the best, the worst, the weirdest

From the 2012 cruises.......

Best Anchorage - Codjus Creek on day one of the Over the Top 200

Best Cloud Formation I Did Not Want to See - A dark grey cloud spreading over the Little Annemessex River burying the golden light of morning.  I could hear the thunder over Tangier Sound, just made it to the dock, tied up and ran for cover as the rain, lightning and wind hit on the last day of the Tangier Sound Walkabout.

Best Named Anchorage - Murderkill River

Oddest Sound in the Middle of the Night - The whooshing sound of my life jacket self-inflating as the little "pill," eroded by rain and spray, broke apart anchored in Swan Creek on the first night of the Tidal 214

Nicest Clouds - sailing down Chincoteague Bay

Most Miles Covered in a Single Day - 51.7 nautical miles during the Over the Top from Chesapeake City, Md, down the C and D Canal, then down Delaware Bay to Bowers Beach

Best Afternoon of Tacking - Beaufort Inlet, between Radio Island and Bird Shoal, sailing into the wind and tide on a beautiful afternoon day two of the Tidal 214

Best Morning of Tacking - Beaufort Inlet, day three of the Tidal 214, tacking between Shackleford Bank and Bird Shoal, into the wind and tide for over two hours to reach the inlet on a very pretty morning - I could have sailed that water all day long

Best Bridge Tender - the guy at Lewes Bridge who did a lift for us, then drove to the Rehoboth Bridge and waited for us there so he could let us pass through, all the while ignoring the requirement for 24 hour advance requests for bridge lifts

Best Cooling Off - Allison Creek after a sweltering, windless day crossing the Pamlico River on day five of of the Tidal 214

Best Fight Interrupted - Two guys, one very inebriated and the other moderately so, nose to nose over a woman who seemed amused by it all, at Gilligan's in Lewes, Delaware.  Both would-be boxers said "Excuse me" and stepped back as Bruce passed by on his way to the restroom, then went nose to nose again until a waiter broke it up.

Most Tortured Body of Water - Indian River Inlet Channel, a surging mass of water with giant eddies, steep chop and breaking waves

Best Brunch - Grilled speckled trout and sweet potatoes in Mouse Harbor after catching the fish off of Pamlico Point on day seven of the Tidal 214

Best Tide-Aided Speed - eight knots at times down Delaware Bay

Best Live Performance by a Dead Singer - The voice of Elvis drifting across Rehoboth Bay from an Elvis Impersonator weekend at Dewey Beach on day five of the Over the Top

Coldest Day on the Water - sailing from Crisfield to Smith Island on day one of the Tangier Sound Walkabout, a dark grey day with a temperature of 46 degrees when I launched the boat

Worst Decision When Launching on a Cold Day - not bringing shoes

Best Appetizer - Tuna Wontons at Gilligan's in Lewes, Delaware

Best Skinny Water Sailing - across the cut between Middle Hooper Island and Lower Hooper Island, board all the way up and rudder nearly so as Spartina's bottom scraped over the gravel

Best Place to Hide the Beer - Behind the bale of hay and under the flower pot of a fall display outside of Bill's Prime Seafood and Steaks in Chincoteague after the manager told us we could not carry a six pack into his restaurant on the last day of the Over the Top (best Oysters Romanoff anywhere at that place)

Latest Running Tide - Outgoing tide at Ocean City Inlet that was still running out at over three knots an hour and one-half after the predicted low tide.  "Yeah, it does that sometimes" said the woman at the fuel dock in the boat basin.

Worst Storm - Three storm cells in a row that passed over Spartina in Abel Bay off the Pamlico River on day six of the Tidal 214

Most Unusual Visitor - The snake that swam across the Little Annemessex River, nosed up against Spartina's hull, then continued on his way to the marsh grass about a hundred yards away

Best Hamburger - The Rusty Rudder, Dewey Beach, Delaware

Most Disorienting Music in the Middle of the Night - Mariachi music as the radio shorted out and turned itself on after an evening of storms on Abel Bay

Nicest Park Ranger - the one that opened the store at Janes Island State Park to sell me three bottles of cold green tea on day four of the Tangier Walkabout

Best Sail with the Dolphins - on the ocean from Indian River Inlet to Ocean City Inlet, the dolphin swam so close we could almost touch them

Best Floating Artwork - a topless mermaid on the door of a home-made houseboat at the basin in Chesapeake City

Best Luck with the Weather - a day of north wind, the only day in our time frame, to carry us down the coast from Indian River Inlet to Ocean City Inlet

And that's it, selected by a panel made up of one judge.  Looking back, 2012 was a good year on the water.

