Showing posts with label HISC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label HISC. Show all posts

Saturday, June 26, 2021

Palm Beach Regatta 2021 - the Race

The 2021 Palm Beach Regatta Race

The headline: We Won our Class! WooHoo!

Friday evening we arrived at Lake Boca and secured the boat at anchor then both of us took a shower - hot water as we motored from just outside the Hillsboro Inlet, into the ICW and then North to Lake Boca, about two hours altogether. Hot water tank was hot! :)

Around 6pm, Larry Geller picked us up in his gorgeous boat to ferry us to the dock where the Pre-race party was being held. We were quickly joined by others that either Larry ferried from their boats or arrived by car. Bob Odell had arrived with the party goods and guests brought plenty of food - as always - nobody would go hungry. 

I asked Michael Duvall to give the racing introduction and he, along with a couple of others, answered the several questions about the start and the finish. Too soon is was time to hitch a ride back to our boats. I say 'Too soon' because we always have such a good time talking to other boat owners and their crews.

After a good night asleep at anchor, we woke to catch the 7:40am Camino Real Bridge so that we could head down to the Hillsboro Inlet, several other boats that could not negotiate the Boca Raton Inlet (too shallow) were in line as we headed South. Our recent bottom paint job and the PropSpeed finish on the Prop and shaft is still showing it's worth. 

Once out of the Inlet, we turned North towards the Start Line - we could see the Beach Committee location, they had setup their big Orange Rectangular Mark on the beach, easy to see from 1/3mile off shore. Lady Gray was the outer mark and we were close to them when they dropped anchor and tried to set, but they were not having a lot of luck and ended up keeping their engines running to hold station.

Prior to the start, I had rolled down the Sail Bag and secured it with the straps that were sewn into the inside of the bag. This did mean that we would have the advantage of the lower 3' of mainsail area working to our advantage rather than just a big bag of canvas that would more likely hinder our progress than improve it. Once the Mainsail was raised, I eased off the Lazy jacks so that they would not misshape the sail. 

There were 5 starts and we were in the 2nd: Gunkhole Class. Jim Wallace on Contrails was working his way up and down the start line during the 1st start and he called over to us advising that this was his start box and we should keep out of his way, we did. However our past races have seen us passing the start line as much as 20 minutes after our start! We learned from those rare events and today we kept close to the start box and kept within it when it was our start. We crossed the start line within 2 minutes of the start time, and we were headed in the right direction. We were stoked at doing so well at the start, can we do better, of course, but compared to previous efforts, this was amazing! Thank Jim for hinting on the best start maneuver.

Just in case you're interested, here's some info on Sailboat Racing starts that I found very useful: https://www.sailingworld.com/how-to/how-rules-work-start/


The JAM (Jib and Main) class were 5 minutes ahead of us so we could see where they were headed and that would have been our normal plan - follow everyone in front of us, however we had sailed the route just a week ago for the Memorial Day Cruise and we knew that the Gulf Stream had been apparent in less than 2/3mile offshore. So our plan was to head NE (which happened to be the course that the JAM fleet were headed) until we felt the push North from the Stream and then turn to a more Northerly direction.


 As we were still heading NE, we could see Imagine hoisting their beautiful spinnaker off of our Starboard Quarter. We knew that they would soon overtake us, but they were in the Corinthians class.  

It was a beautiful day to be out on the water and I must admit, I experienced a bit of Sail Envy as Imagine passed us chasing the JAM fleet.

Imagine had a full crew. Eximius was just Peggy & I, but it was an easy sail.


As soon as we saw a consistent increase in our GPS speed over our Through the Water Speed, we started our turn towards the North. Monitoring the speed difference helped us take the maximum advantage of the Gulf Stream's push north. If we saw the difference drop down, we would ease Eastwards a touch. With the wind over the Starboard Quarter, we kept adjusting our sails intent upon using the knowledge we had recently gained from studying sail plans.

One thing really bugged me. The Mainsail had a crease in it, imagine a pleat running from just above the 2nd reef cringle at the luff (close to the mast) and diagonally down to the clew. From our studies, that meant that we would not have laminar flow of air on either side of the sail and that would reduce our speed. I tried easing everything: Halyard, Mainsheet, Reefing lines (which were not being used) Outhaul and the Lazy Jacks, nothing! I could not remove the pleat. But we did improve our speed by adjusting the sails, with the light winds, we needed a bit of twist in the Main and easily accomplished that. 

As expected, it was about a 5 hour ride up to Lake Worth and we had plenty of time to fiddle with the sails - I worked at balancing the sails. The method I used was to put the wheel amidships and see which way the boat steered, it should have a slight tendency to turn upwind (weather helm) but not so much that it required more and a degree or two of helm to correct. I adjusted the Genoa so that it looked full. As were on a very broad reach the tell tales were not too much help to me in identifying when it was correctly trimmed. But we were able to adjust it so that the outer tails were flying straight. Then I adjusted the Mainsheet and Traveller so that the leech tell tails were streaming aft and then adjusted the MainSheet until the wheel was able to keep us on course with the minimum amount of drag from the Rudder.

As we neared the Northern end of the course, we had to turn to the East where the finish line was located. A quick note about the Finish Line.

At the 2021 Palm Beach Regatta, the Finish line was based on the location of the Green #3 Marker just to the south of the Lake Worth Inlet, the virtual line extended from the Mark East for 100 Yards. This meant that we had to leave the Mark on our Port Side and that the mark be less than 100 Yards away from the boat as we passed the mark.

