Last Winter 230 Days A Compilation

Avid readers of this blog (are there any?) knew that this post was coming. It is based almost entirely on information contained in the 91 posts that described our activities during the period October 7, 2014 to May 26, 2015, compiled for statistical purposes.

We devoted about 1.5 months transiting from City Island, NY to the northern border of FL and the same amount for the return trip, with the remaining 4.5 months in Florida, almost two thirds of the 7.5 months total.

We made 85 passages. These took 89 days because a few were multi-day passages. This means 141 lay days. So on 61% of the days we just stayed where we were. The longest stay in one place was in Ft. Lauderdale, 17 days between five on our southbound and 12 on our northbound stops there. Though given the number of places we stayed in Miami (Miami Beach, Coconut Grove, and on Key Biscayne, all in Greater Miami, we spent 24 days there. And we stayed in many places only overnight, with the longest number of consecutive passage days being five, from Portsmouth VA south through the Dismal Swamp to Whitaker Creek, Oriental, NC.

The furthest ILENE got from City Island was Marquesa Keys, an uninhabited atoll about 25 miles west of Key West. This was 1063 miles (all miles are nautical miles unless otherwise indicated) from City Island, as the crow flies, for a crows round trip of 2126 miles. But we cant sail as the crow flies -- over land -- and we made several side trips up rivers such as to Jacksonville and Washington DC. So our total mileage for the round trip was 3561.5 (equal to about 4095.7 land miles). Average mileage per passage was 41.9 miles, ranging from 268 miles for the first passage, from City Is. to Annapolis MD, to only 1.5 miles from an anchorage at the south east corner of Coconut Grove to the Coral Reef YC, in the NW corner. And the median mileage per passage was only 34. Of the 89 passage days, only 22 were outside, in the Atlantic, though another twelve were in Chesapeake (11) and Delaware (1) Bays, where, with a little luck, one can sail. All the other 55 passage days were in the ICW or on rivers, where sailing is an iffy proposition at best. In fact, the lack of opportunity to sail is the biggest drawback to Florida as a cruising destination as compared with Maine, the Bahamas or the Caribbean. And we were underway for 577 hours, thus averaging 6.1 knots of speed overall.

Destinations: by State:
New York.         1 (City Island)
New Jersey.       2. On the way back
Maryland.          9
DC.                    1
Virginia.             8
N. Carolina.      11
S. Carolina.        6
Georgia.             4
Florida.             31
This adds up to only 73 ports, rather than 85, and the difference represents arrivals in the same port for a second or third time. And significantly, 57 of the ports we visited were "new" ports to us, with the other 16 being places ILENE had visited on prior cruises. In my opinion a new port is many times more challenging than a return visit.

How did we attach to land?
Five nights were at sea - overnights, with no attachment.
Of the rest, 38 were on moorings, 89 were on our anchor, and 98 were at docks. Unlike the kitties who see docks as roaming opportunities, we prefer less docks and we could have had a few less dock nights except for rough weather in some places and the desire for electricity to get heat in others.  Our stops were as different and varied as a few hundred yards off the back side of Miami Beach in the middle of a bustling harbor, to quaint towns like Swansboro NC, and anchorages in tidal creeks where we saw no one and beside islands in the Atlantic such as Rodrigues Key. So it never gets boring.

Dining?
230 days makes for 690 meals. Altogether, 140 of them, about 20%, were taken off ILENE, some on other boats, some in friends homes, but off ILENE. But we had the most dinners off - 88, and only 31 lunches and 21 breakfasts. Our grocery bills exceeded our restaurant tabs

Our ashore activities, in addition to cleaning, shopping, cooking, laundry, haircuts and the usual activities of life maintenance were many and varied:

The Annapolis Boat Show
Sightseeing by auto on Islands in the Chesapeake off the Eastern Shore
Stand up paddleboarding
Car tour of a proposed bike tour
Fast Ferry to the Dry Tortugas and visit to Fort Jefferson there
Evening lectures on Dorothy Parker and on the history of Miami Beach
Snorkeling from a catamaran on a reef off Key West
Concert  by band led by Cab Calloways son
Power boat ride through Miami Beach harbor
Sabbath prayers at synagogue near Fort Lauderdale
Hospital visit to Lenes cousin Naomi with broken pelvis
H.S. Class Reunion (Lene only)
Radio controlled model sailboat racing
College graduation at St. Marys College, MD, because we were there
Tour of monuments on the national mall in DC
Tour of the Capital building and the Library of Congress
One science museum
Twenty seven history museums
Six art museums
Six art gallery tours
Four maritime museums
Three hospital, doctor or vet visits
The Kennedy Space Center
Universal Studios
Two wildlife preserves
Three botanical gardens
Five beaches
Twelve movies
One ballet
Four live plays in theaters