  

I'll take it as a good omen for 2013 that the January photograph in the WoodenBoat Calendar shows a yawl.  A much larger and more expensive yawl than Spartina, but still - a yawl.  Got to love those yawls.

Here's to a good year for everyone!

steve

new year's morning

Starting the year in a cypress swamp.  What better place to be?

steve

too cold

The epoxy coated rub rails, bow sprit, boomkin and tiller have all been sanded.  I had hoped to put on the first of seven coats of varnish today but it is simply too cold.  The high might be 42 degrees, but with a howling wind and a north facing garage I don't think the temperature in my work area will be anywhere near that.

The WeatherMap+ app shows Tuesday afternoon might get to 50 degrees, maybe I'll get the first coat on then.  This coming weekend should be in the 50's and 60's, I'll hope for one coat on Saturday and then another Sunday afternoon (with the annual striper fishing trip squeezed in between).

Looking over the calendar I see that because of quirk in my work schedule I've got a four day weekend in early March.  In the eight or nine weeks between now and then I need to finish the varnish work, replace the deck hardware, buy new flares (which just expired), rewire the trailer lights and repack the trailer bearings.  That four day weekend might give the chance to wrap up the above jobs and maybe get Spartina out on the water for the first time this year.

I've got a lunch date tomorrow with my sailor/writer friend Paul.  Years ago he took a sailboat up the inside passage on the eastern shore, sailing and motoring behind the barrier islands.  Bruce and I will be sailing down the eastern shore this spring, possibly inside of the barrier islands or possibly outside depending on the weather.  I'll bring my barrier island chart to lunch with Paul and get him to tell me a little about his trip.  You can see from the satellite photo above that the water behind the barrier islands is, to say the least, interesting.  With winding creeks and running tides, I'll take all the advice I can get from Paul.

steve

news from the loft

Stuart Hopkins of Dabbler Sails gave Spartina a nice mention yesterday in the news from the loft section of his web page.

The sailmaker is, like all of us, wrapping up 2012 and preparing for 2013.  He mentions that he made 55 sails this past year, a impressive average of more than one sail per week -  beyond impressive I would say when you consider that quality craftsmanship that goes into each sail .  The 55 sails of 2012 brings the total sails produced by the loft to 1137 in the past 21 years, an average of 54.14 sails per year.  If you want a sailmaker with experience, Dabbler Sails is where to find him.

"A justly popular beach cruiser" is how Stuart describes John Welsford's Pathfinder design (I agree completely), and he mentions a three way conversation about sails for the Pathfinder.  Stuart and I are two participants in that conversation, the third participant being my friend Seth who is working hard on his Pathfinder up in the mountains of Virginia.

Thank you for the mention, Stuart.

steve

coping, the keys, the test

It is winter here in the mid-Atlantic and I have begun my annual efforts to cope with my least favorite season.  Looking forward is one way to cope.  In my case I'm looking forward to the annual striper fishing trip in early January, a trip to San Diego a few days after that, and a brief trip to Florida in February.  Mixed in with all that will be the winter maintenance on Spartina.  The deck is painted.  I still need to varnish the rub rails and paint the top plank, which is white, on both port and starboard.  And then the hardware needs to go back on.  Then - at some point - the new sails should arrive.

I also cope with winter by sailing vicariously on other people's adventures, in this case an open boat sail from Key West to the Dry Tortugas by my friend Mike, below, and Kevin aboard Kevin's Marshcat "Little T".  Mike, who I see now and then at the Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race and the Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival, sent me a rough draft of notes about the trip.  Below are a few paragraphs from his notes.  When it is published in full I'll put up a link to the log here.  I am quite happy now to read of light breezes, crab pot markers leaning in the currents and nice little anchorages. 

