C22 Practice Race

Sailing season is here!

I spent the afternoon getting the mast ready to be put up.
Got the sails and cushions moved moved over from the sailing school portable.
Moved the boat over to the basin where Peter and Jenny helped me raise it at the dock.

We had a mishap in that we severed the wind instrument wire.
Oh well, will have to drop the mast to repair.

Peter and I rigged the boat and tuned the rig.

The new traveller and halyard lines are nice.

John could not make it, so Peter went out with Melissa, Chris, and I.

Winds were 6-12 knots from the east.  Full racing main and #1 genoa.  Course was 7 short.

14 boats on the water including 6 boats from our division.  Four Sharks, included Great White from the sailing school.

Melissa and Chris

First start (only two boats)

Peter on the sheets

Melissa on the heln

Chris poling the geona to windward

After the 2nd leg

We had a great start on starboard tack in clear air.  Melissa decided to take this lane well south of the windward mark.  Payed off because we got lifted to the mark and beat everyone in our division to it.

The next two reaching legs, the Shark passed us by a little.  On the final upwind leg we tacked right away and repeated what worked well for us at the start.  We finished just behind the Sharks which means we would have beaten them on corrected time if this was a regular race.

Trip Odometer: 8.56 miles
Avg Speed:: 3.6 knots
Max Speed: 5.7 knots
Moving Time: 02:24:00

Google Earth Track: track

ACE First Sail

Had a work party to get ACE ready for sailing.

• Me
• Michael Cullen
• Micheal Ahearn
• Jenny
• Peter
• Mark
• Christine
• Brent

We had lots to do:

• attach mainsheet deck block
• rig mainsheet
• install spinnaker topping lift cleat
• tension rig
• fix outhaul purchase
• install reefing line
• remove wind instrument

The wind instrument is not working at all, so I went up the mast in a bosun's chair:

I spent about half an hour at the top of the mast removing the electrical tape and bolts to remove the wind instrument.  I pulled the cable out of the top of the mast with a tracer and lowered it to the deck. When I took the connector apart, sure enough the ground pin had come loose.  Going to replace the entire connector this week.

We spent ALMOST 3 HOURS trying to correct the outhaul purchase.  There are two blocks inside the mast that were not rigged properly and would not allow us to flatten the sail in strong winds.

I had got all the sails from my house delivered to the dock the day before.  As we were loading them into the boat, we had no mainsail:  the racing main is in to Evolution Sails for batten pocket repairs, and the dacron delivery main was at Kris' place in Oakville.  No problem, we got Sumac's main.

It was a LOT smaller, but a good sail.  It was 8ft from full hoist, and the much shorter on the boom (ACE's boom is 16.5ft, while Sumac is 10ft).

We went out with this fractional main, and #2 genoa  With 15+ knots from the south, we got the boat moving upwind at close to 8 knots.  We hoisted one of Razorbill's symmetrical spinnakers and got the boat doing close to 9 knots.

New mainsheet system worked well.

Water temperature was 5 degrees Celcius!

Jenny with a toque

That's me flying the chute

Trip Odometer: 10.97 miles
Avg Speed: 6.0 knots
Max Speed: 10.0 knots
Moving Time: 01:29:00

Google Earth Track: Click Here

Click for bigger

Still Time Work Party

Melissa, John, and I had setup this date over a month ago with our busy schedules.

It was sunny and beautiful 12 degrees Celcius!

We met at EggSmart for some fuel for getting Still Time ready for the water.

I had removed all the external teak and re-finished it this week.

First thing we did was cut the back of the shrinkwrap and rolled it forward.  I am going to try and re-use the shrink wrap and frame next year, as the system worked perfectly this winter.

We labeled the PVC ribs before taking them off; going to store them with the cradle.

Melissa and John donned blue coveralls and lightly sanded the bottom with 220 grit sandpaper.

We masked the waterline, and after a quick rub with a tack cloth, the two of them painted away with VC17:

Did not take long, as I was aboard cleaning out all the stuff on the inside, and attached the rudder and tiller. Took about half an hour.

Next was a wash of the hull, followed by a quick polish using a buffing compound and the Dewalt rotary buffer.  This took a little over half an hour.

