Wednesday, November 21, 2001
I did a couple of little projects this week. I took my too-long bow line and added a monkey's fist to each end. It took a bit of work to do it. I had never made one before, so I used books for reference.
For a core, I was going to take an aluminum can and hammer it into a rough ball shape. Don't try this. It doesn't work. A ball of aluminum foil might work, but I looked around the workshop and saw a can of Bondo -- the kind with fiberglass strands for strength. I mixed a small batch of the stuff, and rolled it into balls. Worked fine.The monkey's fists make it a lot easier to throw the line when needed. They also look salty, and they shortened that long line a bit. I find that they also make it easier to cleat the end of the line. I make a bight on the line and pass it through the space under the horn cleat. Then I wrap the bight around the horn, and the monkey's fist keeps it from slipping. Very secure.
The other project was a mast raising system. I had made one hastily before a Pensacola trip, and it was bulky and too difficult to set up. This time, I bought a couple of ten foot pieces of electrical conduit, and added eye bolts to both ends to make an a-frame system. Seems to work great, but the metal conduit leaves pencil marks wherever it touches the white paint on the boat. I'm thinking about getting a couple of rolls of string and whipping the entire length of the conduit. It would look better and keep it from marking the paint.
The system requires baby stays, so I salvaged parts from the earlier mast raising system to make them. I took two lengths of chain and put a clip on each end of both. There are already two padeyes on the cabintop, in line with the base of the mast, so I clipped one end of the chains to them, and the other end to a ring on the mast, intended for attaching a spinnaker pole. This is quickly clipped in place for mast raising, then removed when not needed.
posted by Jeff9:04 PM
Janice and I arrived at the Point for the regatta Saturday morning ready to crew with Ed, our usual captain. When we got there, Shane had already arrived and was rigged and ready, but crewless. He invited us along as his crew. We checked with Ed, and he didn’t really need us (we’re not that valuable as crew anyway), so we joined Shane on his Neptune 24. A rarity, the club had coffee and donuts. They also had Bloody Marys for a $2.50. I wish they would at least do coffee on regular race days. At the skippers meeting before the race, they changed the way they plot the course. Ordinarily, they set the course before anyone sets sail. This time, they waited until all the boats were in the water, sent out a committee boat, and held up a sign indicating the course. I’ve been on races where this has been done, and I’m told that it is standard practice, but not at our club. We were left completely confused. Shane was convinced that the course was one direction, but it turned out to be the opposite way. We learned this as the rest of the bats sailed off to the west as we sailed east. With almost no wind, it seemed to take forever to sail back to the starting line and tack back into the race. By the time we joined the race we were far behind the pack. As calm as the winds were, and as bad a start as we got, we actually started to close the gap. It took time, but we eventually started to feel like we were in the race. As I said, it was more or less windless. The first leg of the race was upwind, which meant beating in slow motion for hours. Finally, we approached the mark. After one final tack, the wind died even more. We were a few hundred yards from the mark and practically sitting still. It was excruciating. The boats ahead of us, after passing the mark, were dropping their sails. We knew what that meant. They had decided to end the race at the first mark. They all started to raft up and party. It was killing us, just sitting there. There was a nice big Benneteau trying to make the mark as well. They weren’t moving at all. We managed to pass them, and were getting very close to the mark, when suddenly the Benneteau started to move and we stopped. It made no sense. We were all in the same wind, but they were moving and we weren’t. They should have been in our wind shadow! We sat helplessly while the big boat passed us and crossed the finish line. Later, someone told us that big boats could suck the wind away from small boats, even when the small boat is windward of the large one. It still doesn’t make sense to me. After rafting up with the others and waiting for the last boats to finish, the committee decided to make the second leg of the race into a second race. We weren’t very excited about it, given the lack of wind, but we popped another beer and hoisted the sails, only to watch them slat as we sat trying to approach the very same mark, which now marked the starting