SHIP'S LOG:
Actually haven't had much of a chance to do much sailing as almost all of the other launch rivers are off on the club cruise and it means mucho extra hours driving the launch. Ah!, but tomorrow, I get a chance to go sailing and I am taking Friend Fred with as a small way of thanking him for all his help with ABISHAG. The weather looks good and anything short of snow will be fine!
Friday, August 26, 2016
Tuesday, August 23, 2016
It Was A Great Day For Sailing! ! ! !
SHIP'S LOG:
Not a cloud in the sky and winds blowing a steady and solid 15 knots with gust to 20! It was ABISHAG's type of weather. Being an English built boat, designed for the English Channel and the North Sea, lots of waves and wind were just her cup of tea. It was rail down sailing even with a reef in! Usually in August, we get very light winds, but yesterday was certainly the exception. I saw only two other sailboats out enjoying the wind. Too bad. The wind of this strength undoubtedly caused other sailors to be concerned. It was work to keep her sailing well and I am sure that many others would not consider it a fund time, but it was great! And after almost 2 years, it was a joy! Ah, the fun, the real fun of boat ownership!!
Not a cloud in the sky and winds blowing a steady and solid 15 knots with gust to 20! It was ABISHAG's type of weather. Being an English built boat, designed for the English Channel and the North Sea, lots of waves and wind were just her cup of tea. It was rail down sailing even with a reef in! Usually in August, we get very light winds, but yesterday was certainly the exception. I saw only two other sailboats out enjoying the wind. Too bad. The wind of this strength undoubtedly caused other sailors to be concerned. It was work to keep her sailing well and I am sure that many others would not consider it a fund time, but it was great! And after almost 2 years, it was a joy! Ah, the fun, the real fun of boat ownership!!
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
Well, That's Done!!
SHIP'S LOG:
Pounding in a new Head grommet, stitching in two head webbing pieces and then rolling up the bastard and stuffing it into a sail bag and the job was done! All told, it took about 15 hours to do the repair on my genoa and it was a long 15 hours. It is another 15 hours to work off in the sweat shop, ie. the sail loft, but it saved beau coup bucks that is for sure. Then I had to find out if all the work corrected the furling problem.
I went down to TYC and took the launch out to ABISHAG. It was funny being a customer rather than the driver.It took a good half hour to raise the jib in the 15 knots of wind that decided to blow this morning. One has to feed the luft tape into the foil that runs up the forestay. The wind did not make it an easy job, but eventually, after a lot of sweating and swearing it got hoisted. Then came the real moment of truth, would it furl correctly? And it did. It was perfect. But rather than take ABISHAG out for a real test sail, shake down, it was back to the loft. More sweat-equity was required.
Pounding in a new Head grommet, stitching in two head webbing pieces and then rolling up the bastard and stuffing it into a sail bag and the job was done! All told, it took about 15 hours to do the repair on my genoa and it was a long 15 hours. It is another 15 hours to work off in the sweat shop, ie. the sail loft, but it saved beau coup bucks that is for sure. Then I had to find out if all the work corrected the furling problem.
I went down to TYC and took the launch out to ABISHAG. It was funny being a customer rather than the driver.It took a good half hour to raise the jib in the 15 knots of wind that decided to blow this morning. One has to feed the luft tape into the foil that runs up the forestay. The wind did not make it an easy job, but eventually, after a lot of sweating and swearing it got hoisted. Then came the real moment of truth, would it furl correctly? And it did. It was perfect. But rather than take ABISHAG out for a real test sail, shake down, it was back to the loft. More sweat-equity was required.
Thursday, August 11, 2016
Like Drillling A Hole In Your Boat!
SHIP'S LOG:
The new furling system on ABISHAG was not furling ie. rolling up the jib -correctly.Quite naturally I felt that the furling system was at fault However, Kevin from the Loft, who installed the system, came down to the boat and after a few tries announced that the problem was not the furling system but the sail. So off the sail came and off to the sail loft with it.
Kevin suspected that a repair that I had done to the sail was done incorrectly (No, Kevin didn't have anything to do with the repair.). Based on how the sail was furling, he described what was wrong with it and when we laid it out on the loft floor, what he predicted was exactly what we found. That was a relief and also a prelude to anxiety for to fix the mistake and then do the repair correctly, the luft (front edge) of the sail had to be taken apart. The luft tape, the patches and the padding all had to be removed . . . . by me. Seams had top be ripped, patches cut, padding removed, a process which took five (5) hours, during which time I was worrying that I would screw up, cut the wrong thing or create a bigger problem than I already had. But evidently everything went well. Then this morning, a real pain in the butt job, flattening the sail. Don't sound too bad, does it, but a sail is made of straight pieces of cloth that are curved to shape the sail. By nature, it doesn't want to lay flat, do the whole thing has to be laid out and then stretched and pinned in place with push pins. It was a small three hour job. Tomorrow, a new curve showing the new shape of the sail will be inscribed and the patches and padding glued and pre-sewn back in place. The the new curve will be cut (no place for mistakes then) and the luft tape pre-sewn onto the new luft, and voila, the sail will be ready to fly. Ah, the joy of boat ownership!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The new furling system on ABISHAG was not furling ie. rolling up the jib -correctly.Quite naturally I felt that the furling system was at fault However, Kevin from the Loft, who installed the system, came down to the boat and after a few tries announced that the problem was not the furling system but the sail. So off the sail came and off to the sail loft with it.