We expected the wind to Veer (move in a clockwise direction) to the West and as we felt it moving further South as the day passed, we started our turn East and eventually the wind did shift not as much as expected but we were South and East of the finish line when we Gybed the sails over to the Port. Very quickly, as the wind veered beyond Southerly, we were on a Beam Reach and sailing hard. The Green Mark was now easily seen and we turned further towards the north, aiming to pass within feet of the mark rather than risk being too far from it. There was a fishing boat hanging around just to the North of the mark so we steered to put us between the mark and the fishing boat. 


As we got near the mark, Peggy brought my cell phone up to the helm. Now it was getting exciting, sailing hard, Wind had increased and we were doing over 6knots through the water, the Mark off our Port Bow, fishing boat ahead, all the while trying to take a picture of our Chartplotter as we crossed the virtual mark.

Seems we did good! We had a corrected time of 3 hours 17 minutes and 43 seconds over a calculated course distance of 25 miles. Our average speed was 5.5 knots (velocity made good over the course) 

What a great race. Hectic at the start and exciting at the finish with a few hours between them. Time for lunch sandwiches. 

Once across the finish line, we left the sails up until we had stabilized our course into the Lake Worth Inlet, then we started to stow them. Before we had the chance to secure the main down into it's sail bag (Cradle) we were at the Eastern end of the inlet channel and could see another boat having a tough time getting their Spinnaker down, it looked like a figure of eight and was flying hard off of their port side. Despite needing to get our own sails down and secured, my primary goal was to stay away from the other boat so as to give them the best chance of getting their sail down and not worry about keeping out of our way.

The wind was picking up as we turned onto the Western side of the ICW and headed South intent on Anchoring on the East side of the ICW but opposite from the Palm Beach Sailing Club. As we held station just to the East of the Palm Beach Sailing Club house, the wind really picked up and it was difficult to hold station, we had to shift up the engine revs to over 1500 in order to be able to steer against the wind. 

On VHF #68, we heard another club member, Jim Wallace (the same guy that we heard from at the start) called us and advised that he was anchored on the East side opposite the PBSC. So we turned across the mooring field of boats and headed over to the otherside of the ICW. We found the anchoring area and dropped anchor letting out plenty of scope to avoid dragging in that heavy wind.

Peace returned to the cockpit and we took a break. A few radio calls and we scheduled a launch ride from Eximius to the PBSC via their very helpful sailing instructor that was acting as ferryman for the evening. We had time for a shower and change into dry clothes before the ferry arrived and were soon safely on the jetty of the sailing club.

I quickly made an introduction to Quincy, Commodore of the PBSC, and we sorted out the schedule of the evening - Drinks, Dinner, Awards, Socialize, head back to the boats.

We had a great time meeting with our own club members and those of the PBSC. Their Bartender barely kept us waiting despite the small crowd surrounding the bar, there were some tall ship stories going around about conditions on the course.

The Bartender served our drinks of choice - Pinot Grigio for Peggy and Jack & Ginger for myself. She served my drink is a short glass (no plastic ๐Ÿ‘  ) with Ice and two very thin straws. Speaking with a couple that I knew standing next to me I asked "You realize that I'm English, right?" "Yes, they responded" " Then you understand that to put a straw in my drink is odd and normally I inform the bartender, in the nicest way " I'm a big boy now, I don't need a straw with my drink." to which my neighbor replied, " It's just a stirrer" and I replied "But you do realize that I'm English?" "So what they commented, realizing that I was going somewhere with this. "Well, being English, I take my drinks Shaken - Not Stirred!"  Yep, got a laugh out of that one. ๐Ÿ˜Ž


Here's a picture showing our route during the weekend, if you click on it, you'll see our route on our Garmin Inreach Explorer chart online.



See you out there on the Water.

2021 Palm Beach Regatta Gunkhole - 1st Place



Tuesday, September 8, 2020

Labor Day Cruise 2020

 A Great Weekend with the HISC (Hillsboro Inlet Sailing Club)

The initial tally for attendees according to the RSVP's was 4 boats and 14 people, some arriving by car. Not so bad considering we're in the middle of the Pandemic. The final tally was 35 people and 6 boats (one was a dinghy). It looked like everyone brought something to share, the table was quickly covered with everything from chips and dips, tortillas and pulled meat, crackers, cheese, cookies and more cookies. The Ice creams were kept in our freezer until the crowd had made a dent on the table top food supply.

Each club member received a 'thanks for coming' gift: a wine bottle LED lamp kit, they just needed an empty wine bottle to complete the project. Of course there was more Beer than Wine, but after seeing Gettin' Nauti's wine rack, it won't be a problem for everyone.


One of the best parts of these club cruises, is the opportunity to visit the other boats and find out what things that have done to personalize their boat. Rob and Nicole's "Gettin' Nauti" has undergone a lot of projects that make it a one of a kind - I got some great ideas from what they have done.

Rob took the time out to work on his tansom, the newly applied name looks very cool. Suits the crew!




The dockside at the Bahia Mar was alive with club members doing their best to stay socially distant or wearing  a mask. Food, Drinks, Jokes, laughter and even some boat work kept us all engaged for the 3 day weekend.

It took some coaxing to get a few members to accept the mini ice creams, but at least we got a laugh out of them.


Sunday evening, we gathered on the dock astern of Gettin' Nauti for an ad hoc social, it just happened. More stories, more jokes, and more enjoyment of being out and with other club members.

Some people did not get the memo about bringing chairs, but we did ok.


