winter cover

is up! Took us 3 hours to get the damn thing up! The cover came in three pieces of heavy canvas that are zipped together over the boom and attached to stanchions and pulpits. We had a pretty heavy breeze going on Saturday so it was like wrestling with demons. I put a line underneath the canvas stretching from the boom end to the aft stay to reduce the sag in the cockpit area. Probably have to add some more lines to the sides as well before it starts snowing. Also, drained all the water from the pipes and replaced it with antifreeze. Constance should be all ready to go through the winter now!

winterizing..

Last night was the first night below freezing up here in the Northeast. High time to finalize winterizing the boat! Did oil/filter change, drained freshwater from the pipes and put some biocide into the diesel tank. Both main and furling jib are down, flaked and bagged down below. Also checked the zincs. The heat exchanger zinc was half gone after 3 months so I probably need to exchange that one. Dove into the freezing harbor to check the zincs on the prop shaft, they were still fine. I thought with the colder temperatures those pesky birds that love to sit on the wind vane and shit happily on the decks would finally leave, but the colder weather seems to have invigorated them instead. Grr. So I guess we need to do some more deck scrubbing. Anyways, once we know which berth Constance will have (since the boat will stay in the water), I'll put up the brand new canvas cover. Keeping fingers crossed, I hope the canvas store got the measurements right. Up here we can expect snow within a few weeks so I better get this thing up. The bubbler below the boat is supposed to keep the sea water from freezing so it's relatively safe to leave the boat in the water. Probably need to haul the boat out in spring but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Thimble Island Cruise

anchored at Thimble Islands

Perfect weekend for a little getaway from the usual life! Sailed Constance together with our friends Berni and Irene to the Thimble Islands, some 30mls away from Westport. Saturday was blustery with SW winds around 20kn and somewhat cloudy skies. We skipped setting the spinnaker and sailed with poled out jib in 4.5hrs all the way to the islands. Great anchor spot to the east of Money Island with nothing else but the horizon limiting the view. Went swimming in the still not too cold water before a fantastic dinner from the onboard bbq.
Of course in the middle of the night the wind switched directions and we had to reset the anchor. No biggie and even better, that wind turned out to be just right for sailing on a beam reach back to Westport the following morning. Spinnaker up and again only 4.5hrs till we doused it right in front of channel to the marina. What a ride! in the end got actually quite gusty and we had some exciting moments getting the thing down again...

The spi is up!

Finally tried out the spi! Got a brand new spinnaker pole, all the lines and blocks and were anxious to try it out of course. First set was a disaster, the halyard shackle opened and up the halyard went and down in the water the spi went. Urgh. So we had our friend Daniel climb the mast and retrieve the halyard. (Twice since he let go of the other halyard teehee). So in the end we got it up and look how nice it flies!

PHRF series is over

Last Wednesday race got off pretty well. We won the pin end quite nicely but were behind at the first buoy. By the time we reached the 2nd buoy the div1/2 boats had caught up and behold, the wind died completely. So even the guys which were way in front and in biscuit tossing distance to the finish line just couldn't make it with the current setting out. So the RC abandoned the race and that was it for the summer PHRF series! Still a nice evening sail with our friend David. Just read the final score, we came in #8 out of 10 that qualified (and about 16 that raced). In the Sunday series we barely qualified and got 6th and last place :-).

Last Sunday race

went pretty well. We had nice wind, a fantastic start, got the pin and powered upwind like crazy with about 5.5kn. Not enough to match the other boats in our class, though, they just simply took off. We were like 2 minutes behind at the windward mark and then lost it on the downwind leg. I was too chicken to put the new spinnaker pole out with just the 2 of us on the boat and quite a chop with 15kn of wind. Anyways, had lots of fun and qualified for the summer series. As far as I can tell in last place, but who cares!

Wed night sail

Short course last night with the wind forecasted to die around 7p. So we were very happy to see that the rain finally stopped, the sun came out for a glorious sunset and the wind held up! We managed to round mark 2 & 3 before the division 1/2 boats could overtake us and beat some div2 boats on corrected time by quite a bit. Of course in our division we were dead last, but 'only' 4min behind the previous boat. Remember in these conditions we usually have problems finishing at all, so I'm quite happy.
Also, I've started a (technical) picture collection which can be accessed by clicking on the picture in the menu bar to the right.

not DFL'd!

