Old Star Photos

Most likely this is racing at Larchmont Y.C; time frame between 1914 to 1918.

Ev Emerson Photo Collection

Ev Emerson Photo Collection

The origin of the Star boat

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Our Part in the Harlem Yacht Club Cruise of 2014

Sunday Aug 3 - Work Day on the Mooring

The Club Cruise ran from Aug 1 to 10 but ILENEs part became five nights and five days, with three nights with the main contingent of the Club Cruise in Mattituck and the Seatauket YC on the North Shore of Long Island. I worked four hours the day before we got started. I found the missing green washer for the dinks air pump -- under the dink and made some progress on pumping it up, but it is not right yet. But we will be on anchor, on dock or on a mooring with launch service for this entire mini-cruise so the dink will not needed. So I moved the outboard from the cars trunk, the gas tank from the boat and the air pump from the dock -- all three to the locker with the oars I found located there buried under the winter covers. Also, I am not putting the water maker into service until we leave for the winter -- unless the manual says it cant remain pickled for a whole year. Id hate to foul up that expensive piece of machinery.

Other work included: (1) sawing the three pieces of veneered wood to close up the port aft cabinet to size, though installation requires return of our drill which was lent out; (2) cleaning birds mess off the dodger which needs more scrubbing. Actually is is not guano but fish guts, scales and bones -- birds being such messy eaters;

(3) attempting to knock out the booms thumb cleats, which was not successful, though I did learn that the first reefing line had been led through the forward part of the boom on the wrongside of the thumb cleat, which was what was causing the harm to the line. So by releading and repairing this line I may not have to do the knockout or replace the line; (4) locating and installing the hatch board bag and inserting the boards therein and installing the cafe doors. These doors put me psychologically into cruising mode. Im ready!

Mon August 4 - Prep Day and Sleep Aboard, Anticipating an Early Start

This was mostly a land day for prep, provisioning and packing. We loaded the car, including the cats, and arrived at the Club at 8:30 pm. After getting everything aboard and put away, we slept peacefully in calm water. This was the cats third trip to the boat this season and they did not complain about being locked in their stuffy carrier in the car. I think it is because they have associated the carrier with boating, which they seem to love. So much for my amateur feline psychiatry.

Whitty: "Do I look like Im worried"

Alphie: "Im Captain of all I survey"

Our efforts to keep out flying biting pests at night was thwarted by the cats ability to "break and enter" by pushing in the screens covering the small side opening ports. They want free rein of ILENEs cabin AND exterior, 24/7. But if we close these ports, the screens cannot be pushed through and the cats have to elect between the two sides of the boat: in or out.

Tues August 5 - HYC to Port Jeff Cove

Underway at 7:00 am for six hours. It was eerily still with mist on the water that the sun had not yet burned off but fine visibility. We were the only boat moving. We waved to some fishermen on the Morris YC dock. By nine a.m. there were a few other boats out but far away. We motored the entire way and never set a sail. Normally a sail will stabilize the boat against rocking but the seas were flat calm with occasional 2 or 3 knot winds, so rocking was not a problem. It was a day made for power boaters, who like flat seas, but not for sailors. Perhaps all that great wind in July has blown itself out and we will have to content ourselves with weak weather sailing conditions in August.  

Clouds and Northport stacks mirrored on the water

Our wake, if you can call it that, as if cut through oil

The last time I recall sailing with such views was crossing the Caicos Banks.  See blog: "Judy and Meridel and Turks and Caicos Part 1", April 3, 2012.

 We took someones mooring in the big cove to starboard just past the breakwater in Port Jeff, hoping the owners didnt show up that evening, but there are about seventy private moorings here and only five boats at the maximum. On a weekend its quite different. Lunch, a nap and then chores before dinner, reading and sleep.

My primary chore was removing, repairing and reinserting the first (red) reefing line. The strength of such a braided line is in its core. The outside, which we see, protects the core from chafing and makes it feel better in ones hands. The covering was all bunched around the two ends and about six feet of the white core, where it runs through the boom, were bare. So the first thing I did was to pull on the cover from the ends to the middle, over and over. Gradually the cover moved toward the middle until the bare spot was only about eight inches long. Then I sewed some light thread through the cover and the core, to try to hold things in place. Then red electrical tape was wound around the remaining exposed core. The reefing line certainly carries a heavy load. More experienced sailors who may think this is a bad idea, please chime in. Otherwise, time will tell if this red line parts, and if the storm is severe enough to do this to the red line, there is the second black reefing line waiting to take its load.