"In a light breeze from the NorthEast, we rounded Key West and were swept down on Kingfish Shoal by a strong South going current.  We just barely missed the shoals around  Cut “A”  Range Markers but, by reading the water, worked North enough to fetch the gate South of Mule Key that begins the Lakes Passage. There’s lots of shallow water on Lakes Passage, but it is mostly fairly uniform in depth except for Gates off Mule Key, Archer Key, and Boca Grande, and the channels are well marked and easy to see. There was quite a crowd on the protected beach on the northwest corner of Boca Grande Key, mostly high speed flats fishing boats, nosed up on the beach. We entered Boca Grande Channel in a light Easterly with deceptive visibility. We approached Gull Rocks and were within a mile and a quarter without seeing any sign of the Marquesas, although they are quite large and high. Then the fog lifted and there was land everywhere to the North of us."
 

"Beautiful day for the big push, wind southeast and mild, Rebecca shoal abeam at 0930. More than halfway to our destination. At 1100 we sighted YANKEE FREEDOM III, the daily ferry from Key West, passing to the north of us. We had both my Garmin 76 Cx and Kevin’s more basic GPS. Either set had plenty of information for this kind of trip. We just kept adjusting for tide, observing the set on passing crabpots and the plot on the little screen. By 1230 we had made landfall on Fort Jefferson, then the lighthouse on Loggerhead Key, then East and Hospital Keys. By 1330 we were anchored off the dinghy beach in the Garden Key anchorage, a bit tired of our own cooking, rushed for our wallets and waded ashore to buy our lunch from the ferry. A fifty mile passage at 4.8 knots, moving average. We were glad to have left early and were halfway." 

"We caught a whisper of Southeasterly through an intricate channel into Mooney Harbor and sailed as far as we could around the harbor, a chance to breathe now we are down off the mountain. Once we had found all the parts of that sector that we could float in, we went outside and found a nice beach to swim and explore off the boat for a bit. In the interim, the wind had picked up rapidly and we used the chance to tuck in a single reef on the beach. A fast crab across Boca Grande Channel brought us in a little North of Boca Grande, and we found the lakes passage a little too shallow for upwind work with any centerboard, so we ran off to the north and searched for an anchorage. First we tried Cottrell Key, off the Northwest Channel leading into Key West, but there were dive boats and mooring balls, so we figured they didn’t want any catboats interfering with their diving. We crossed the middleground and found a nice little anchorage just off Fleming Key with company but nowhere as much company as you would find there in February, when the snowbirds had had more time to really flock South."

Thanks for passing on the notes, Mike.  Let me know when and where the full log is published.

------------------------------------------------------

I received a note from Stuart at Dabbler Sails suggesting I perform a mast bend test on Spartina's free standing mizzen mast.  Stuart incorporates the bend of the mast into the design of the sail on that mast (talk about attention to detail).  The instructions for the test, plus a lot of other interesting information, can be found on Dabbler's Appendices pages.

I performed the test Christmas Eve.  Supporting the mizzen mast on two saw horses, one at the top of the mast and the other at the point the mast passes through the mast partner of the aft deck, I hung a bucket containing two gallons of water at the midpoint between the saw horses.  A quarter of the length of the mast above the mast partner the mast deviated by 5/8 inches.  At the midpoint the mast deviated 1 inch.  At the three quarter mark the mast deviated 1/2 inch.  I passed this information off to Stuart.  He replied that these were very normal mast bend numbers, and that he is up to date with all the information he needs for the new sails.

steve

ok, I was never much on presentation

but there were not a lot of complaints.  Dave, I'm open to some coaching.

steve

a shellfish kind of day

Broiled lobster,

stuffed with shrimp,

and a handful of steamed clams.  Oysters on the half-shell 

as appetizers.  There'll be some veggies in there too (promise).

steve

searching for Santa

Merry Christmas!

Presents this morning, then off to work for a while.  Cooking starts at 2:00.

steve