With school out for the summer Jeff has a new early-morning schedule. So on Friday, June 19th, we were able to head down to the boat after work for a true full weekend on the boat.
We were able to start the weekend by attending our first Friday Night event at Shenny. Every Friday evening during the summer the club holds “Friday Night.” People bring three dollars, a dish to share, and their own drinks. The club provides hotdogs, hamburgers, and all of the fixings. Typically more than 75 people show up each Friday, so we thought it would be a good opportunity to meet some more people. We arrived a bit later than we intended because Alex from our old marina dinghied over to chat for a while, but we still had a good time and met a few people, including a couple that had spent a year cruising in the Bahamas. Very cool.
Saturday was cloudy with temps in the upper 60’s, and after lounging around the boat for the morning we headed out for a sail. Winds were in the low teens and we didn’t have any real destination in mind. We were simply going to sail. We practiced tacking quite a bit, trying to see just how close to the wind Pegu Club could get (answer: not very), and just generally enjoyed being out for a few hours and 10 nm.
When we had left for the marina on Friday we weren’t certain if we were going to stay for the whole weekend. The remnants of Tropical Storm Bill were forecast to come through on Saturday night, and most of Sunday was supposed to be a washout. After we came back from our sail though, we checked the forecast and saw that Sunday might be salvaged after all. It was going to rain hard starting late Saturday afternoon and all night, but the skies were supposed to clear by Sunday at noon. Reasoning that it would be good practice for our future cruising life (which, after all, won’t be sunny blue skies every day), we decided to stay. Yay! Continue reading “6/20 & 6/21 – A two-sail weekend”→
As much as we’d like it, not every weekend ends up with a sail. This last weekend was looking like a bust wind-wise, but that wasn’t going to keep us from heading down to the boat. Nope, it just meant that this was going to be a weekend for some boat chores – and apparently two trips to Defender.
We stopped at Defender on our way down to pick up 75 feet of dinghy line for the new dinghy slip. We’ve joined Shennecosset Yacht Club (the subject of a future post) and they have some sort of pulley system for tying the dink into the slip. I’m sure there’s a name for it, but my Google searches so far haven’t helped me to find it. I can’t even describe it well, so a picture will have to suffice. Continue reading “Boat chores.”→
One of our big goals for this season is to anchor overnight, and get comfortable doing it. The key for our cruising plans is to be able to spend 99% of our nights on the hook, so this is an important skill for us to develop.
The forecast for the weekend of June 6th was calling for two days of winds from the north – very unusual for this time of year. Initially we had planned to anchor for an afternoon, and then if it went well try an overnight another time. Earlier that week I suggested to Jeff that we just go for it. Anchor for the afternoon and if we were feeling comfortable, just stay the night. He was up for that idea, so the next task was to find a place to anchor.
We have several spots in mind that we want to go this season, but they were all selected with the thought that we’d have the prevailing southwesterly winds. Since these winds were going to be from the north, then clock around to the southeast, then back to the north again, they weren’t going to work. The winds weren’t going to be heavy at all, but we wanted to find somewhere that would give us protection for all of the forecasted directions.
We checked out Active Captain and found a potential anchorage near Rocky Neck State Park in Niantic – Black Point. It wasn’t a place that we would ever stay at in a southwesterly, but it was well protected in the north and east. After another check of the weather on Saturday morning, we decided to go for it. Continue reading “Anchor aweigh!”→
Last Saturday’s forecast looked great – bright sun, 69 degrees on the water, and the promise of good wind in the afternoon. Now that I had decided I was going to take advantage of all wind conditions short of a small craft advisory, I was raring to go.
We settled in on Pegu Club and proceeded to wait. The promised wind wasn’t arriving (it was under 5 knots), so I hung out on the foredeck with my Kindle. Just when I was starting to fret that the wind would never arrive, it started stirring. We prepped the boat, cast off the lines, and headed out. Little did we know that we were going to have one of our best sails ever on Fishers Island Sound. Continue reading “What a sail!”→
Friday saw us tossing off the mooring line at 7:00 a.m. It was chilly but sunny, and the forecast called for light winds out of the southwest until 9:00 a.m. or so when they would begin to steadily build, along with the seas. Having learned what “building seas” meant during our first trip to Block, our goal was to be in the Great Salt Pond before it started blowing over 20.