My other chore was installation of self adhesive rubber weatherstripping to the underside of the cover of the aft port lazarette -- the propane locker. Practical Sailor magazine told me that this compartment should be locked and watertight, except for a hole in the bottom, through which any propane that leaks from the tank, being heavier than air, could escape outside the boat. We have gotten some water in this lazarette, when heeled in the rain, because it was not watertight. Most of this water escaped through the hole in the bottom but its much better bone dry. The latch went on this past winter and now the weatherstripping.

August 6 - Port Jefferson to Mattituck

We hoisted the main at the mooring at about 8:30 but also used the engine to head north out of Port Jeff, through its wide channel, rather than tack in there. Then northerly winds made the next two hours of our 25 mile eastward passage something of a beam reach and the genoa got to play as well. With full sails, and a bit of help from the tides, we were making speed over ground in excess of two thirds of the apparent wind speed, averaging better than six knots, and without the engines noise. But starting at about 11:00 the winds dropped to behind us and in strength so we had to use the engine the rest of the way. There was a mess in the compartment under the cabinet under the galley sink, which I cleaned up while Lene maintained the watch. She also had the helm from the breakwater up the two mile long bending bayou-like creek to the dock at Strongs Marina. We did this at low tide which made for a nervous time. In the bayou the deep water is not in the center and at times was only five inches below the bottom of our keel. We were on the dock, across from "Blast," Ernie and Camilles big Albin trawler, by 1:30.

This was ILENEs first docking this year except for her initial watering. I worked the afternoon, washing the top of the boat, filling the port water tank and then I caused a very expensive stupid mistake -- by not following the advice I always give to Ilene. "Make sure that the deck fill hole into which you put the water hose says WATER".  Yes, I put the fresh water hose from the dock into the starboard fuel tank. Water being heavier than diesel, it went to the bottom of the tank and pushed a few gallons of diesel fuel out onto the deck and into the water before our neighbor, Bert, yelled that we were spilling fuel. Probably a few gallons, which subjected us to a potential fine and cleanup costs from the Department of Environmental  Protection. I mopped up what I could and did get to the marinas very nice pool to cool off a few minutes before its five PM closure time.

Im sure these guys didnt like my mucking up their home.

I think it was the anticipation of that dip which caused me to not be thinking about the right deck fill. A shower and dinner with our new friends, Bert and Margie of the fast powerboat "Blue Bell" from Mashpee, on the Cape and Florida. Dinner was at Paces Dockside, the restaurant on the marinas grounds. Bert bought a bottle of wine and shared it with me. And another good nights sleep before I had to face the music the next day.

August 7 - Lay Day in Mattituck

The morning was pleasant, with a walk into town to visit the hardware store, post office, book store, grocery, drugstore (for a postcard to send to my granddaughter), cheese store, and wine shop. But the afternoon entailed taking up the entire cabin sole to get to the top opening of the forward fuel tank (where the inoperative fuel gauge is inserted). That hole is inconveniently located directly under the one small piece of the sole that holds all the other pieces together. About 60 1.5" wood screws were removed. John is an excellent mechanic but took three very expensive hours to do what he could have done in a fraction of that time if he had been supplied with a stronger pump attached to larger diameter hoses. Out came the pink diesel fuel and the water, all told about 40 gallons, into five gallon cans which were poured into a fifty five gallon drum that was hauled off to an authorized hazardous waste disposal site. The pumping done, I shooed John out and put the boat back together again myself. Too late for that refreshing dip today. Instead the bitter pill of the bill. Lets just say with the replacement of forty gallons of diesel fuel my mistake cost north of one grand. And I have remarked how proud of myself I am when I accomplish a new task on the boat. So I better fess up about how rotten I feel about a stupid very costly mistake that harmed the environment. I know better and it wont happen again.

Dinner was a pot luck affair at a picnic table in the marina. This would have been better if we had had six or ten boatloads of folks. As it was there was us, Ernie and Camille from "Blast" and Marcia and Mark from "Leeds The Way". 