Kevin suspected that a repair that I had done to the sail was done incorrectly (No, Kevin didn't have anything to do with the repair.). Based on how the sail was furling, he described what was wrong with it and when we laid it out on the loft floor, what he predicted was exactly what we found. That was a relief and also a prelude to anxiety for to fix the mistake and then do the repair correctly, the luft (front edge) of the sail had to be taken apart. The luft tape, the patches and the padding all had to be removed . . . . by me. Seams had top be ripped, patches cut, padding removed, a process which took five (5) hours, during which time I was worrying that I would screw up, cut the wrong thing or create a bigger problem than I already had. But evidently everything went well. Then this morning, a real pain in the butt job, flattening the sail. Don't sound too bad, does it, but a sail is made of straight pieces of cloth that are curved to shape the sail. By nature, it doesn't want to lay flat, do the whole thing has to be laid out and then stretched and pinned in place with push pins. It was a small three hour job. Tomorrow, a new curve showing the new shape of the sail will be inscribed and the patches and padding glued and pre-sewn back in place. The the new curve will be cut (no place for mistakes then) and the luft tape pre-sewn onto the new luft, and voila, the sail will be ready to fly. Ah, the joy of boat ownership!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tuesday, August 9, 2016
Where To Begin?!?!
SHIP'S LOG:
Well, we have to go back to the middle of July. Somewhere then, Kevin from the sail loft got enough free time to go with me up to Yankee and put the furling system together. The day before, we spent 3 hours literally calculating just how long it should be. The distance from the forestay anchor point at the top of the mast down to the proper hole on the head stem was a known distance - 47 feet, 1 & 3/4 inches. The forestay wire itself had to pass through a series of foils( metal groves that hold the front of the jib to the forestay), through the furling drum which, when a line was pulled, would wrap the sail around the foils so that only the outer, sun-resistant cloth was left exposed. At the bottom of the drum was a fixture to which the forestay was to be attached, which in-turn was to be shackled to the stem head. Clear? Let us just say that we would have only a few millimeters of play to play with so getting the proper length in the finished product was essential. Like I said, it took us three (3) hours to assemble it and we seemed to be spot on. Once that was all done, the whole works had to be disassemble and repacked in the cartons it came in for transport to Yankee the following morning.
The next day turned out to be a cloudless summer day and one of the hottest of the summer. The second assembly took two hours and boy did we get cooked. Once it was all done, it rested beautiful on some boat stands right next to ABISHAG awaiting Dean, the boat yard manager who had to attach it to the boat. Strange as it may see, the boatyard did not have a lift or a crane that could reach the top of the mast which was approximately 63 feet above the ground. But Dean had a friend who had a tree trimming service and his friend had a boom truck that could do the job. They had already used it do take down the old system so we knew it would work to put up the new. It would happen within the next 24 hours so Kevin and I went back to the loft.
The next day, I got a call from Dean say that the clevis pin which attached the forestay to the stem ]head didn't fit the hole in the stemhead. It was too big. Kevin and Dean had an animated discussion about the situation and after a could of days it was decided to use a hex bolt (1/2") in place of the clevis pin so that we could get ABISHAG of the hard. Then we had to wait for the full moon high tide. Even though Portland is some 20 miles up river from the sound it is still affected by the tides. In addition, it has been a very dry summer and the Connecticut River is down significantly. The yard couldn't and wouldn't launch ABISHAG (5 1/2foot draft) if there wasn't enough water in the launching pen. There was a three day wait for high tide and enough water and when there was sufficient water, ABISHAG was launch and towed to the near by dock.
That Saturday I had launch duty and so friend Fred went aboard to been on the sails and generally get things "ship-shape." Then on Sunday, we arrived there at 10 with the intention of leaving ASAP. The rig had to be tuned and the lines cleared from the deck. At 11 o'clock, I checked the engine, put the key in the ignition and turned it. NOTHING! It took only a minute to determine that the batteries had not been reinstalled. So it was a call to Dean, on his day off, and kicked-out a couple of yard workers to find the right batteries and install them. Thus we got underway about 11:30.