(Notice that Gettin' Nauti's stern is naked in this shot.


A few ventured to the pool, some stayed, it was a bit crowded for others, but at least it was open. 

Monday the 5 boats were still there:- Eximius, Affection, Windpunk, Cookie Monster and Gettin' Nauti. Amanda came by dingy Sunday afternoon. Other's included:- Bob & Pat Schuldenfrei, Ross & Astrid Hunton, Paul & Regina Chasse, Pierre & Ava Holstein, and the Mckisick bunch plus a few more guests.

Cruising points for the club members will be applied for each night they attended. When a club member participates in a club cruising event, they earn a 'cruising point' for their boat, when they have 10 points they earn the year's Cruising Flag.

Member's earn an additional Cruising Point for writing an article for the Inlet Outlet Newsletter and for hosting a cruise.

Member's fly their collection of cruising flags with pride. 


Our next cruise is Octoberfest, that may be a surprise venue.  So stay tuned.

Tuesday, October 3, 2017

Oktoberfest 2017

HISC - Oktoberfest 2017 - Lake Boca

Our first trip out since Hurricane Irma departed from South Florida and we were looking forward to a great weekend with buddies from the Hillsboro Inlet Sailing Club (HISC).

During the week, we had pretty well put the boat back together after the Hurricane: The Main and Jib Sails were setup, the Dodger was back over the companionway to provide shelter if the weather turned grumpy, and we had loaded most of the heavy stuff (Generator, Fuel, Extra Diesel) in order to reduce the loading on departure day - why does that never work? The back seat of our F150 Crew Cab was FULL. Bedding, Clothing, Frozen Foods, Drinks, Non-Perishable Foods, more Drinks, more food, Towels and there must have been more. It's like we were going away for a week rather than just the weekend.

We have to consider the tides when leaving the dock. It's skinny water nearby and we try to avoid that by moving to/from the dock within 2 hours of high tide. So we had plenty of time to load the boat, get everything stowed and prepare for sea. We cast off the lines around 2pm and headed down the river.

Due to the Hurricane, it's been weeks since we navigated the river, and it's surprising how much things change in just a few weeks. Some buildings under construction were apparently finished, trees that had been damaged in the Hurricane were gone, several nav aids were missing and replaced with temporary markers, and it looked like a lot of boats that were normally tied up alongside the river were gone!

We had an easy motor down to Sandbar Park and turned North towards Los Olas Blvd Bridge, then headed up to Sunrise Blvd Bridge and the anchorage at Sunrise Bay. It was Empty! None of the usual liveaboard boats, not even any passing visitors, just us. So we anchored in our preferred spot near the North side of the Bay. Our anchoring technique is getting better, we easily anchored, backed down to make sure it was dug in and then I setup the Snubber, even that is getting easy with practice. The Snubber makes a big difference, it almost totally diminishes the noise of the Anchor Chain grinding on the Anchor Roller at our bow as well as providing some shock load reduction thus keeping the anchor grounded in the mud below.

With everything setup at anchor, we just chilled, a glass, or two, of wine and some reading before dining on Chicken, Sweet Potatoes cooked up in a skillet. Start of what turned out to be great weekend.

Friday morning I checked my email and a buddy was going to be passing our position around noon, but we decided to head up to Lake Boca early. As I took the helm most of the way, Peggy prepared a lunch snack in the Galley below. We arrived at Lake Boca again - nearly Empty, just two liveaboard boats at anchor, neither looked like they could navigate but you just never know, sailors are resourceful folks.

We dug the anchor and setup the snubber and had an afternoon relaxing, some music, some reading, studying and clean up. A sailors life.

Later on, Sjofn arrived, Pam & Dave considered rafting with us but the weather was pretty blowy, so they moved South of us, and anchored in preparation for the other event host boats. Anticipation arrived a little later and tied up with Sjofn.

More reading, boat watching, and some Rum! Having a Rum Tot is a luxury that I enjoy aboard the boat and it's restricted to being tied up (the boat that is) to something, including an anchor. Rum & Ice and 2 parts of water. Luxury!

We ran the generator for a few hours to bring the humidity down in the cabin and cool off before bunk time, but most of the night we had the v-berth hatch open to provide some ventilation. Still, didn't sleep to well, it happens.

Saturday morning breakfast of Salmon, Cheese, Fried Bread, Grapes, OJ, and that very important 1st Cup of Coffee. My 2nd choice for breakfast but still a great one.

It was time to get the dink inflated and the engine setup. Moving the 80lbs of Mercury dinghy from the Cockpit up to the foredeck is an effort! It's not just the 80lbs, it's that huge bulky bag of boat. The electric air pump made short work on inflating the dink and then Peggy assisted in hoisting the boat over the lifelines and into the water. Once the dink was tide off on the port quarter, we lowered the outboard engine and locked it in place on the dink transom. It started up pretty easily, but it took about 10 minutes of clutsing around to get it to run consistently at idle.

As I finished preparing the dink, some other boats were turning into the lake. We could hear them calling the Camino Real Bridge or the Boca Inlet Bridge for opening. Endurance gracefully passed our Starboard side to head over to Sjofn and Affection. The host boats were in place.

