C22 Masting and Epoxying

Brother in law Hans was heading back to BC the next day.

We headed down to the boat to maybe go for a sail, but there wasn't any wind.

We instead prepped and raised the mast on little Still Time.

Took some to to run the halyards, attached spreaders, windex, VHF and shrouds.

Dockmate Scott help and we raised the mast at the dock:

That was easy:

Hans and I spent some time epoxying some holes in the cabintop from the old handrails.

We picked up some two part epoxy putty stick from the chandlery:

https://www.oatey.com/products/oatey-fixit-stick-epoxy-putty-1829259701

Never used this product, and Hans recommended it.

Masked off the 8 holes I needed to fill, and cut off a 1" piece of this stuff.
After squishing with my hands for a couple of minutes, it started to cure, and easily put it in the holes.

Worked great and only $13!
Much between than mixing up resin and thickening it with cabosil.

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We also attached the new stainless grab rails with butyl tape, and installed new thru deck fittings for the coax and 12v to the mast.

MUMM36 ZAMBONI Round Toronto Island Race

National Yacht Club hosts a race every spring and fall that circumnavigates the Toronto Islands.

This was brother in law Hans' chance to sail on race boat ZAMBONI.

We got down to National a little before 10am.

We met with the PHRF handicaper from National Adam Farkus.
We had him measure some sails:

• main
• #2
• masthead symmetric chute

We fixed a problem with the top batten, except Michael forgot to bring in the batten retainer from home.  We used duct tape to secure it.  

We also shortened the forestay foil.  The feeder was too low on the luff tape of our sails and was jamming when taking the sails down.

It was the four of us:

• Michael (main)
• Kris (helm)
• Me (bow and runners)
• Hans (jib trim)

Winds were 8-10 knots from the SE.

Hoisting the main just outside National, we lost the top batten: luckily it fell in the cockpit!

Course was set at Dufferin mark, to Gibraltar Mark, then to the T2 on the east side of the island, then finish near the malting tower by the Billy Bishop Airport.  You had to douse spins before entering the Eastern gap (no spinnakers in the harbour).

We had a good start and had good boat speed with Zoomer (X-35) behind and slightly to windward of us.  We were close hauled to Gibratar, and couldn't make there without a couple of tacks.  However we couldn't tack because Zoomer was on our hip.  We luffed up slightly to tack and go behind them.  What we should have done is footed off and tack after they did.

After Gibratar Mark, the wind angle was too close for a chute.

We probably could have hoisted a masthead asym, but the wind was blowing 12+ knots.

At T2, we hoisted the masthead Frankenchute (our largest symmetric), and flew towards the easter gap.

Had to do a gybe before getting the harbour and dousing to the #2.

Carpe Ventus tried to roll us, so we just footed off and blew by him:

We finished 3rd across the line of 11 boats, but corrected out to DFL.

Hans having a beer at the dock with the CN Tower coming out of his head:

Trip Odometer: 19.4 miles
Trip Start: 12:18
Trip End: 15:50
Trip Duration: 03:31
Avg Speed: 5.5 knots

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CS34 Sail with Hans

Rita's sister Debbie and her husband Hans were visiting from Victoria BC.

After visiting Moeder (Rita/Debbie's Mom) in the nursing home, Hans and I headed to the boat.

We left the dock around 14:30, hosting the main in the harbour:

Winds were 8-10 knots from the SW, got the boat going 6.5 knots upwind about 45 degrees off the wind.

We furled the jib, gybed, and hoisted the spinnaker:

Very easy sail!

We gybed the spinnaker and headed inland toward Lasco Steel.

Running out of water inshore, with the wind dying, we had trouble gybing the spinnaker, so we doused it, and started the motor.  We were in about 10ft of water inshore.

Another nice sail with brother in law.

They are doing some work to the harbour walls in Whitby Harbour.
As we were coming in, we saw a barge with an excavator loading concrete in buckets.
We hung around to see the excavator crab the barge across the harbour:

https://youtu.be/G554xXHVGQ8

It was great having Hans to help put the boat away:

I packed the spinnaker which was stuffed down the main hatch:

The only casualty was the cockpit gelcoat from Hans' new blue pants:

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MUMM36 ZAMBONI First Wed Race

I got down to the boat in mid afternoon (avoiding rush hour traffic).

Attempted to install the 2nd lithium house battery and swap out the 70lb AGM starter battery with a small, lightweight lithium unit:

House lithium on left
Starter AGM on right
Starter lithium on bottom left

I could not get 6GA battery cables to reliably connect to the terminals on the lithium start battery.
Will try at home again with some ferrells before swapping in the AGM for lithium.

Hooked up the DC-DC Charger and the AC Charger.
All working fine.

We had only four of us:

• Michael (helm)
• Kris (bow)
• Phil (main)
• Me (runner/jib)

We left the dock a little before 6pm.

One mile course was setup to Gibraltar mark.

Winds were light 5-7 knots, fairly flat seas.

We flew the masthead chute on the 2 downwind legs.
Our hoists and douses were pretty good.
The first gybe was a bit of a disaster, backing the spinnaker inside the foretriangle, but we recovered quickly.  The rest of the gybes went smoothly. 

We did have the top main batten pop out.
Luckily the tensioner fell on deck instead of in the water!

We finished 3rd across the line, but were 9th of 12 boats in corrected time

Very good considering we only had 4 people.

Flaking the main coming in NYC:

Left my phone tracking app running for the drive home:

Traffic was not too bad at all!

CS34 First Sail

After a windless day in Toronto, there was wind to be had in Whitby later in the afternoon.

Rita and I (and Shadow) headed out for a sail.

Winds were from the SW blowing 5-8 knots.

Hoisting the main in the harbour, had to put the battens in the main:

Before long we were sailing along comfortably:

We tacked over to get the boat over to our friend Scott's boat.

Scott's boat is an Aloha 28:

We tacked around again and went downwind east towards Oshawa.

We didn't have the spinnaker on board, so we slowly drift along at about 2.5 knots.

Very peacful:

After a couple of miles, the wind died, so we furled in the jib and turn on the motor:

We docked uneventfully, and were greeted by a family of geese:

...and a magnificent sunset:

What a great first sail!

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Trip Odometer:11.5 miles
Trip Start: 07:12
Trip End: 20:03
Trip Duration: 02:50
Avg Speed: 4.0 knots

MUMM36 ZAMBONI Sunday Ahmen Race

The Ahmen series races are put on in the spring and fall by all of the Toronto area yacht clubs.

http://www.ahmen.ca/

Race 1 was put on by the Royal Canadian Yacht Club

We had 4 owners

• Kris
• Mike
• Phil 
• Me 

I had to hookup the mast instruments.

We sent Kris up on a bosun's chair to hookup the runner return elastics.

They pull the running backstay blocks/lines up out of the way when released during a tack.

We headed out with NO WIND, motoring over to the start by Etobicoke.

We sailed around for a little bit, but there was only 3 knots of breeze and dropping.

The race committee waited for about 90 mins for the breeze to fill in before abandoning the race.

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