 17th Street bridge without a substantial wait and into the Atlantic for the run down the coast. We were near close hauled on port tack in ESE winds and I had put a reef in the main and used the small jib at first until we switched to the genoa for speed. We were 2/3 of a mile off the coast in water that was 20 to 30 feet deep. And it was a rough ride for the 25 outside miles. The kitties lost their breakfast and had to wait till we got in to be fed. I had...

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August 25 to September 10 Getting Ready to Cruise

Well the Labor Day weekend was spent in the Berkshires, welcoming Liannes new puppy, Finn,  who I call "two pounds of cute fluff"and visiting her new grandson, Jude. Ilene climbed with me to the top of Monument Mountain, just north of Great Barrington so we know that her recovery from the removal of the tumor from her lung is making great progress. And I spent at least a day trying to get her medical insurance restored after a foul up of monumental proportions. But this is a sailing blog so lets get to it.Well actually I did more working on the boat than sailing during this period: 24 hours of work spread over five days, two of them with helpers: Peter, who sailed with me from Virginia...

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Deember 8 24 Slow Steady Progress But There Is a Lot Left To Do

Three visits to ILENE for a total of 14 hours during this period.  I lowered the chain from the boat to the ground, loaded it into a yard cart, and from there to a cardboard box in the cargo area of our mini SUV. An estimated 200 pounds, but easily movable, a few feet of links at a time. A few days later I drove to Jersey City and located Nicholas Galvanizing, in a thoroughly industrial area by the Hackensack River. Its staff slid the box off the back of my vehicle onto a wooden pallet to be moved by fork lift. The chain should be nice and shiny and protected for another 16 years soon after 2016 starts. While in Jersey I enjoyed a delicious, leisurely, Thai lunch in Berkely Heights with...

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Dinghy Cruising Around the Eye of Quebec

This is a good video if you can block out the time - 40 minutes. A duo spend two weeks going around a natural circular body of water in central Quebec, formed by the impact of an asteroid.From the blurb accompanying the video:"The Eye of Quebec (Lac Manicouagan) is visible from space as a perfectly ring-shaped lake. Its center island is far larger than the water that surrounds it. 100km in diameter, it is the fourth largest meteor impact site on earth. We sailed around it and think that was the first ever circumnavigation of the reservoir under sail and oar. (We can find record of two other sailboats that have attempted the trip. While were not sure of their success, both appeared to carry auxiliary...

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Classic Moths in the Mist

At this years Classic Moth Nationals we had a marine layer settle in Saturday night, giving us fog on Sunday morning, a rare event for Elizabeth City, North Carolina. The fog started to creep out towards Pamilco Sound around 9 a.m. and racing commenced, on time, in sunshine.I took a couple of photos.The fog didnt stop the sailors kibitzing about Mothboats.Two transoms in the mist. The Laser transom of the Maser and the wide Europe Dinghy style transom of the Mousetrap Mistral.The view from the Pughs pier.The original post of the 2015 Classic Moth Nationals can be found he...

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Annapolis and the Rhode River October 11 13 11 3 Miles

A study in contrast: Annapolis is a hub of bustling high powered big money sailing activity, especially during the sailboat show, which this year coincided with a big Navy football game and the Columbus Day weekend: the busiest weekend of the year. The Rhode River, where this is being written, is the antithesis of this: no hustle, no bustle, we are on our anchor in complete solitude far from any other boats, after a twelve mile motor passage in light winds on a cold day in varying heavy to light rain. No wind ruffled the waters here last night or this morning..The Rhode River was also the destination of the first voyage we ever made aboard ILENE -- at the beginning of our first season with her,...

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January 3 9 SEVEN Lay days in Miami B each Zero Miles

Miami, including the separately incorporated city of Miami Beach, is the largest city on our trip, by far. It is very much like New York, except for the temperature. Chock a block high rises, crowded urban density, traffic and parking problems, construction blocking streets frequently, lots of high income and low income people, lots of culture and a heavy Hispanic and Jewish component of the population. And while there are lots of old folks like usdown here, there are also a lot of young people in Miami Beach. Possibly the similarities are because so many retired New Yorkers have moved here -- also a lot of Canadians.What made our stay so special -- and so long -- was the hospitality of our...

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Yellow boat 4 FPV camera view Purau New Zealand 2 1 14

Yellow boat 4 mostly Hobby King bits balsa epoxy fiber glass hull http://kiwitricopter.blogspot.co.nz/2012/09/3-hour-yellow-boat.htmlTwin Turnigy 450 Series 3800KV Brushless Outrunner Helicopter MotorRPM: 3800kvMax Current: 35AMax Power: 365W2 X HobbyKing 30A BlueSeries Brushless Speed Controller with shared enlarged air cooled heatsink with an 30mm fanCont. Current: 30ABurst Current: 40Ahttp://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewitem.asp?idproduct=13429&aff=652823coupled to modified NQD jet drives with flex shafts and custom 3 blade impellers ZIPPY Compact 2700mAh 3S 25C Lipo PackCapacity: 2700mAhVoltage: 3S1P / 3 Cell / 11.1VDischarge: 25C Constant / 35C BurstWeight: 203g...

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A Bigger Boat

ILENE is sitting on her mooring while we are cruising from Amsterdam to St. Petersburg and back on the Celebrity Constellation along with our brother and sister in law, Mike and Linda, and 2030 other folks, the boat being filled to capacity -- plus near 1000 crew. She is 965 feet long; her beam is 105 and her draft is 26. And she outweighs ILENE  9100 to 1.Our cabin, though on starboard, was third deck, the second row of  large round portholes (just below the life rafts, about three forward of the very large ones portholes under the enclosed exterior black elevators.Roger, Mike, Lene and Linda with cast on her arm This is our sixth cruise -- almost all with my brother and or Lenes,...

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October 10 21 ILENEs Floating Season Ends

All good things must end. Having lived aboard during the first 146 days of 2015, during last winters Florida adventure, 2015s boat days will be a good number. (See next post.) The twelve day period reported on in this post saw (A) ILENEs final three sails, (B) four work days and (C) GOC.Lets start with the sails. One was with Rhoda and Lloyd, of the Harlem. We have sailed with many times in the past. We were underway about four hours, and I confess that due to poor note taking, the wind and our course regrettably escape me.Next was with four residents of my apartment building. I started out planning to sail with Dorothy, who is a fellow client of our personal trainer. That morning he mentioned...

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