Marcia is the Clubs current Fleet Captain, a position I held for a few years and that Ernie held for more than 20 years before me.  We love cruising but can do it without the Club, such as our 93 days in Maine last summer. It is sad that those who could benefit from our experience do not avail themselves of this resource. Anyway, there was no shortage of good food and beverages among our tiny group.

August 8 - Mattituck to Seatauket YC, in Port Jefferson Harbor

Underway from 10 to 4:30. We tried to sail and actually did sail a few miles, close hauled, easterly, along the North Shore of L.I. But we tacked to a northerly course and stayed on it too long. Too long because the wind had shifted and we could no longer sail east so we gave it up, keeping the main up for stability and headed directly for the Port Jeff breakwater, with the wind directly in front of us. Turning south to enter the harbor, the wind helped us and we sailed to about 150 yards from the mooring field, headed into the wind, popped the main halyard clutch and expected to hear the familiar "whoosh" of the mainsail tumbling down into its bag. But no whoosh. I went to the mast to tug down on the sails luff. Nothing doing. I told Lene to head back out into the open part of the harbor and watch our depth and for other boats, like this ferry coming out,

while I would get into the bosns chair and she would haul me to the top of the mast (using the spinnaker halyard) where I planned to use pliers to unscrew the shackle and let the sail fall down. Luckily the wind was light, reducing both heeling and our speed. Lene said "Check the mast." Smart girl! Somehow, two loops of the end of the port lazy jack halyard had worked loose from their coil and in fact four lengths of this thinner line had become wedged between the main halyard and the housing of its block at the base of the mast. I managed to get the sail down by pulling the halyard through this block, a few inches and then feet at a time. Once the sail was down and stowed, we were able to take a guest mooring and then came the task of fixing the problem. First I cut the lengths, about 2.5 feet that stuck out from the block. Then I tried pulling the stuck bits out with pliers. I removed the block and its shackle from the base of the mast to make the work easier. Next it was knife, ice pick and pliers, trying to pluck fibers from the errant bits but this was very slow going.

Fluff

Notice how flattened these formerly jammed bits are compared to the width of normal line.

 (If anyone knows how I can get rid of the underlining below, which is unintended, please let me know, thank you.)

I thought to pull the main halyard out of the shackle in the direction I had pulled to get the sail down, to thereby relieve the pressure in the jam. But this would have required use of the snake, to get the line back through its channel under the deck after it was freed. The same snake used earlier on this voyage to repair the reefing line, had been put away in a safe place and could not be found. Lene is the one who always wants things to be put away and I should let her do the putting because she is better at the remembering. In any event, after diligent search, no snake. So another plan was needed. I noticed that the block seemed to be held together with three small Allen bolts and disassembled it. Then everything could be easily removed. A similar jamming had occurred in the block at the clew of the small jib during the passage from Providentiales in the Turks and Caicos to Mayaguana in the Bahamas. Some physicist is going to have to tell me about what force of magnetism draws small lines into the narrow spaces between larger lines and the housings of their blocks.

Free at last.

Roger, Mark, Ernie, Marsha, Lene and Camille -- after ice cream.

Dinner was at La Parilla, good Spanish food, followed by the traditional desert of the Harlem Cruise -- ice cream.

August 9 - Seatauket YC to Harlem YC

Port Jeff waterfront from our mooring; ferry docks to the right.

We got off the mooring at 7:45  and at 8:00. Huh? Well, Lene and I had a "failure to communicate." She did not hear me say "Reverse," to back away form the ball, and took my pointing out where the ball was as a direction to turn toward that side. We drove the boat over the mooring, getting its lines tangled on the propeller. So I got a refreshing early morning salt water dip and got us off in short order, without cutting any lines.  In the harbor we saw about five knots of wind from the north and hoisted the main in anticipation of a beamy starboard reach while we retraced the first days passage, in the opposite direction. We even set the genoa, a couple of times. But the wind died. This time, it being a Saturday, numerous wakes of large high horse-power floating big-ego machines roiled the surface so the main did serve its anti-rocking purpose. A rather boring passage and we were on our mooring at 2:20 and home in our apartment at 4. So, while a lot of things went wrong, everyone got home safely and a good time was had by all.

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It is getting close! The Metal Boat Festival 2014!

We are a few weeks away from the 2014 Metal Boat Festival! You you have an interest in Metal Boats, I hope to see you there. 

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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 here.