With the dinghy ready to go, with Peggy listening to some music on her cell phone, I headed over to the host boats for a chin wag. Dave was keen to show off his latest electronics on their boat, and I was keen to see it. He has a great setup which I think is based on a Rasberry Pi and includes an attitude sensor which provides real time data for display on a monitor in the cabin. But even better is his TV system, very cool, basically rabbit ears antenna - digital converter and a monitor, so they have access to many local broadcast channels. On our last boat, JD, we had a 19" TV but the total cost was a bit high and not in our budget for Eximius, there are much more important things to spend money on than an expensive TV. So I was really interested in Dave's setup. Very cool.

Back to our boat for lunch and to prepare our Appetizer for the Oktoberfest party that evening. This was a first for me. My plan was to cook a Flaky Pastry Cheese & Spinnach Swirl in the oven on board. The only thing I had cooked in the over previously was a tray of Shrimp, not 'Baking' 

In preparation for the baking, I had made up the ingredients in tupperware so I just needed to put everything together. Flaky Pastry can get messy pretty quickly when it warms up. So I created the swirls in a single roll and put the whole thing back in the fridge to cool down before trying to cut them into individual swirls pieces. It worked out great. Once cooled, I was able to neatly cut them into 1/2" pieces and lay them out in a baking pan that fit inside the oven. The recipe suggested 15 mins at 400ยบF but I knew it took longer as I had practiced them at home earlier in the week. After 25 minutes they were a nice golden brown and the pastry was looking very nicely 'Flaky' And the timing was perfect, we just had to pop the tray into our cooler and head over the host boats.

I said 'We just had to pop over' - but that's not what happened! I was loading the bag into the dink and the seat decided it didn't like to stay in it's designated position, just as I was trying to stand on it. Yep, time for an unplanned dip. I was actually laughing as I hit the water realizing what was happening, and then I'm soaked - Oh! Did I mention that I was wearing my auto life preserver? It works!

Once out of the water and back on board, time to strip down all my wet clothes and dry off. Probably less than 10 minutes and fresh clothes we tried again. No problems the second time around.

As we were heading over to the host boats, we stopped by Rhapsody to see if they needed a ride, but they were going to sit it out tonight. Then we stopped by Peder & Maria of Dalecarlia and gave Peder a ride over to the host boats too.

A bunch of club members were already aboard the host boats, they know the unwritten rule - come early, come hungry and come with good cheer. They were already diving into the many plates of great food, our appetizer was gone in minutes. Not sure if the judges got to try them, but no matter, if the food disappears quickly that's a good sign. 

We got to enjoy the flavors that others bought over for the party and had a German Beer - Dave was in charge of that. Then I had the chance to indulge my boat envy thanks to Jeff on Endeavor - What a nice boat, it was not just great quality, but the attention to detail was amazing. My envy did not dissipate easily. One of the many many features that I liked was the galley stove cover that was part of the counter top and folded back behind the stove top to act as a splash guard. Very neat concept, I'll keep that one in mind when I redo the galley counter on Eximius.

Soon it was time to head back to our boat. Dry! Dinner and some Rum. It had been a great day.

During the night it rained a couple of times, and early, before dawn Peggy heard a 5 blast signal - someone was having a problem. It was none of our boats. I was looking around from the cockpit and could see others aboard their boats, most likely they too heard the blasts. It could have been a boat further south by the Boca Inlet, there was definitely no issues on any of the HISC boats. It was tool close to dawn to go back to the bunk, so we got up and I cooked breakfast - Fried Eggs, Ham, Tomatoes, Toast and Coffee. My kind of start to a Sunday.

By dawn a couple of the club boats had left, but tide predicted that we didn't need to leave until nearly noon. Chip on Stargazer was waiting for us to move as he was concerned that he might drift back toward us if he pulled his anchor being alone on his boat. We stood by the fenders while Chip prepped his boat to pull anchor. Perfect procedure, he had time to secure the anchor to his bow and walk back to his cockpit and navigate away from the anchorage with us having to even wipe our brow.

At 11:30 we decided to head out for the 11:40 bridge opening, Peggy got the cockpit ready as I prepared to pull then anchor. We turned around to go West along the North side of the Lake, past the temporary marker due to the broken permanent green marker in the North West Corner of the lake, than South towards Camino Real Bridge.

The motor back was almost uneventful except for the weather. As we neared Hillsboro Inlet, it started to rain, and then it really rained! We had our lightweight foulies on, and the rain quickly soaked through them, it got so bad that we had to put the running and steaming lights on due to the poor visibility.

But, other than the rain, we made great time all the way back to the New river. We did need to visit a PumpOut and there are several on the South side of the New River either side of 3rd Avenue Bridge. Our first stop was at Sailboat Bend, just east of the bridge, we were focused so much on the approach to the dock that we missed the signs, yes, more than one, that warned of Shoal Area. Just as we turned parallel to the dock we felt the bottom. Good news was that we were within stepping distance of the dock so I was able to get ashore and tie up the lines. We were right next to a pumpout station, but it did not seem to be working. I walked the path from the East end to the bridge, but could not see a control panel to turn on the pumpout timer. We're stuck for about an hour with the tide rising to high tide in two, so not worried. 

A fellow sailor walked over and commented on the shoal area. Turns out, he lives aboard his boat a few docks West of us but had previously docked here. He was very aware of the shoal area and pointed out that they disappear just a few yards further West, but the overhanging tree was a constant pain as it dropped debris on his boat all day long. Still, it seemed we could just move forwards once the boat floats.