What followed was a lovely sail – our best one yet to Block. 19 NM, 5 hours. We motored for a few hours, and then, true to the forecast’s word, we were able to to turn off the outboard and sail the entire rest of the way. And I mean the entire way. We were feeling great: sunny, 59 degrees on the water, 12-15 knots of wind, a beam reach the entire way.
Jeff at the helm.Seems like we’re always dodging a trawler or two out on Block Island Sound.
I started thinking about how some of my co-workers had told me that they used to sail into the Great Salt Pond. Filled with confidence, I suggested to Jeff that we give it a go. We figured that it was early on a Friday so the channel wasn’t going to be crowded, the winds were perfect – why not? So we did. We did turn on the outboard before we entered the channel, keeping it in neutral, just in case things got out of hand, but we didn’t put it in forward until we turned into the wind to drop the sails. It was awesome! I felt very salty, and I proudly told the Harbormaster that we had sailed into the Pond when she showed up a few minutes later to collect our mooring fee. I’m sure she was thinking, “Newb” the whole time, but I didn’t care. I was PSYCHED. Continue reading “Back on the Block, part 2”→
Jeff was able to get Thursday and Friday of Memorial Day weekend off from work, and with a sunny forecast we decided to head to Block Island. I think three seasons in a row means that we can officially call it our “annual trip” to Block. Despite sailing there the two previous seasons, we had yet to travel non-stop from Groton. Both times we had stopped in Stonington, so this was going to be a first. Not our longest trip – that was Newport to Stonington last fall – but a first nevertheless.
The plan was to get to the marina Thursday morning so we could leave by 11:00 a.m., giving us plenty of time to arrive before dark. Jeff rowed us out to our mooring (the dinghy outboard is still being uncooperative), and we started to get settled in. I was in the cabin unpacking when I heard Jeff say, “There’s a raccoon in the lazarette.” Jeff is prone to saying random silly things, so initially I thought he was joking. “No. I’m serious. There’s a raccoon in the lazarette.” Well this was a new one. Continue reading “Memorial Day Weekend – Back on the Block, Part 1”→
Pegu Club was splashed on Friday, May 1st so we headed down to the marina on Saturday the 2nd to get her rigged and hopefully go for a sail.
The outboard for the dinghy is not cooperating yet, so we (meaning Jeff) rowed out through the nearly-empty mooring field. Pegu Club was one of the first three boats in the water. It felt GREAT to be out there again, and instantly made all of the cold weather preparations worth it.
Climbing on board, the first order of business was to check the seacock installation and make sure there was absolutely no sign of water. Holding our breaths, we opened up the cabinet door and took a look (and feel). Success! Knowing that we weren’t going to have to radio the guys to give her an emergency haul, we got down to work.
Rigging the boat went much more quickly than last year. At the end of our first season when we removed the sails, took off the boom, etc. we had taken many pictures from just about every angle. We figured it would help us when we had to reverse the process six months later. It did. We used a few of the photos this season, but it’s definitely getting easier to remember what we’re supposed to do.
By the time we were finished we had enough time to sail, but absolutely no wind. Oh well. We cracked open a celebratory cider (for me) and beer (for Jeff), and loafed in the cockpit for the rest of the day.
Sunday the 3rd also didn’t promise much wind, but we drove down to the marina anyway hoping that the forecast would be wrong. It wasn’t. We ran the outboard for twenty minutes (minor heart attack on my end when it stalled within a minute after starting, but Jeff quickly figured out I hadn’t sufficiently primed the fuel bulb – it purred like a kitten after that). More loafing followed.
Saturday the 9th we drove down early hoping to get a sail in before heading back home to attend a party at our friends’ house. The wind forecast was light but workable, and we hoped we might be able to ghost along. After we were settled in, I looked around and saw such a pretty sight.
I thought they were pretty until I learned they would keep us from sailing.
“Look at the clouds, Jeff. Isn’t that cool?” “That’s fog rolling in.” Doh!