Next was a coat of wax and buff with a new wool pad on the buffer.  This was followed by a hand buff with a clean microfiber cloth.  She came out great!

I was lunch time and the bar was open for a Old Flame Red from Port Perry,.

Next we completely emptied the boat, and attached the teak to hold the companionway boards.

Melissa and John cleaned the entire inside of the boat; man it was filthy, but it came out looking great!

We attached the motor, and called it a day.

Things still left to do:

• fiber glass repairs before re-attaching the companionway steak sliders
• fiber glass repair on the companionway hatch
• re-attach teak on companionway hatch
• re-attach the grab rails
• re-finish the inside teak and re-attached
• cleanup excess butyl tape on bow
• install bilge pump
• have aluminum cover made to cover the bilge opening

Still have some work to do on the mast

• install spinnaker pole topping lift block mast exit block
• install double mast exit blocks
• change angle of the wind instrument
• shorten the wind instrument cable
• fix stripped screw where the spreaders attach
• also thinking of replacing the halyards as they are 8 years old
• fix instrument drop board
• check water levels in the battery

At any rate she is ready for the water on the first of May.

Then an Old Flame blonde was calling us from the clubhouse.

ACE Masting

With ACE in the water, we want to get the mast up ASAP.  We had prepped the mast last week.

We met after work:

• Me
• Michael Cullen
• Michael Ahearn
• Jenny
• Peter
• Shelaugh (Peter's Sister)
• John Scurr

Took about an hour.

Start of lift

We had to get a ladder out because the lift rope got stuck on the backstays.

CS34 Bottom Paint

Easter long weekend, and the weather was beautiful: sunny and 10 degrees with just a little bit of wind, PERFECT for doing the bottom on big Still Time.

Based on past experience, if you get a window early in the spring, paint your bottom, but it could turn cold (like it has in the first week of April), but worst, the knat flies come out as it get warmer and make painting the bottom VERY unpleasant.

We undid the strings for the cover that go around the hull.
The cover then hung vertically, allowing us to mask the waterline and start painting.

Rita painting the stern

We realized that when I pressure washed the hull in the fall, I had missed a large section on the port side; I seem to remember I was doing it at dusk.  Had to get a buck of warm water from the clubhouse to clean these areas (the outdoor water is not on yet). Once the areas dried, the two of us got her done

Took a couple of hours.

The aluminum thing hanging at an angle from the cradle is the boom.

CS34 Main Sail Battens

Been a while since I posted, but been busy.

The main on the CS34 has always had problems with the battens.

The battens are round pieces of fiberglass rod that are pushed in from the luff on the main and held in place with the standard velcro batten pockets.  The rod would push through the velcro, or slip beside it.  Every year in the past four years I have had the boat, the battens were poking out whenever we were cruising with any kind of wind.  The way the pockets supported the battens was bad, and the battens would drift away from the slides and rub on the mast.

I got Durk Stegeinga from Performance Sails in Nova Scotia to order and install round batten luff receivers:

This will solve the batten problems.

YYZ to SRQ

Rita and I extended our trip to sail in the British Virgin Island with Walter and Colleen Pingle to fly into Sarasota (SRQ) a couple of days early to visit our friends Frank and Trish Smith in St Petes.

Packing the night before

We flew out of Toronto YYZ taking a limo from the house in Bowmanville at 5:15am.  This left plenty of time for the 8:05 flight.  Good thing, as it took us over 2 hours to get though the customs lines at the airport!  We landed in Sarasota SRQ at 11:06am.

We took a rental car and toured along the inter-coastal waterway through Lido Key, Longboat Key, Bradenton Beach, and the village of Cortez

We stopped at the Sea Hagg nautical shop in Cortez

Man we are such tourists!

We stopped at the Bradenton Pier in Cortez for some lunch:

Blackened Mahi Mahi and sea scallops; YUMM.

Alas it was time to head over the Sunshine bridge to St Petes:

We met Frank and Trish (and their dog Fang) at their condo on Isla Del Sol

We went for a short drive to St Pete Beach and had a drink on the rooftop patio http://www.thehurricane.com as the sun went down.

We had a great dinner at the Isla Del Sol Yacht Club.

What a great day!