Lene read 30 books and I read ten,

And the best thing about Florida is the number of friends who we met along the way. I counted 28 persons or couples who we had the pleasure to meet on our travels, several more than once, such as going south and coming back. Some we met both in Florida and at their summer homes in Maryland. Connections included family, grade school, college, the navy, work and of course, boating. Nine of the 29 are current or former members of the Harlem Yacht Club. None of our other sailing trips came close in providing access to people from home who you know.

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August 25 to September 10 Getting Ready to Cruise

Well the Labor Day weekend was spent in the Berkshires, welcoming Liannes new puppy, Finn,  who I call "two pounds of cute fluff"

and visiting her new grandson, Jude.

Ilene climbed with me to the top of Monument Mountain, just north of Great Barrington so we know that her recovery from the removal of the tumor from her lung is making great progress. And I spent at least a day trying to get her medical insurance restored after a foul up of monumental proportions. But this is a sailing blog so lets get to it.

Well actually I did more working on the boat than sailing during this period: 24 hours of work spread over five days, two of them with helpers: Peter, who sailed with me from Virginia to Tortola in November 2010, at the outset of this blog, and our nephew Mendy, who washed the black streaks from the freeboard with salt water while

standing in the dink, and got a sunburn  (and my gratitude and a steak dinner) for his efforts. This working time compared to only 11 hours underway on four days. Such a sailing ratio, once per four days, is below average, but an unfortunate necessity when preparing to go cruising

We got the dink fully inflated after obtaining its parts and accessories from several places, and got it hoisted and secured to its davit bar after Mendys work. I did a lot more sanding and varnishing of the teak cockpit table, the 13 new brass switch plates and the 21 old brass trim rings for the overhead lights after the green corrosion was sanded off. The single biggest task involved the handles used to protect against accidental turning on of the cabin sole lights by brushing against that switch at the companionway, for which new holes had to be drilled.

Another major project was the installation of a "T" valve to be able to divert fresh water from the water maker to the starboard water tank. Peter helped me on this which required removal of the cabin sole to run the pencil thin low pressure black hose from port to starboard, tie it to larger hoses with wire wraps, figure out how the valve worked and attach it to a much bigger and more solid hose so it wont bounce around, and removal of  the aluminum viewing port from the top of the starboard water tank, drilling holes in it, and using blue liquid gasket material to seal the fitting to it and it back onto the tank. Peter also winched me to the top of the mast to inspect and adjust the genoa halyard and this time I got in a photo op of the Club from about 62 feet above sea level, but at low tide.
I also refilled the propane tank and re-installed it in its newly waterproofed locker and took the life raft off the boat to Westmarine to be sent to the repacking company which should be done every three years -- but we have "used" it for four. And while in such a mindset I checked out the inflatable life vests. Ive learned his should be done annually but had never done this before! A decade! The CO2 cartridges are corroded beyond repair and one needs to be replaced. But even worse, the other vest, when inflated by blowing through the tube, failed to hold air -- it was down to 1/3 of its air after an hour. So a new one has been ordered plus a two million candlepower flashlight for finding ones mooring at night.

Getting the dink hung aft and the propane filled really reminded me that cruising is right around the corner.

Oh yeah, some sailing days were fun too.
First with Lene, Cynthia, who sailed with us earlier this summer and has moved to Israel, and Rhonda,

a friend of Lenes since third grade, shown here at dinner at the Black Whale after sailing. The three ladies chatted the entire time, moving gracefully out of my way from time to time as needed for my sail handling. In modest winds we hit a tide assisted 8.1 knots under main and small jib enroute to the far side of Manhasset Bay.
Next, Lene came with me and Peter, who later spent a day working with me and Debbie,

our Rabbi, during which we got to Matinecock and back, with Peter at the helm most of the way.










The excitement on this trip was a "hat overboard" drill during which we successfully retrieved Peters expensive Tilley hat. This picture was taken before it went swimming.