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April 9 11 St Augustine to Cumberland Island Lay Day There and then to Fernandina 58 7 Miles and 5 3 Miles

We dropped the mooring at 7:15 to make the 7:30 opening of the Bridge of Lions. We made our way to the inlet using the charted buoys. But from there out to deep water, the buoys are not marked on the chart because they are frequently moved as the waves push the sand around. The marina provided us with a very helpful aerial photograph with the buoys shown. It would have been more helpful for readers had I been able to get this rotated. You can see the white beaches through which we exited and then its simple: Just stay between the reds on your left and greens on your right until "STA" for St.Augustine, the red and white buoy at the open end. Except the buoys are a lot smaller than the dots in the photo and appeared as black dots in the rising sun. We never saw less than 17 feet of water.

And the seas were flat calm, making it easier. Even though when we got in the ocean we put up full sails, we had to motor. Flat seas made a turtle near us visible, however, as well as numerous dolphins.

We lost half an hour when the engine stopped. After tinkering with the filters and switching to the other fuel tank and hand pumping fuel with the hidden lever, she started right up again. During this time the sails were doing little good, 1.8 knots over the ground. A few miles later I noticed that the interlocking Allen head bolts that hold the eye splice at the bitter end of the main sheet in place in a block were missing. Luckily I found the two parts on the deck and locking the boom in place with a different line, I reinserted them onto each other through the splice and used blue Locktite so they will hopefully not fall apart by themselves again.
Around noon the wind came up on our starboard quarter, strongly enough to move the boat at a bit more than five knots. It was such a pleasure to sail, without the noise, that we shut down the engine even though we were making only five knots, a lot less than the 6.5 we had planned for.  These big guys were anchored in our path, about three miles off the mouth of the St. Johns River leading to Jacksonville.

At about 4:30 we gybed for the left turn into the St. Marys River and felt the effect of three knots of adverse current, making only 2.8 over the bottom until we augmented with the engine again. Another gybe and we were headed north up Cumberland Sound where we anchored in 15 feet of water with 60 feet of snubbed chain at 6:30; a long day. We were near s/v Seeker

and Earl and Kathy invited us over for a delicious fun dinner as soon as I got the snubber on and the dink lowered. He is a psychologist who taught groups of corporate executives. They are newly retired and planned to haul Seeker until the fall at nearby St. Marys, where s/v Pandora was earlier this year, They have interesting summer plans including a motorcycle ride from NC to Alaska and back.
Next day I put cat proof screening in the four starboard side opening ports using proper fitting spline that we had obtained in Cocoa. The tops of ILENEs interior cabinetry give our felines access to these screens which they had clawed.
In the afternoon we went ashore and toured the ice house museum and the ruins of Dungeness, the largest (37,000 square feet) of the Carnegie family mansions on Cumberland island. Lene at front; Roger at rear entrance.

We also visited the beach.

The island is 13 miles long and its very clean wide lovely beach is almost unused by humans. Behind Lene is the view to the south and behind me, the north.











In November we saw a few of the horses, but at a distance. Today we saw many and they came close.

Three in the meadow

Three on the trail from the beach, walking past us.

One of the three passing us.

Three more on the beach, one of whom is interested in making more horses.

There is a no-touching rule honored by the humans and the equines. I

keep thinking how much my youngest daughter would love this place though she would not like the law prohibiting the Park Service from feeding, sheltering, grooming or providing veterinary services to the horses. They fend for themselves and are rather small compared to the hunters and jumpers she works with..
Back on ILENE, we prepared for the predicted thunderstorm by letting out twenty more feet of scope. There was no one within several hundred yards of us. We saw the thunderstorm both on radar pictures and in reality, and heard it, moving north, just west of us. No rain and no wind for us.
Our next stop was supposed to be -- and will be -- Jekyll Island, but they had no room for us the first night so we backtracked, south, back into Florida, and took a mooring off Fernandina. Lene wanted to go to the farmers market, where this impromptu group was jamming.

I took this photo just after the two fiddling ladies had left. I walked about a mile further and got two oil filters, one to install at Jekyll and a spare. I also picked up To Kill A Mockingbird, my book groups selection for the May meeting, and a delicious Pecan roll to enjoy with the dinner at the end of Passover.

