SAILING IN THE STORM

SHIP'S LOG:

20-25knots of wind! Black clouds pouring down sheets of rain! A nice 2foot chop! Hey, what a day to get a little bad weather sailing done. . . . . . but not for me this time. It wasn't so much that I could not handle the conditions with ABISHAG; it was not getting off the mooring and the sails up; it was not maneuvering back to the mooring through the field of boats. It was getting from the cockpit to the bow to pick up the mooring with the bow going up and down through a 4 foot swing. I have to maneuver the boat down wind of the mooring and come at it with just enough speed to have just enough headway so that when the bow gets to the reachable distance from the pick up buoy the boat stops. Then I have to shift the boat into neutral, climb out of the cockpit and make my way up to the bow, lean over and grab the pickup buoy. Haul the mooring pennant aboard and put it on a cleat. Sounds easy doesn't it? Miss time the move from the cockpit to the bow and you miss the pickup buoy. Then, one must go around and try again. this usually happens when there is anyone around watching. When you are all by yourself, you get it the first time every time. I decided that I would await another day.

I took the time to fix the chafe guards on the mooring pennants. To keep them from slipping down the pennant, I ran a cord from the to the loop on the cleat. The chafe guards are really needed as a pennant can get sawed through surprisingly quickly if it gets a chance.

I also set up the rode (line) to the secondary anchor. Naturally the "U" shackle on the end of the chain attached to the anchor was too small to attach the chain to the rode. Hey, it went with the weather.

And that was about it as it was pouring so hard it washed away most of the only Free Beach in New London.

MASTER'S PERSONAL LOG:

I found working on the boat in the "storm" a bit of a challenge. ABISHAG has a good, steady motion, but it is still a bit of a chore doing the work in the conditions that existed. I can see that keeping up the maintenance will really be necessary because trying to do any work/repairs in "weather" is exponentially more difficult than when the weather is good. Preventative maintenance is the key.