Wednesday night race was very delightful as we had fantastic weather and finally managed to come in better than last. Actually, second last, but was still a good race for the wind conditions we had. We started off with winds around 8kn and managed to stay at the top of the fleet to the windward mark. I finally figured out the sweet spot for upwind VMG (about a point off close hauled and the jib a good foot off the spreader), and we were able to beat faster boats to the windward mark layline. We're still too slow after the tacks, I may have to turn even slower to keep the boat speed through the tack. Then the inevitable happened and the wind almost died, but still enough to ghost us around the next mark and into the finish. By that time the lighter boats had all pulled away. Didn't matter since we had an awesome sunset with a double rainbow. Spectacular scenery as the Div 1 boats were all behind us lighted up in golden colours before the rainbow backdrop. Dinner anchored at Cockenoe (that was my birthday dinner!) with the last remaining bottle of Cuvee Constance as company.

Div1 boat Wed night

DFL'd

Ok, the Sunday race series isn't ours. Somehow those other boats are just light years faster by design and the handicap doesn't seem to be realistic when the spread is so large. We had a great start with full speed on the line, but then got rolled by the big boats. Anyways, we had a day of fun sailing after spending the night anchored at Cockenoe Island (our favorite spot!). We averaged 4.5kn over the 7.5 mile distance including 2 upwind legs. By my account that converts into a 4.9kn average speed through the water which I think isn't so bad for a 10-12kn breeze. So even though we were a little bit tired from the rolly night before I think we still managed quite well. The waves from the southeasterly worked their way over the reef at high tide so we had some bouncy conditions around 2am. Yawn!

Jellyfish cloud over Westport

Sunset dinner at Cockenoe Island

Great company for a summer night

TLE!!!

That means "time limit expired". That was our score last night and it means that we couldn't finish within 30 minutes after the first boat in our class finished. What a shame, even more since we were doing quite well all the way to the last buoy. However then the inevitable thing happened that happens every evening on the LI Sound: The wind died. And Constance just doesn't like to go without wind. So we were literally stuck 50 meters in front of the finish line and couldn't get across. There were still 4 boats behind us that actually retired before the time limit and therefore got a DNF score. So at least we didn't get DFLd!.

Sunday race

Wind forecast was 5-10kn but when we arrived at the starting line we had a stiff easterly with about 15-20kn and quite some chop. Thankfully we had Martin and Mayada helping us today, so that was definitely easier than doublehanded under these conditions. Got off to a great start, but the other boats pulled off quickly since they were rating much faster. We had great boatspeed with about 5kn upwind and even caught up with a Div1 boat. They missed the mark and got stuck there, all of a sudden shooting off in our direction. Quite a bit of yelling, crashtacking back and forth but no harm done (they withdrew from the race after that :-)). We finished a solid 4th (and last) place, but had a lot of fun! Went swimming at Cockenoe Island after the race.

Martin and Jewel on the rail

Wed night race

Lots of wind today which should have been favorable for us. After a great start we messed up the on the 2nd leg going inside a marker which was not allowed. So had to withdraw from the race. Also I parted the centerboard pulley which is slow downwind. Grrr. In the end we would have been 2nd last. But anyways, lots of fun and the Cajun Crawfish at the Black Duck were fabulous as usual..

Nantucket cruise

Just returned from our cruise to Nantucket. We clocked 400 nautical miles over 12 days! This was the first serious test of the boat with strong winds encountered in the Vineyard Sound and around Nantucket, as well as high waves off Newport (I would say at least 15ft!). She did really well and I can't complain about anything. On the way to Nantucket we hopped from island to island: Thimble Islands, Fisher Island, Block Island, Cuttyhunk, Martha's Vineyard. Beautiful anchorages and moorings and some good seafood as well. On the way back we made it through dreaded Woods Hole, touched in Newport and Stonington and spent one last night at the Thimble Islands again. Some adventure on the last day when we first ran out of gas (I should have listened to Kyle!) which was not such a big deal since we had a reserve canister. After refilling we ran into a fishing net which I had to cut off the propeller in the middle of the Long Island Sound. Took me only 5 dives to clear it but it was really scary with the boat bouncing around.

Moored at Cuttyhunk

Cuttyhunk

Stonington approach

After passing Woods Hole