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Header Photo The Norfolk Punt

The previous header photo was of the Norfolk Punt, a racing dinghy class found on the Norfolk Broads, England and derived from the bird gunning punts that were in use there in the late 1890s, early 1900s. The Norfolk Punts are 22 long, double-ended and like the International Canoe, the modern boats have no resemblance to their heritage except for the canoe stern. The Norfolk Punts of today are very much a modern racing dinghy with double trapezes, assymetrics, and a tall, overpowering sailplan. Although the modern class is a development class there does seem to be a good mix of vintage punts racing though I have no idea how they handicap Punts with hulls from 1935 versus a punt designed in the last ten years. The Punt featured in the header photo looks like a 1960s Wyche and Coppock single chine design.

The photo of the Norfolk Punt below gives a good idea of what the original sailing Punt looked like; reverse sheer, decks sloping outward, high coamings. With this Punt you can see the gunning punt lineage. This Punt looks short so it may be a reproduction.

Here is a modernized 1930s Punt hull with carbon rig and trapeze. It retains the reverse sheer and high coamings.

A video of a modern double trapeze Punt with the video also ending with a modern double trapeze teabag capsize.

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Boatbuilding A Piece of Furniture

"A piece of furniture" we would often say as we eyeballed those McCutcheon or Souter built Classic International 14 dinghies, cold-molded in mahogany, glowing with multi-coats of varnish, all joints carefully crafted, beautiful wood everywhere. I was reminded of superior dinghy craftsmanship when I came across this stunning photo of  the interior of the most recent addition to the historical Australian 18 foot skiff fleet, the reproduction Myra Too.

Myra Too was built in 2013 by Bob McLeod to reconstructed lines (by Australian National Maritime Museum curator, David Payne) of the 1951 championship winner. Myra Too was originally built and raced by Aussie legend, Billy Barnett. To build the reproduction hull, Bob McLeod used silver ash and, in the inner and outer layers of the hull, Queensland red cedar (the outer layers used rare, full-length pieces estimated to be between 400 to 600 years old).

Here is the original post on Myra Toos construction from the Australian National Maritime Museum blog.

From YouTube comes what, at first view, looks to be a typical mast-head GoPro video -- this of the historical 18 footer Yendys going around the course, However, with the historical 18 footers nothing is typical. Of interest to me was the spinnaker set starting at about 1:50 into the video. It takes four crew members to get the mammoth spinnaker pole out onto the mast, three of them heave-ho pushing and a fourth slotting the multi-piece pole together as it goes out. Once out, this long, long spinnaker pole then wags all over the place as they go downwind. These pre WWII 18s were heavy dinghies with lots of crew and this video shows that they pushed a lot of water around as they bashed around the race-course.

The history of Yendys from the Australian National Maritime Museum blog.

"A rival of Britannia, Yendys was built in 1925 by Charlie Hayes for Norm Blackman. This big hull is also built in the traditional heavy scantlings, but it illustrates an early piece of innovation, its transom bow. Hayes had another legend working for him at the time, Charlie Peel, who had been successful with transom bows on 14-foot skiffs in Victoria. As well, the 1920s was the time when the Restricted 21s showed how fast a lighter-keel boat could go, and Hayes and Peel were in the thick of this class too. Out comes Yendys, with its sawn-off profile and veed bow shapes, a sort of restricted-class yacht crossed with a skiff and with the bow overhang squared off. Despite the odd mix it went pretty well too, but although another two snub-nosers were built in that time, the idea did not catch on. It did show there was room to move in the rules, though, and the Queenslanders took on both innovation and the establishment at the same time."

And a post featuring a photo of a pretty deck on a 505.

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October 20 Solomons to Cape Henry 41 Miles

It was cold in Mill Creek last night, in the low 40s -- a two cat night. We have no heat except when plugged into shore power so we closed off the doors to the forward head and the salon, making the pullman cabin small, and with all three blankets, two cats and two humans, had a comfortable night.

The morning was warmer and calm in Mill Creek and we set out for Deltaville, which we had somehow bypassed on all of our prior trips.  On the way out, Lene got us onto the sand at the right side of the channel but we dropped the sail and were able to back off in reverse.

Out in the Bay, we were close hauled on a starboard tack but true wind was only ten knots and we were able to make our way close to the turn west for Deltaville using full sails.  It was early so we decided to continue on to Yorktown. But then the wind came up and we had to use the smaller head sail and the chop came up so we needed to use an assist from the engine, and the wind veered a bit forcing us further east than we wanted.  I saw that we would have to tack near Virginias Eastern Shore and would have another twenty miles on a port beat, westward across the Bay and up the York River to Yorktown. We ended sailing almost seven hours, I was getting tired and the idea formed: Why not stay the night on the Eastern Shore?