Once I saw the boat bob about, I took the lines off the cleats and walked the boat forwards off of the shoal area, easy. There was a large catamaran further ahead by I only wanted to move about 20' West of our original position. That's when I found out how strong the current was at that point of the tide. The stern moved off quicker than I could wrap a line around a nearby cleat and the boat was doing a 180 all on it's own. I pulled in on the bow line and cleated up, the boat completed it turn clearing the other boat by about 10' phew! Another lesson learned. Peggy came up from below and noted we had moved, apparently the move was subtle enough to not freak her out down below. So we prepped for moving to the other side of 3rd Avenue Bridge where there were more pumpout stations.

We docked adjacent to a pumpout that had a hose and looked in good condition and I headed down the dock path to find the control panel - not to be found! Remember it's Sunday afternoon, but the dock notice states that they are available 8am to 5pm, so I called the New River Dockmaster via cellphone. The very helpful guy answered and walked me through to the location of the pumpout timer control. It's located on the North side of the Smokers Park Monument sign (it is nicely painted with local scenic art right now), there's a small metal lidded box, just lift the flap and the timer is inside. I set it for 20 minutes and then high tailed it back to the boat, that's about a 5-7 minute walk, but I jogged back. At the pumpout there is valve that has to be open and a button above it that has to be pressed to open the vacuum line. I had already setup the hose with our own poop connector, so it only took a few minutes of holding the button in to empty the holding tank. Like a good neighbor, once the tank was empty (and Peggy had added a gallon of fresh water to flush it out) then I disconnected the hose from our adapter and dunked the hose into the river, a few seconds holding the button down cleared any poop residue from the hose. All done.

We called Andrews Avenue bridge before casting off the lines and joined in with some passing traffic to go under the bridge and head up the remaining part of the New River.

Today's trip started at 11:30am and we arrived at the first pumpout station around 3:00, just 3 1/2 hours. That's reaching all of the bridges with no wait time, pushing the boat on a couple of the legs, but not overdoing it.

Back at our dock, we tied up, spun the boat Stbd side to for the next trip. Packed up and loaded the truck and headed home. Time for a shower, some wine and dinner.

Takeaways from this weekend.
  • If we're going to move the boat along the dock, don't do it alone.
  • Use the waterproof cellphone covers before getting into the dink - my phone's usb charging port died and it cost $95 for a wireless charging station.
  • Use the galley oven more often, it smoked pretty bad, but worked great once that cleared.
  • We really could do with a Tank Monitoring System so that the holding tank poop level is not just a guess.
  • Install a T with cap to enable easy clearing of the through hulls for the engine and the Air conditioning raw water supplies.
  • Use the generator to run the AC overnight, way to sweaty here in SoFla in the summer.
See you on the water again, Soon!

Paul


Monday, April 24, 2017

Searching for the Easter Bunny

Easter Spring Fling Cruise

The HISC planned to have this year's Easter Cruise (to be the Spring Fling Cruise from now on) at Lake Sylvia, however, there have been an increased number of liveaboards and visiting cruisers in the lake and that would make anchoring an additional 10 to 15 boats a bit of a squeeze. So the cruise planners moved it to Lake Sunrise, but then realized that it's Sunrise Bay. Nothing like a bit of confusion to get folks started on the search for the Easter Bunny.

Tides

As it happens, the weekend - April 14th to April 16th was a  rare one for us in that the tide suited us at both our departure from the dock on Friday and return on the Sunday.

Planning

As we were going to be able to leave the dock before lunch Friday and get back after lunch on Sunday, we had one dinner and one breakfast to take with us. The club was having a BYOA (Bring your own Appetiser) which normally translates, to 'You probably won't need to eat dinner after that'
So we took Oats for 2 days (just in case) and a Chicken Cacciatore for the Friday Night and a spare meal of pulled pork in tomato sauce. Plus a few bottles of wine, some Tomatoes and Mozzarella cheese for the appetizer which I would put together onboard Saturday afternoon. Oh, a bottle of Rum in case we had any guests along with our usual crates of water, V8, G2 and Ginger Ale. That should cope with anyone stopping by.

Beware the Bridges

It was an easy motor down the New River until we got to the FEC Railroad bridge which was down for maintenance and could only be opened via a Crane on the South side of the  bridge. We called the tender and asked for an opening. Their response was that the bridge had just closed and it would be 10 minutes before they could open it again. I advised them that I would do a few donuts in Sailboat Bend to kill the time, to which they replied - They'll open the bridge sooner if they can see me. 
So we did a couple of donuts at sailboat bend and then turned towards the bridge. At that time of the Friday morning, there were few people about at the bend, but there was a family preparing for a Kayak tour which seem pretty popular in that area.
We turned towards the bridge and could see the Crane attached to the South end of the span and as soon as they saw us, the supervisor started blowing his whistle to instruct the workers to clear the bridge for raising. It took less than 10 minutes for them to clear the bridge and raise it. Because of the crane attachment, they could open it partway, so we had to hug the south bridge fender to ensure our mast cleared the crane and raised span. I didn't hesitate in passing through once their supervisor signaled it was ok by a few more blast on his whistle and the 'come on down' arm signals.

Heading up to Sunrise Bay

We had spoken with Pam Angel & Dave LeGrow of Sjรถfn and expected they would be at the Bay this afternoon too, so we kept our ears tuned for their calls to the bridges as we continued our motor up the Sunrise Bay. Passing Los Boulevard bridge with the current carrying us towards Sunrise Blvd Bridge, we had an easy motor up to the Bay. On arrival, Peggy took the helm while I prepared the Anchor and as we came into view of the Bay, I could see that Diversion was already at anchor in pretty much their usual spot. It's funny how we are all creatures of habit, we too looked for our spot on the GPS and dropped anchor, backed down on it hard before taking sightings to look for in case we were drifting. Time to put up the sun shade and the wind break (dodger window) and make some lunch.