We had to luck as we hit both of the swing bridges a the moment they were opening and got to the sound at 3pm. The wind was bang on the nose and blowing about 20 which meant a pounding all the way from Old Saybrook to New London. It was not the most fun I have ever had aboard ABISHAG but the 3 hours it took were endurable because when they ended, ABISHAG was on her own mooring and at home. Ah, the joy of boat ownership.
Well, we have to go back to the middle of July. Somewhere then, Kevin from the sail loft got enough free time to go with me up to Yankee and put the furling system together. The day before, we spent 3 hours literally calculating just how long it should be. The distance from the forestay anchor point at the top of the mast down to the proper hole on the head stem was a known distance - 47 feet, 1 & 3/4 inches. The forestay wire itself had to pass through a series of foils( metal groves that hold the front of the jib to the forestay), through the furling drum which, when a line was pulled, would wrap the sail around the foils so that only the outer, sun-resistant cloth was left exposed. At the bottom of the drum was a fixture to which the forestay was to be attached, which in-turn was to be shackled to the stem head. Clear? Let us just say that we would have only a few millimeters of play to play with so getting the proper length in the finished product was essential. Like I said, it took us three (3) hours to assemble it and we seemed to be spot on. Once that was all done, the whole works had to be disassemble and repacked in the cartons it came in for transport to Yankee the following morning.
The next day turned out to be a cloudless summer day and one of the hottest of the summer. The second assembly took two hours and boy did we get cooked. Once it was all done, it rested beautiful on some boat stands right next to ABISHAG awaiting Dean, the boat yard manager who had to attach it to the boat. Strange as it may see, the boatyard did not have a lift or a crane that could reach the top of the mast which was approximately 63 feet above the ground. But Dean had a friend who had a tree trimming service and his friend had a boom truck that could do the job. They had already used it do take down the old system so we knew it would work to put up the new. It would happen within the next 24 hours so Kevin and I went back to the loft.
The next day, I got a call from Dean say that the clevis pin which attached the forestay to the stem ]head didn't fit the hole in the stemhead. It was too big. Kevin and Dean had an animated discussion about the situation and after a could of days it was decided to use a hex bolt (1/2") in place of the clevis pin so that we could get ABISHAG of the hard. Then we had to wait for the full moon high tide. Even though Portland is some 20 miles up river from the sound it is still affected by the tides. In addition, it has been a very dry summer and the Connecticut River is down significantly. The yard couldn't and wouldn't launch ABISHAG (5 1/2foot draft) if there wasn't enough water in the launching pen. There was a three day wait for high tide and enough water and when there was sufficient water, ABISHAG was launch and towed to the near by dock.
That Saturday I had launch duty and so friend Fred went aboard to been on the sails and generally get things "ship-shape." Then on Sunday, we arrived there at 10 with the intention of leaving ASAP. The rig had to be tuned and the lines cleared from the deck. At 11 o'clock, I checked the engine, put the key in the ignition and turned it. NOTHING! It took only a minute to determine that the batteries had not been reinstalled. So it was a call to Dean, on his day off, and kicked-out a couple of yard workers to find the right batteries and install them. Thus we got underway about 11:30.
We had to luck as we hit both of the swing bridges a the moment they were opening and got to the sound at 3pm. The wind was bang on the nose and blowing about 20 which meant a pounding all the way from Old Saybrook to New London. It was not the most fun I have ever had aboard ABISHAG but the 3 hours it took were endurable because when they ended, ABISHAG was on her own mooring and at home. Ah, the joy of boat ownership.
Thursday, August 4, 2016
ABISHAG IS HOME AT TYC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
SHIP'S LOG:
Yes! ABISHAG is back at TYC and she got there before August, but just! Friend Fred and I brought her down on Sunday, the 31st. Took seven hours but she's there! Details to follow.
Yes! ABISHAG is back at TYC and she got there before August, but just! Friend Fred and I brought her down on Sunday, the 31st. Took seven hours but she's there! Details to follow.
Saturday, June 25, 2016
SPLASH!
SHIP'S LOG:
Well, it looks as though Tuesday next, Wednesday next if there is an unforeseen difficulty, will be the day ABISHAG will kiss water for the first time since October of 2014! Wow, October 2014. I knew it was a long time but II had forgotten just how long! God willing, I shall be at TYC by next weekend.
Well, it looks as though Tuesday next, Wednesday next if there is an unforeseen difficulty, will be the day ABISHAG will kiss water for the first time since October of 2014! Wow, October 2014. I knew it was a long time but II had forgotten just how long! God willing, I shall be at TYC by next weekend.
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