Lene checked the cruising guide and the town of Cape Charles, with its Harbor of Refuge, a man-made basin cut into the coast line, containing its municipal marina, was close. It was approached by a well marked 2.7 mile long channel heading east and then NE. I love well run municipal marinas; they are a reply to those who think that government is the source of our problems rather than the solution to many of them. The town is about nine miles north of the actual Cape for which it is named -- the southern tip of the Delmarva peninsula. It is a quiet town especially when we explored it, late on a Monday afternoon, after giving ILENE her bath. We strolled the main drag and saw signs indicating new businesses were opening. The port is still largely for commercial fishing and barges for the cement factory across from us. But the sunset, looking across the Bay isnt shabby. Note the tanker on the horizon at the left; more on this later.

We had dinner at The Shanty, the restaurant located in the marina and I wont describe each dish (this aint no food blog) but the cooking was imaginative, well executed, delicious and inexpensive. We bought this PVC and driftwood egret there, to add to our aviary sculpture collection.

Speaking of sculptures, here are two mermaids, seen during out stroll through town.

Two sad things happened out there today. We saw several boats, close together, off our port bow, one giving off a plume of white smoke. We heard some incoherent VHF radio chatter about a fire. Normally, such chatter is about nautical events tens of miles away. We saw a helicopter overhead. We called to offer further assistance but got no response. Then, after we had passed, the flames ranged 30 feet high and great clouds of black smoke emanated.

Someones dreamboat is no more. News reports state that the boater was rescued by a good samaritan who got there before us; no one was injured.

The other sad event was the probable death of my Ipad. It fell out onto the swim platform and there was bathed in salt water. A smaller loss than of an entire boat, but more personal. It put a crimp in Lenes relationship with me for a while. "I told you not to leave it up here!" she said. She was in a foul mood; stewing in her anger. A few hours later I reminded her that after I had told her not to carry her cell phone in the dink unless contained in a zip lock, or stronger, plastic bag, she fell in the surf at Grand Turk Island. On that occasion I simply let her use my cell phone. Memory of that earlier comparable sad event of 2012 cooled out her anger.

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February 1 3 Key West to Marquesa Keys to Boca Grande and Back to Key West 29 9 15 8 and 17 5 Miles Respectively

Everyone says the Marquesa Keys are about 20 miles from Key West, but our route measured at 29.9. On the way, once out of the channel, we enjoyed about 25 knots of wind on our port quarter (20 knots of apparent wind) which filled our Genoa nicely. No need for the mainsail -- too much wind and plenty of time for the short passage. Part of the longer distance was going north on the east side of Fleming Key (a naval air reserve without a landing strip) and down south again on its west side, 1.8 miles each way, under power. 

Marquesas Keys looks a bit like a roundish South Pacific atoll (think Bikini before we atomized it), except it is mangroves instead of palms. It is large, four miles from NE to SW, and Mooney Harbor, in the middle, is too shallow for ILENE, though we did see two small power boats in there. This picture refused to rotate; North is the right side.

We had planned to anchor to the west side of Mooney Harbor Key, the tiny dot on the south side toward the west. The chart says it is only three feet deep on the approach from the south, but Alex had assured us, with a confirming visual from Google Earth, that there is a minimum of six feet of depth to the anchorage. But the 25 knots of wind was from the ESE, which kicked up five foot waves that left us no margin for error; they would have pounded us onto the coral on the way in if we were not perfect. I would love to try Alexs recommendation on a calm day when you can slowly hunt your way in -- and back out if there is a problem. So we continued a couple of miles west of the location then a couple of miles north and finally east and anchored at the spot indicated by the divider point at the top of the picture.