The ever lovely Lene on the leeward side, with Debbie and Peter

I also sailed for a couple of hours aboard Bennetts Beneteau, to Great Neck on the east side of Stepping Stones, and back, in about four knots of wind. Upon returning I joined Morty and Clara, Mike and Sandy and Richie and his friend Charley, a survivor of the attack on Pearl Harbor, for refreshments aboard "Easy Living." The Wednesday afternoon ritual.
Finally, on one of the work days, after completion of the chores, Rhoda came out and we had the best sailing, due to stronger winds from just a bit east of south. After close reaching it out of Eastchester Bay on port tack, we got on starboard and made it to green can "1", NE of Stepping Stones before returning via Hart Island Sound.

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BoatBuilding A Mad Mothist does a Bottom ectomy

On modifying my Classic Moths Ive rebuilt decks, rebuilt daggerboard trunks, added buoyancy tanks, glassed interiors, but Ive never grafted a new bottom onto an existing Moth - performing a bottom-ectomy so to speak. British Mad Mothist, Jim Champ, former Cherub sailor, dinghy historian, amateur dinghy designer, current International Canoe sailor, and webmaster of the International Canoe website is doing just that to a fiberglass Skol he purchased.

Ill let Jim explain his project in his own words.

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"The back story is I picked up this 1970ish Skol Int. Moth because I needed something to sail while a health problem was stopping me sailing my Int Canoe in most conditions, and besides, Id always fancied one. The fact that I am now about 5 stone too heavy even for a vintage Moth didnt deter me.

Anyway, the boat came out of someones garage roof, and I completely failed to spot, under the layers of dust, that at some stage the boat had been sliced off at the waterline and been given a new wood bottom, replacing the original glass. This was no problem until after a seasons use it became apparent that the wood bottom had been allowed to rot back in the day, and some crucial bits were now leaking badly as the water had re-penetrated.

So I ended up cutting off the wood bottom, and Im now building a new one, and learning about cold moulding while I am at it. Shape wise its roughly based on a Cherub I drew in about 1974 but could never afford to build.

What have I learned from this project? Not to be afraid of cold moulding, and when you do it use plenty of strips. I originally was trying to use quite large panels in order to minimize the number of accurate edges I had to cut, but actually getting the sides of the strips accurate is surprisingly easy given a small sharp plane and a block and sandpaper. Its definitely right to have too many strips rather than too few. Getting the length right on a very 3d boat, on the other hand was a nightmare, but in any rational new build that wouldnt be an issue. 2mm ply was definitely much easier than 2.5mm veneer, having tried both, but if you use ply you cant varnish because the smart money is youll go through the outer layer in some (or in my case, many) places when fairing up.

I did the boat partly in 2 * 3mm and partly in 3 * 2mm. The junction between the two was something of a pain and in any case I carried 3mm too far forward. The last bit of 3mm was definitely excessively 3d. Im sure the boat is somewhat asymmettric in that area because with the panels at 45/45 ish, bending the last bit was problematic. The first layer has a much bigger impact on final shape than subsequent ones, and in the transition on one side the first skin was 2mm and the other 3mm. It would probably have been better to suffer the horrendous cost of the 2mm ply and done the whole boat in that. If I were doing a new boat it would be 2 * 2mm ply all over with a glass skin inside and out, uprating the inner skin appreciably in the slamming area round the bow by adding inner glass over skin and stringers, not under stringers.

This was the first project I used a router on which was interesting. Vision really was a major problem, I guess my shop isnt that well lit because I found it really hard to see what the cutting edge was doing. For a long accurate cut to put a rabett in the glass topside (ouch, terrible thing to do to a cutting tool) I stapled a batten as a guide right along the boat and that was a major win. The other thing that helped with a router was to get a marker pen and colour the area I wanted to remove, which made it soo much easier to be confident about what I was doing. I still had a few slips in the wrong places though. 

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Some photos...

Looks like Jim was able to cold mold over two stringers per side as well as the topside stringer junction.

Finished hull. The Skol featured a self-draining hull. George A, fellow Classic Moth bloggist over at Mid-Atlantic Musings, has also deconstructed a Skol back to a bare hull. Click here to read about his Skol project.

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Jim adds the history of the Skol in the comments section which Ive dragged to the main post.

"From what I can make out there seem to have been 4 Skol [models].