line. As we sat there, trying to keep the boat at least aimed in the right direction, we saw a tugboat headed in our direction. The mark we approached was a channel marker, and the tug pilot wasn’t going to budge outside of his channel, even though it was an imaginary channel in the middle of the bay. He actually picked up speed as he approached the tangle of sailboats. We were sitting ducks in his path. There wasn’t enough wind to move us out of his way, and the sailors were reluctant to start their motors, not wanting to be disqualified from the race. As luck would have it, most boats were just out of his path, but he steamed faster and blew his whistle as he approached the one boat that was in “his” channel… our boat. He wasn’t going to alter course an inch. He sped toward us, blowing his whistle like a train on tracks. The guy was demented; he must have had some hatred for sailors or something. As the huge boat raced toward us, I still couldn’t help thinking that this wasn’t even the strangest thing that had happened to me this week. Shane jumped for his outboard, which always starts easily, and we just managed to get out of his way. Other sailors jumped for their cell phones and radios to report the jerk to the Coast Guard. After this, we sat becalmed again trying to point the boat toward the starting line. We were all thinking the same thing. I said, “let’s drop the sails and go to the club. Everyone agreed. As we furled the sails, a voice from another boat called to us. “Please take me along”. We motored over to him. He was an elderly man, a lifelong sailor and founding member of the club. He knew how long the second race would take and wanted no part of it. We picked him up from the beautiful Island Packet on which he had been either a passenger or crew. I’m not sure. But on a windless day, his extra pair of hands wouldn’t be missed. His name was Walter, and it turned out that he was the wisest man there. The boat we removed him from was the last boat to make it back in the second race. It came in a few hundred yards behind the second to last boat, but it missed the mark! They were stubbornly determined to finish the race, so they tacked to circle back to the finish line. Having missed the mark by just a few feet, they took over an hour trying to get back to it. There wasn’t enough wind to overcome the outgoing tide. We stood on the balcony of the club watching the boat drift sideways as the sun set and night fell. They turned their lights on and kept trying until the committee boat called the race and picked up the buoy. Back in the clubhouse, we had our annual meeting, in which I was not elected to the board, and we all ate steak and crawfish. They announced the race results. Hold on to your Levi’s… second place… Shane Wallace!!! And on his very first race. Not bad. Everyone told him that if he’d gotten a better start, he would have won for sure. They said they’ll have to adjust his PHRF. Shane asked me to ride along with him to Houston next week to pick up his new trailer. Not a day on the water, but could be fun.
We started with a race at the yacht club Saturday. Janice and I crewed with Ed Williams. At first, it looked like there wouldn’t be enough boats for a race, but a few more showed up and we were off. There were only two boats in the spinnaker class, which Ed sails, so we were guaranteed at least second place, which we got. It was pretty windy, with sustained 20-knot winds, but Ed’s Tartan 31 hardly noticed. There was one mishap. John (not the TSBBer) was on the foredeck when we switched from spinnaker back to the genny. He hadn’t realized that the jibsheet had wrapped around the spinnaker pole when he put it away. When the wind first filled the genny, the pole nearly went overboard. John, knowing that the spinnaker pole cost around $500, and wouldn’t float, dived to save it. The pole, pulled by the jibsheet, pinned him to the deck and dragged him across the non-skid surface, skinning his knee, but otherwise he was all right. 10/28/2001 Two days of sailing in one weekend! We trailered the Beast of Burden to Lake Palourde. It was plenty windy there too, at least in the morning. Shane and John brought their boats and we all sailed together. For lunch, we rafted up, and most people cooked, but Janice and I brought some shrimp and cocktail sauce. While we were rafted up, a pair of Bald Eagles flew in circles not far from us. It was a magnificent sight. John got some pictures, but they were a bit too far away to photograph clearly. Afterward, we sailed across the lake and, though we weren’t really racing, I did my best to catch up with Shane’s boat. He saw I was gaining on him, so he hanked on his genny. He knew I didn’t have mine onboard, so he left me in the dust.
Wednesday, November 14, 2001
Another windless race day!
posted by Jeff8:21 PM
10/27/2001
posted by Jeff8:04 PM