Arrivals and Returns

Since we arrived, Sjรถfn, Affection, Endeavour, Glory Daze, Always, and a bunch of other HISC members arrived. Socializing is easy with this group, a short dink ride over to another boat is all it takes, everyone is welcome.
A few months ago, I ran out of Olive Oil during my prep of Breakfast. We tied up alongside Diversion, so I popped my head out of the cabin and asked Joyce if she had any spare olive oil - Joyce gave me the remnants of her bottle. I have been carrying around a really nice bottle of EVOO since then to give back with gratitude. So I dinked over to their boat and returned the favor. One of the many things learned is always return something borrowed in better condition than when it was received. Joyce was happy crew ๐Ÿ˜Š

Party time

We've been members of the HISC for about 2 1/2 years now, and one thing we figured out from participating in the Club Cruises is 'Come Early and Come Hungry!' The come early part is what we learned when we dilly dallied arriving at one event 20 minutes late with a delicious tray of roasted shrimp. By the time we got there, most of the food was gone. The come hungry part is - well, most members bring enough food for eight people, so there's lots of food! 
Today we prepared our Appetizer early and arrived at the host boats with a bunch of other members, we had to take turns in arrving - like a skyfull of aircraft waiting to land.
The host boats did the club proud! Lots of food plus everything that the members brought over, and plenty of appropriate drinks. Food eaten, Drinks drunk, Stories were told, and friendships gained. 
When Peggy was getting into the dink, it moved away, she got her butt wet. But no harm done, even the water was warm. We got back to Eximius and both dried off. 
We didn't sleep so good, the wind was chugging along and our VHF radio woke us up around 11pm and at Midnight. But! No anchor dragging, no bumps in the middle of the night. 

Sunday Brunch

The club catered a Sunday Brunch  aboard the host boats. So we had a light breakfast of Oats and made up a thermos of Coffee then headed over to the host boats.
It was time for the Easter Hat Contest. Not sure who won, but Pam Angel stood out. There were peep shoes, Pink Cocktails and a crowd chatting aboard the boats. Always a great group, and if you want to talk sailing, there's always interest and input. Love this bunch.

Wrapping up

We didn't have to be the first to break away from the event for a change, so we stayed in the Bay till after Noon, then, after watching the most of the other boats head out, we pulled anchor just as Always was pulling their's. Peggy motored us out of the Bay and south the few hundred yards to the Sunrise Blvd Bridge and we called for the bridge opening. Always was astern of us as we motored down the ICW towards Los Olas Bridge. Always peeled off just North of the bridge and we only had to wait a few minutes to pass under the bridge and thank the tender for the opening.
Then it was the usual motor south to past Bahia Mar and West towards Sand Bar Park. Just as expected, our speed changed as we moved from the flow of the IntraCoastal into the flow of the New River, but when it changed we also heard a significant change in the engine. Our RPM stayed the same but our speed dropped by over a knot. 
First thought was - Must be a stronger ebb current than expected - OR we have something around the prop! I dropped the engine RPM and shifted into Neutral intent upon a short burst in reverse to try and clear any tangles but when the engine stalled. Worst, we're in the channel North of Sandbar Park which is only about 50' wide and no engine! I tell Peggy that I'm going to drop the anchor and dash up front. Quickly releasing the anchor and lowing with the chain in hand over hand. The anchor bites the bottom, boy! does it bite! I am barely able to keep hold of the chain. Luckily it was still wet from hauling up in Sunrise Bay, so it does not burn my bare hands (normally I wear my gloves when working the anchor) - It drags out harder, this is getting scary! I manage to get the chain around the Boat Cleat and bring the chain to a stop. Turning back to the stern to see if I can get the engine running, I realize Peggy already has it going and is in gear! That explains a lot! Quick shift into Neutral and take a breather. 
I explain what took place, Peggy had not realized I was actually setting the anchor - NOTE TO SELF - make sure everyone knows whats happening and what not to do! 
We used Prop wash and to turn the stern to Stbd and take the strain off the anchor. I pulled it back in and we were on our way, although it was obvious that something was not right. I just hoped we had not damaged our Prop.

Didn't slip up today

Unlike our last return to the slip, I didn't nearly fall off the dock! Peggy made a perfect come alongside and we quickly prepared to load the truck. We're getting this process down! By the time I had the lines in place, power cord setup and secured, dink washed down and topside ready for inspection (sorry, a flash back to my Navy Days) Peggy had the cabin bagged up and ready to take ashore.

Note to self

Need to get a diver to clean the bottom and inspect the Prop & Shaft!


See you on the Water.

Paul

Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Making Oktoberfest work for us.

Oktoberfest 2016

Our local sailing club, HISC, celebrates Oktoberfest every year if the weather permits and traditionally it has been held on Lake Boca and that was the plan this year.

Early in the year, club members volunteer to host the various events so that they have plenty of time to get organized, promote the event as well as giving time to the members that will participate to get their part ready. That normally involves preparing an Appetizer, Main course, or costume for the event.

This year, the original volunteer had a last minute urgent event that conflicted with the Oktoberfest, she was moving homes! Pam & Dave of Sjofn stepped in to host the event and asked us if we would co-host the event.

We were not too sure how the event would work out with 2 monohulls and so only agreed to co-host if we could find a 3rd boat to co-host. Joyce & Mike of Spruce Goose stepped up. So we had our 3 boats.