Mk 1 may have just been 3 prototypes, which look as if they had unstayed masts and a fair gunwale line.

George A.s boat is a Mk 2. The 1969 Moth yearbook said production was planned for two versions, a SL and regate version. The SL was to have a daggerboard and was the lighter built. The yearbook also says [it sported] an unstayed mast. I think in practice many were built with stayed rigs. They seem to have had false floors and stern tanks, at least some with drains through the stern tank. The actual production detail may have varied, but all had the little extra piece at max beam [hiking winglets].

Mine started life as a Skol Mk 3. She has a fair gunwale line, an open stern and a deck stepped mast. The shrouds were supported by glassed in alloy tubes down to the base of the mast foot.

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November 10 12 Three Lay Days in Charleston Zero miles

A municipal manhole cover. Carol is Greek (or Latin?) for Charles and Polis, as in Annapolis or Metropolis, is city or town, hence Charleston, founded in 1670.

There are only three requirements if you want to cruise like we do, the other things are subsidiary. One is time. You need to be retired or independently wealthy or on a sabbatical or unemployed.  Second is money. Not a lot, but you need to buy a boat and maintain and provision it. And third, but no less important than the other two, is good health. On arrival here I thought we had run out of good luck with the third requirement. Lene was bent over with excruciating pain in her left knee. Every few steps was an attack of acute pain. We cant go on like this I thought. She cant climb over life lines and take big steps down from deck level to dock level or transfer between boat and dink.

I told her that we could haul the boat in a yard here in Charleston for the winter, fly home, get the medical problem fixed and come back here next spring and sail ILENE back to New York. The end of the adventure. But then I thought, before such a drastic decision lets get some medical advice. We consulted with our friend Bill, in Oriental, who is a retired Orthopedist. We took a cab to Roper Hospital where x-rays were taken by the ER doctor who gave us a referral for an ASAP visit with an orthopedist on their staff. The ER physician also gave Lene a soft splint, held in place by foam rubber and velcro, which essentially immobilized the knee, causing a very wobbly gait but the absence of the pain, and a prescription for anti inflammatory/pain killers. And these really helped a lot and Lene was walking, slowly but without pain, up to 3/4 of a mile each way. The orthopedist told her to "sail on," resting the knee when possible and using the pills and splint as needed. Her condition has a fancy name and is exacerbated by cold weather. Surgery, replacement and even cortisone can wait. Here is our sick bay, notice the flowers, and the gekko, to the right, below the clock, with short bits of weatherstripping hidden behind it so as not to mar the cherry wood. He will be a reminder of both our Carribean adventure and this trip.

Fortunately,we had spent a week here in the Spring of 2012 and seen most of the major sights, and can stop here again on the way home, because we did no sightseeing on this trip. We did laundry (it is free for boaters in this municipal marina, The Charleston Maritime Center, purchased a new Ipad to replace the one I ruined with salt water in the Chesapeake, and grocery shopped in Harris Teeters, a pretty good supermarket. We took a walk among the historic homes here

(notice my shorts; a warm day at last!) to

 a memorable lunch at Jestines with great inexpensive southern cooking and named after a domestic servant who died in 1997 at age 112, the daughter of an ex slave and a Native American. Jestine worked for a southern family for many years and the restaurant is owned by a descendant of that family. The Reverend Brown of the nearby Methodist Church and the financial secretary of the church recommended the fried chicken which Lene enjoyed and I had, among other things, fried chicken livers, fried okra, corn bread with butter and honey and southern pecan pie.

And of course there is always boat work: ILENE had a bath, her water tanks filled, her fuel tanks poisoned to prevent the growth of microorganisms that clog the fuel lines, gluing back one of the buttons that hold plexiglass panels in place against the screens of the cafe doors with gorilla glue and the top of the percolator lid with JB Weld, a metal to metal glue that is remarkably strong.

But the two biggest problems required the help of Dr. Bill, who, I told him, enjoys fixing boats almost as much as fixing peoples bones. As to the auto pilot, the most expensive component is the motor with linear drive -- the thinner rod to the left goes in and out of the thicker rod to the right, and pulls the rudder to steer the boat. The squeaking and beeping is a $ign of old age and thiS drive will have to be replaced $oon. Its kind of amazing that a guy who is 6 3" could contort his body to reach this place to copy down the serial numbers. Replacing the unit will be harder, but once replaced this one will be rebuilt and used as a spare.

