Saturday, September 16, 2017

A daysail with John and his friends

My son is fortunate enough to live on the same floor of his condo complex with some of his best friends from High School.  When I'm with him for meals, etc., he talks about them nonstop, so when he asked if he could invite them sailing, it was a no-brainer to invite Jim and Laura along for the day.


I arrived at KYC a bit early and noticed this huge shape down at the end of the dock.  Mike Vinik, one of our members who owns a tugboat (and evidently some other large toys), had his tug and barge parked at the end of the dock and a few members were working to put ice sleeves on the pilings that hold the floating docks in place.  The club has been having trouble with ice heaving pulling these out during the winter and this is hopefully a solution.



Aside from the new scenery at the dock, it was a typical daysail.  We caught the launch out to Seas The Day.  I went below and explained how to use the head and the safety precautions (I also checked the stuffing box... I'm not going to forget that for a while).  Then we motored out - it was relatively foggy at first - and then set the sails.


We sailed across the bay to Mt. Loretto Chapel and then tacked and headed back a bit.  Once we got away from the shore a bit, we broke out the sandwiches from Mike's and after eating, headed over to show them the Great Beds Light.


We then returned... taking a few extra minutes to remove some of the windage from Seas The Day (Hurricane Jose is coming up the coast this week - we expect it to stay out at sea, but I wanted to have things ready as I'm doing training on Tuesday and Wednesday.)

After picking up the stick, we had time for a couple of photos before heading back on the launch and a quick beer at the KYC bar.









Monday, September 11, 2017

A September Daysail

Vicky heads back to China Today so Saturday was our last chance to sail together for a while.  It was just a pleasant daysail with the two of us.  We set the sails for a close reach and sped across the bay... almost all the way to Romer Shoal Light at 7 knots or so without even trying.  There we turned around... heaved to... then tried to sail back (and realizing we made such great time due to wind and tides all going with us).  Since we wanted to meet John for dinner we took in the sails and turned on the engine.

It was a great - if cool - day.  Temperatures were in the high 60s out on the water which made it cool enough to pull out the jackets.  We couldn't ask for a better sky.







We saw a new (at least unfamiliar to us) tanker...