During the week prior to the event, we published the schedule and a flyer out to the entire club membership via the Google Group system we use just for that purpose. Pam, Joyce and I agreed on provisioning, which really meant that Pam & Dave would locate German Beer, and come up with a dinner plan for the host boats on Saturday.

By the end of the week, we had sorted out the most of the little things and were ready to head up to the lake. Peggy & I prefer not to do one day events as they tend to be further up North and take about 4 hours to reach compared to most of the club members that are located nearer to the Hillsboro Inlet and Lake Boca. Both Sjofn and Eximius were planning on getting there on the Friday, Joyce & Mike altered their schedule so that they could also meet with us Friday.

We had finished putting the boat sails and canvas back on after taking it down in preparation for a visit by Hurricane Mathew that didn't happen. So the boat was clean and ready to go.

Friday morning we headed down to the boat, a bit later than planned after a late night (at the HISC) and we loaded up the boat. It was Full Moon weekend, actually Harvest Moon and King Tides, so we expected high tides and fast currents on the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW).

Motoring out of the slip canal and down into the North Fork of the New River was very smooth and without incident. The engine was running beautifully, purring along at 2,000 RPM and very little vibration due to the work done on her over the past few months. Over half a tank (10 Gallons) of fuel with another 5 gals on board. At ~3/4gal per hour we had plenty for the trip, enough to motor for 20 hours with an expected max time under power of 9 hours.

Traffic on the New River was surprisingly heavy, we were boat #2 of six as we all passed under the 4 bridges on the New River, even with the ebbing tide we had no issues getting out of the New River, that's always a good thing.

Checking SailFlow, NOAA, and the local Radar services, we could see that it was most likely pretty lumpy outside of Port Everglades, so we made the decision to head up the ditch (ICW) to Lake Boca instead of sailing out of the Port and in via Hillsboro Inlet. Motring up on the inside route is nowhere near as nice sailing up on the outside (Ocean) but it was the prudent thing to do. 

We could hear both Sjofn and Spruce Goose calling for the Camino Real bridge opening at 2pm while we were near to the Atlantic Blvd bridge, so we figured they would arrive about 1 1/2 hours ahead of us. No need to push it, so we just made the bridges almost leisurely, barely having to wait for any of them. 

As soon as we passed Camino Real bridge and were inside Lake Boca, we could see Sjofn & Spruce Goose rafted up together in the North East corner of the lake. So Peggy took the helm as we motored up the West side of the lake and then swung Eastward. I prepped the fenders and dock lines, and Peggy did a great job of turning us 180ยบ and putting us alongside Sjofn within easy dockline distance so that Dave & Pam & Mike could secure us alongside. 

We needed to get a few things done on board before we accepted guests, sorting out the canvas covers to shield us from pending rain and high winds, moving the gas & diesel cans from the Stbd side of the boat onto the Cabin top so that guests could walk around the boat if needby. Setting up the GPS Anchor Alarm and setting up our Bar (joke!)

As always, there were a few minor tasks that I wanted to complete, such as re-securing the Solar Power Cable from the Solar Panels to the Bimini rails with tie wraps in place of the disintegrating electrical tape that had been in place when we purchased the boat - seems hard to believe that was nearly 18 months ago.  Installing our new Flag Pole for the US Flag, hoisting our Cruising Flags, and setting up the Cockpit table which it turns out was a good idea. Last job of the day was to lower the dinghy from the foredeck and setup the engine. Peggy & I got that done pretty quickly - Pam assisted by managing the dink engine lowering while I attached it to the dinghy. A few quick pulls on the start cord and it sprang into life. It needed topping up with fuel and then I let it run for about 10 minutes. 

Soon it was time to take a break - boat ready for guests, and both of us ready for the break. We had a lite dinner of Chicken Salad and a few glasses of wine (Papi). After the usual sailors banter we turned in early, both of us beat up by the trip up the ditch after a short nights sleep.

Saturday we woke and started breakfast: Eggs, Turkey, Tomatoes, Toast and French Cheese and of course the ever important Coffee. Just as I sat down at the Cabin table, Dave called out that there was a slight change of plan - the Communal Breakfast was moved from Sunday to Saturday - Awwww! So we finished our breakfast then joined the others with coffee in hand. 

Mid morning I started up the dink and visited Eileen and Larry on Kokomo, we shared a few sailor stories and I learned a bit more about the Bahamas from their experiences.

After lunch the phone started to ring as guests let me know when they would be arriving at the Palmetto Park Bridge parking lot for taxi ride out to the raft up. We were ready.

I was almost done putting our German Appetizer together when the 1st call for a pickup came in. So Peggy finished them off by planting a German Flag in each while I took the dink over to the bridge to pick up Alexandria, the wind was picking up, but no issues getting back to the boats by which time other club members had started to arrive in their dinks from their boats. At this point there were 11 boats in the fleet and we quikly had a full parking lot off the back of our boat which was the easiest to board from a dinghy. Shortly, Bob & Pat called in for pickup, so I headed back to the bridge.

We ended up with nearly 30 people spread between our 3 boats. As with every HISC cruising event, there was plenty of food, good food. Dave had setup the Beer kegs and was quickly emptying them. Food was passed between the boats but not all of it arrived at the 3rd boat (Spruce Goose) as the trays were being attacked en-route! But it looked like everyone was having a great time.

We were ready to start the Toast contest, but not many folks had worked on that part of the invite, so we only had 4 toast plus my intro toast.