Going in, our Raymarine chart plotter was worthless. Its largest scale was six miles, showing not nearly enough detail to cut around the un-buoyed  shallow spots. So Lene manned the iPad, with its InavX  program which shows our location and a yellow line showing our course over the ground. "About ten degrees right, " she coached me, and we got in fine and anchored in 12 feet with 80 feet of snubbed chain and her phones anchor alarm, just in case. Such anchor alarms are rather worthless in a crowded anchorage like in Marathon where we are only 15 yards from the boat behind us. By the time you hear the beep, it is too late to take corrective action. But we have miles of open water behind us here and if we started to drag we would have time to fix the problem. Our anchoring detail ran into a snag which we solved with many whacks of the boats hammers, first the rubber mallet and then the metal one. Last time we raised, at Marathon, I accidentally stepped on the "up" button causing the windlass to jam the anchor up into its housing. There was lots of room and time here for the whacking process which eventually freed the anchor.

The only other sailboat here was about a mile north of us, behind the most southern Island in the atolls west wall. So we had "our" island all to ourselves. A tropical paradise except with this wind, though we are partially shielded from it b y the island, dinghy adventures were too fraught for us.

The waves here were less than at the unprotected mooring field at Key West.

Specifically, we were at N 24 32.566; W 82 09.946. This is the furthest that we will go and 1063 nautical miles from the Harlem. From now on we will b e heading home. By adding up the mileages of each of the legs from there to here I find that the actual miles traveled to this point are 1676.8 (1928.3 in land miles). Of the 117 days since and including October 8, we have moved the boat only 45 of them, only 38 percent of them, with almost two thirds of our days as lay days. Three of the passages involved one or more overnights, making for only 41 separate passages. I think we are taking it easy, trying to avoid problems with weather and enjoying ourselves.

About 10 miles off the south coast of Grenada in 2011 marks ILENEs southernmost boundary of travel so far. Eastport, Maine marks her furthest northern and eastern destination and we were now at the westernmost point of her range --so far.

Next morning, we had a problem. It was after a nice breakfast and we were cleaning the boat and not paying attention to the fact that the wind had changed direction. When the wind was from the east, we had miles of deep ocean behind us to the west. When they came from the north it was much less. The anchor alarm probably began to sound while the shop vacuum cleaner was roaring. We heard it and got the engine on, but in the course of getting up the anchor we drifted into water that was shallower than our draft. And the wind was pushing us further on. The engine could not get us off, even when we heeled the boat with the jib. We saw a fishing boat and called on VHF radio Channel 16. The  Coast Guard heard our call and responded. They switched us to channel 22A and asked us many questions including our Towboat US towing insurance number. They called Towboat US  "Ranger" for us with their more powerful VHF radio on a high antenna and it was dispatched to us from Key West. In the meantime I lowered the dink and put our port anchor with 20 feet of chain and about 80 of our 280 feet of line in it and motored away, paying out the line and dropped that anchor as a kedge, to try to prevent the waves from pushing us further into shallower water. Lene hailed some fishermen who tried to tow us off but their engine was not powerful enough. We waited with anxious thoughts. We heard a soft thumping when waves lifted us and put us back down on the sand. Not "pounding" but bad enough. When we on shore for the winter, the keel supports the weight of the boat. Four pairs of "jackstands", at the sides, stabilize the boat to prevent it from falling over, but the weight is on the keel. When afloat, all of the weight is supported by the water but here, when a wave lifted us a wee bit and dropped us down again, the thump was transmitted through the keel to the rest of the boat. Not a good thing. 

Chris, master of Towboat US "Ranger" arrived and passed us bridles to attach to each bow cleat to pull us off. He powered his engine but we were not moving -- our speed over ground was still "0.0 knots". I suggested putting up sails to heel the boat (and thus lift the keel,) and when Chris said OK we did so, but we were oriented facing the wind so they did not do much good until Chris twisted our orientation to catch some wind. Eventually we broke loose and I was hauling in the line of our kedge anchor but aftert a while it held fast to the bottom. When we wanted to drag it up, it would not budge in the direction we were going, holding us back. Chris said to cut the line. No way! Then he suggested tying a fender to the line and casting it off and promised to retrieve it for us later. We got all 280 feet of line out on deck with a fender tied along the way.  Chris left us not very far from where we had been, but in 13 feet of water, where we anchored with the starboard anchor, our normal one with all chain rode. He retrieved our port anchor, brought it back and gave me some very handy advice of how to get it reinstalled through its "bail" roller. He checked our rudder for damage and it turned freely. If we had not purchased unlimited towing insurance, this escapade would have cost us $1200. Chris was so helpful and polite. The antithesis of the Towboat US operator at Point Judith, RI, who claimed salvage ($27,000) for a tow in August 2010 -- and lost his case.  Power boaters need towing insurance because if their engines fail they need to be towed back to port. In this case, port was Key West, 29 miles away. But sailors can generally get back to port, we only need to be towed off the sand, mud or rock.