The other problem was the lack of charge into the starting battery. Its sole purpose is to power the starter motor which turns on  the engine. So it discharges only for less than a second each time, but it uses a huge amount of power when it does. And the problem was that it was not being charged by any of the solar panels, the engine or shore power. So the voltage had gradually reached the very low level of only 12 volts. Bill talked me through a series of tests, via phone, which showed that either ILENE does not have a needed "combiner" or that component is not working.  The short answer is that periodically, when we are (A) on shore power with the built in battery charger turned on, or (B) running the engine, we have to combine the starting battery with the "house bank" (which consists of 6 six volt golf cart batteries), so that the starting battery can get charged. This is easily done using a small red plastic key.  Last winter the old starting battery died because I did not know this and erroneously assumed that when I hooked the boat to shore power with the battery charger on, it was charging both batteries. So many lessons to be learned. Thanks again Bill.

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Virginia Beach Optimist Project

Update from Als project at the end of April, 2013:

Well, I really have been working on this baby but being retired takes up a lot of time.  For the last month I have been trying to get her finally ready for the water.  What this in essence means is that i have sanded, and sanded and sanded some more.  I have used every type of sanding device that i know of including wrapping a piece of sand paper around a 3/8" drill bit and sanding along some of the rough fillets.  What I have definitely learned is that neatness is worth a lot and I was not as neat with the epoxy as I could and should have been.  This left a lot of high spots and some really sharp edges that could do a job on little knees.  They are all gone now and another thin coat of epoxy has been rolled over all the unpainted areas, mainly the inside of the boat but also the spruce part of the gunwales.  I plan on attaching strips of mahogany as the outer rub rail and just vanrishing these.  No epoxy.  They are almost ready to attach.

I have made my mast and gooseneck from PVC..  The mast 1 1/2" pipe cut to length and then reinforced with treated wood and the goose neck is from a 1 1/2 x 1 1/4" tee.  My boom was supposed to be a 1 1/4" hardwood dowel but HD and Lowes both have ceased carrying that size (where i live) so the closest I could come was a poplar dowel 1 3/8" in diameter that I sanded down and have a nice fit into the 1 1/4" side of the tee.

I also found that my back couldnt take much more bending over to work on the inside so I made some 24 high saw horses that bring the boat to a perfect (for me) height to save my back.  Cute little things.

Today I attached to rudder.  Put the pintles & gudgeons on and took a lot of time to make sure I got it right. I think I did.  The rudder and tiller look really nice.  Hope they work as well as they look.

Now I am at the stage of what next? It appears that a dinghy dolly will be that project.  I havent found actual plans for one but have seen photos and  figure that I can make something close to what Ive seen that will fit the bill.

There is one more go round with epoxy filling some dings and gouges and no doubt some sanding after that.  Then it will be a clean up and Helmsman for the inside.  Really cant wait to do that finishing.

 

 

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Archipelago Rally 2014

Earwigoagin has been reporting on the exploits of the Tuthill sisters racing their boat-speed challenged Snark in this one-race, come one, come all, Portsmouth handicap event hosted, every November, in a different nook and cranny of Rhode Island coastline.

• For the Tuthill sisters racing their Snark in the 2012 event, click here.
• For the Tuthill sisters racing their Snark in the 2013 event, click here.

This year (gasp!) the Tuthill sisters jettisoned their Snark for the race, thinking they had upped their game with a lateen-rigged dink and. as it is frequently fore-ordained when you change a good thing, they unfortunately dropped the rig during the race (looks like the jury-rigged thwart lashing to hold up the mast failed). The younger sister, usually a bored, disinterested observer, was now called to the thankless and ultimately futile duty of becoming a human sidestay. These two documented the race and the disaster in a very amusing video.




Originator Chris Museler was undoubtedly pleased to have +40 boats attend this year (including the hastily splashed Crosby Skimmer Moth). I have lifted some photos from Rufus Van Gruissens album.

The Tuthill sisters with Maharaja in "reef" mode.

My favorite "micro" dinghy, the Cape Cod Frosty.

A catboat and Penquin at the take-out ramp.

This fellow in the Zuma dinghy has a passing facial resemblance to the blogmeister (at least the mustache).

Click here for more photos from the Archipelago Rally Facebook page.

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