a gathering of yawls

I heard from some sailing friends that they thought they saw a yawl party on Craford Bay.  It is true, there was a gathering of yawls this past Saturday.  I was aboard Spartina and had the joy of sailing with a Mikesboat and a Drascombe Dabber.  Unplanned and unexpected, it was fun to sail, if just for a few moments, with some other small yawls.

Steve and Scott are "Team Scout" and they are in training for the 2016 Everglades Challenge.   Steve I have known for a few years through meetings out on the river.  He seems to have a fleet of boats, a power boat and at least of couple of sailboats including the Dabber.   For the Everglades Challenge they will use the Mikesboat, above, which Scott bought as a hull and rigged with the masts and polytarp sails.

   

Check out their Facebook page and you will see that they have been doing some serious training.  They even went down to North Carolina last fall to talk with the watertribe sailors competing in the Blackbeard Challenge, which was a very smart thing to do.  

This season has been very mild so far and I hope it will continue this way, making their training a little bit easier.  There's Steve above in the Dabber.  They say they will be out on the water a lot this winter.  Maybe we'll cross paths again and have another gathering of yawls.

choose your synonym

This photograph appeared on my phone, sent from a number I did not recognize, Friday afternoon.  I did recognize the area code as being from Richmond and then guessed the photograph came from Eddie.  He has a brother who apparently works in one of the tall buildings downtown and, on occasion, looks out over the river and takes photographs with his phone.  I'm not sure of the cause for the vignetting, but I love both the photograph and look of Spartina's sails from that angle.  My thanks to both Eddie and his brother.

I sailed both Friday - low 70's, 8-10 mph wind and a mixture of light overcast and full sun - and Saturday - a record setting 76 degrees, light wind and sunshine all day long.  Considering that we approaching mid-December, the two days of sailing were (choose your synonym) glorious, marvelous, magnificent, sublime, spectacular, lovely, fine, delightful, tremendous.......

let's play two

summer breeze, or at least feels like it

thank you, el nino

The forecast for Friday, which is getting very near to mid-December, calls for 71 degrees, sunshine and a southwest wind of about 10 mph.  How great is that?  The cause is el nino, which is characterized by unusually warm surface sea temperatures in the equatorial Pacific.  I don't understand el nino and how it causes warmer winters for the mid-Atlantic.  I am just glad for it to happen.  

The forecast for Saturday is 72 degrees, sunny, southwest wind.  Maybe I'll get out both days.

morning light at the bagel shop

the morning walk

december sailor

Experimenting with the GoPro on a nice December day.

It went from sunny and breezy in the a.m. to overcast, cool

and light winds in the p.m.  Any December day on the 

water is a good day in my book.

briefly

From Eddie, another friend I have never met, a sailor of both 

the Rozinante LUNA and the home-built Sootie Tern UNA,

 comes a link to a video about Norfolk.  You can find it here. 

My wife and I have lived in the Norfolk area since the late

1980s.  Back then a major newspaper described the downtown

area as looking like a bombed out WW II city.  There was a

nice park and a place called Waterside, other than that it was 

vacant lots, abandoned piers, "bookstores" and not much else.

Since then the city has revitalized, which is the topic of the

 video.  Eddie came across the clip and recognized the 

sails of the yawl.  It's pretty cool to show up, if only briefly,

 in connection with the rebirth of a town that has been

 important in my life and work for the last few decades.

  Thanks, Eddie, for passing on the link.

two observations, not mine

I will share two observations from friends, both of which I think have some credence.

A couple of months ago in Urbanna I was talking to a new friend named Vera about Spartina, telling her that one of the things that caught my eye with the Pathfinder design was the tumblehome, the narrowing of the transom at increased height from the waterline.  You can see it clearly in Barry's photograph above.  Vera doesn't miss a beat, says well of course that's why you liked the boat - men always pick their women and their boats by their backsides.  I started to protest, saying that's not true, but then, um, well, yeah....okay, good point.

Jim B, who sails about 60 miles south of here in the Outer Banks mentioned in an email, after a pleasant sail with light winds over the Thanksgiving weekend, that fall/winter air is cooler and denser, resulting in more speed with light winds.

I think this might also be true.  With a pleasant forecast this weekend I hope to do more research on this topic.