Well that experience soured us a bit on the Marquesas, and we started to head back to Key West, but the wind was light and from the west, and we were not going fast and would have arrived after dark and even though I have passed through the harbor coming and going, I really do not like night arrivals. On our way back, we were passing Boca Grande, and Lene said "Why not stay here for the night?" This island is surrounded by shoals but with a marked channel between them. The large green areas are shoals, less than one foot of water. So it looks like you are in the middle of the ocean.

The shoals do nothing to stop wind but eliminate all the waves which break up on them instead of us. North of us, the channel leads to water than only shallow draft boats can use, less than six feet.

The only problems noted in our cruising guides were a tidal current and sharks, but we did not plan to swim.  So we headed north to and into the channel and anchored right in the channel in 17 feet of water with 90 feet of snubbed chain out between R16 and G15, as shown on the chart.  (The distance from one horizontal line to the next is one mile.)  Around nine pm the tidal current started to run the other way and we swung on our anchor to face the other way. Normally, one should not anchor in a channel but here the book said this channel is so little used, especially at night, that it is all right. We could see no other boats. A nice calm night -- until about three a.m., when howling 20 plus knot winds shook the boat and woke me up. I turned on instruments and went to the cockpit and was not really well oriented yet when I looked at the depth meter and speedometer. we were moving at half a knot and the depth, which had been 17 feet the evening before was now 11 and falling to as little as 7.5. Oh no; Not again." I turned on the engine and tried, while the anchor was still down, to direct us toward where I hoped the deeper water was. The only landmark was the  G15 daymark buoy which I could see only by flashlight.

Eventually I turned the engine off and watched and realized that as the boat was moving around with the freedom that its anchor chain allowed, we were passing back and forth over that 7.5 foot spot, we were not dragging and we were not likely to do so with the winds which were now diminishing. By then I was bone chilled and went back to bed.
In the morning we motor-sailed back to Key West, with only the small jib.

We passed these two cruise boats on our way north into the bight where we tied up to a dock for a few days of touring here. ILENE needs a bath; and we do too. And its Lenes birthday.

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Music Whenever Bob Dylans cover of It must be Santa

I first heard this song the past week playing on our local radio station, WRNR. Im surprised Ive never before come across Dylans take on the raucous pagan festival side of the holiday. Any song that leads off with an accordion is alright with me and Dylan fits in his customary wordplay among the lyrics by interspersing the name of recent U.S. presidents with the names of Santas reindeer.

Wishing Earwigoagin readers; Happy Holidays or, Happy Turn of the Year. (Whatever floats your boat.)

And for Jim Carreys beautiful rendition of "White Christmas", click here.

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Jet Propulsion for hydrofoil or maybe a prop and flex shaft

Very cool control system



The drive with the angle reduced improves losses 20% 4.3 Amps idling so only 300mA losses from the shaft. I think the steering should be integrated as a kitchen rudder behind the prop.

Reversing the shaft on a Turnigy D3542/4 Aero drive It a 1450 KV and should deliver loads of torque at 14,000 RPM on as 3C

Battery: 2~4 Cell /7.4~14.8VRPM: 1450kvMax current: 48A No load current: 4AMax power: 690WInternal resistance: 0.019 ohmWeight: 130g (including connectors)Diameter of shaft: 5mmDimensions: 35x42m

Above is a 47 mm prop I have a 57 to once I have the motor attached to the shaft sleeve I will do a power test in a tank see what thrust and Amps I get. With the fat end of 1 HP it should have plenty of clog to lift  it up on the foils.

The shaft is running in a good quantity of copper slip. Ran it on a 4C for a minute an the brass only got warm.

I think the body of the hydrofoil will be a lunch box. I think I will have the prop shaft attached to the rear foil

Perhaps the prop on the above can be placed in a tube like these designs

An interesting jet outboard very high outlet must cost power

Jet Propulsion for hydrofoil  




One thing as there is no transom the bulky scroll will always be in the flow and the outlet will be under water which will reduce the trust considerably.

If the outlet was up high it would work better also the riser would need to be streamlined






Or what about an EDF pumping air into a venturi like below

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