Wir sind Sailors
We are Sailors


King Tides & Strong Winds

One of the highlights of the weekend was the King Tide, making the high tides much higher and the subsequent current flows much stronger. The winds were mostly from the North East and were in the high teens most of the weekend. This meant that our journey back to the slip had to be coordinated with the tides just so that we had safe transit at our slip and through the bridges.

During the cruise festivities (eating, drinking and sharing sea stories) the wind popped up quite a bit and matched some of the howling winds of Friday Night. But around 6pm Saturday, the wind popped up higher to at least 42 knots. I had turned on the Nav instruments on Eximius and flipped the instrument display to show the 10 minute wind history graph, it showed 35 to 42 knots several times. It made for some exciting rides to and from the bridge parking lot in the dinghy.

Before dark, our guests started to head back to their boats or request dingy rides back to the parking lot, probably as we had run out of Beer, most all of the food was gone, and perhaps the rising winds signaled the end of the Party. 

Most guests departed by climbing down the backside of Eximius into the dinks that were all tied up to our stern. Larry from Kokomo was running a regular taxi service for those guests that did not have their dink that day. I learned the advantage of having a decent (15HP) motor and rigid hull on his dink, something others had told me were almost a necessity when we go to the Bahamas where the current could be faster than our 2.3HP outboard could manage.

With the event guests all back ashore or to their own boats, the three host boat crews sat and reflected upon the event - An All Round Success! After evening cocktails we all returned to our own boats.

Overnight a couple of other boats (not HISC) anchored near to the three rafted host boats, a little on the close side, not a problem if they have set their anchors properly.

Shortly after midnight, the wind piped up again, but this time it coincided with the change in tide and the rafted boats swung 180ยบ and our Anchor Alarm went off. Quickly getting into the cockpit and checking for anchor drag by taking a transit line on the shore buildings, it looked as though we might be dragging anchor. I took a couple of minutes to average out the swing and transit lines and thought I had better get the other skippers up on deck for a 2nd opinion. Dave was first out of his cabin and we concluded we were probably ok, but I said I'd stay up on anchor watch for a while. Mike joined us and we all agreed. I remained in the cockpit checking on the swing.

About 12:30 during another swing in the weird Lake Boca currents, I noted that the 3 rafted boats were pointing North, the power catamaran was pointed at our stern and the 3rd boat, the one that had arrived earlier that night, was pointed away from our bow. That is, we were all pointing along the circumference of the same semi circle - as I said, the Weird Lake Boca Currents!

The clouds were scudding along in the stiff breeze and I started to get glimpses of the Harvest Full Moon directly overhead. So I took this video;

Then I waited a few minutes for a break in the clouds and took this picture

The Trip Home

Sunday Morning we were up around 6am planing on joining Mike & Joyce, Dave & Pam for breakfast aboard Spruce Goose. Before breakfast I was able to get the dink outboard off the dink and onto it's mount on Eximius, then I moved the dink around the starboard side of the boat and secured it for lifting onto the foredeck. Peggy was ready to go at that time and helped me raise the dink and tie it down on the deck. We put the coffee on, but no sign of the other crews yet, so we had some toast - didn't realize how little of the food we had eaten last night.

Joyce called us all over for breakfast, Peggy & I took our coffee pot to share, but only Dave & Pam drink coffee and already had their own too. Peggy was having a bit of tummy upset and returned to our boat to be near the head :( Meanwhile the rest of us enjoyed some of Joyce's Oats Nuts &  Cranberries and some of Pam's Strudel. 

Our return trip plan had us leaving for the 0840 bridge opening. So around 8:30 we cast off from Sjofn & Spruce Goose, motored around the back of the power catamaran, up the East side of the Lake, turned westward then south down to the bridge. We got there a little early and had to turn into the pretty strong Easterly wind to hold station while we waited for the bridge to open at 8:40am.

From there on it was plain motoring all the way back down the ditch, we nailed the openings despite the strong current reducing our GPS speed. The bridge tenders were kind to us and held the bridges open till we passed.

As we passed where the A1A roadway is close to the ICW, we could several docks that were underwater at the King High Tide and in some places the A1A was flooded, police cars were blocking traffic from heading towards the floods.

After passing under Los Olas Blvd Bridge, we could see how the canal is dramatically reduced in width due to the expansion work on the upgrades to the Los Olas Marina, the canal is probably half it's previous width! We wondered how much of the new marina will be open for public use when it's finished.

Once we were past Bahia Mar we turned west to pass north of Sand Bar Park, which was empty, only the dredge barge was nearby where they are deepening the canal all the way down to the 17th Street Bridge. We now started to feel the resistance of the current flow from the New River and had to push the throttle up as we passed by the New River Bridges, we could see the current flow at the bridge fenders clearly, but we were on schedule and didn't need to keep pushing once past a bridge. Cooleys landing was flooded and had it's usual crowd of visiting boats tied up in the slips.

I was below when Peggy turned Eximius into the canal where we keep her (the boat) docked. There was a newbie tied up on the North side of the canal, pretty big motor vessel, so that narrowed our passage quite a bit, but Peggy nailed it again. We came along side and turned Eximius around to face east for our next adventure. 

It didn't take us long to unload the food, drinks, bedding, linens, tools that I needed at home onto the dock. Then it was a quick rinse down of the topsides, lockup the boat and head home.

Great Trip, Event, Guests, Food, Drinks, Stories equals A Great Weekend!  

See you on the water.

Paul