Within minutes, the mooring field was socked in:
There’s land just behind the boats.
We had some wind, but no visibility. Thwarted again. We made some adjustments to the roller furler, and that was that.
Sunday the 10th saw a last-minute change in plans, but we were finally able to try again on Saturday the 16th. By then we had learned that Jeff was going to be able to take Thursday and Friday off before Memorial Day weekend, giving us a 5 day weekend. Through a quirk in the calendar he isn’t going to get any “real” vacation time at his new job until July, 2016, so this is going to be vacation for the year and we’re hoping to spend it on Block Island. In order to feel comfortable with a sail of that distance so early in the season, however, we really wanted to get a “shake down” sail in first.
It wasn’t sunny, but it wasn’t foggy, and while there wasn’t going to be much wind, it would be enough. Although it was very calm at the mooring, the water didn’t look as glassy just outside of the Bay so we took a chance that there would be enough wind and headed out. Temps were in the mid-50’s, the wind ended up to be around 5-7 knots out there, and we enjoyed simply sailing aimlessly for a while, practicing our tacks and jibes. It felt great to be out there, and we had virtually the entire Sound to ourselves, sharing only with an occasional motorboat, the tugboat John Paul from Newport (who passed us when we were motoring under the Newport Bridge last fall!), and the ferries.
4.54 NM from the time I remembered to turn on the tracking, 3.0 knot average including motoring back to the marina.
The John Paul from Newport, RI.Fishers Island Ferry.
The conditions were perfect for the first sail of the season, and as we were out there we took note of a few things we had forgotten to do (put cotter pins in the turnbuckles, lubricate the jib cars). Although we wanted to stay out longer, we were both getting a little chilled and the light wind we had was starting to die, so back in we went with our first sail of the season under our belts.
Before the season began we had discussed how we should trade roles this year. Like most couples, we had settled into a groove. In our case I worked as the helmsman the vast majority of the time, while Jeff raised and lowered the sails, handed the sheets, and dropped/picked up the mooring line. While there’s nothing wrong with that, we really should get to the point where we are comfortable and proficient at all of the tasks. That way if something were to happen to one of us, the other would still be able to sail the boat and get us back in.
We figured for the first sail of the season we would already be a bit rusty, so why not jump right in with the role reversal? Jeff motored us in and out like a champ, taking us right to the mooring ball. I raised and lowered the mainsail (and realized I should bring a winch with me next time), unfurled and furled the jib, and handled the lines. Overall it went well, but I’m glad we’re going to regularly alternate this year because I need a bit of work on my line handling technique.
After we were back on our mooring and had tucked everything away, I practiced rowing with the dink. Jeff has been tossing around the idea of rowing the dink instead of having an outboard, whose main job seems to be to torment us. There are definitely some pros and cons to the idea, so we’ve been testing it out for now. I like rowing, but rowing in a straight line continues to elude me. Hopefully with more practice.
That’s another Bristol 24 in the background.Jeff watching the sun try to burn through the clouds.
We enjoyed our first overnight on the boat, grilling some sausage with arugula and sun-dried tomatoes for dinner. The water was calm all night, and it felt great to once again feel the boat gently rocking as we fell asleep.
The next day promised to be beautiful – mid 70’s and decent wind. We were up early to help out at the club’s sailing school breakfast (the club will be the subject of a future post), and when I poked my head out it was such a pretty sight.
Bright and early on Pine Island Bay.Pine Island.
Unfortunately, if you look closely you can see a harbinger of the day to come. Fog. And lots of it. I think the problem is that it’s been unseasonably warm but the water is still extremely cold (low 50’s). It was bright and sunny on the mooring, but just outside of the bay you couldn’t see a thing. We couldn’t see Fishers Island, the New London Ledge, the North Dumpling. Nothing. We weren’t going anywhere.
So it looks like our next sail will be on Thursday to Block Island, weather permitting. It will be the first time we’ve sailed there in May, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how different the island looks in the spring vs. the fall. We’ll be bringing our new manual foghorn with us that we decided to pick up at Defender on Sunday. Hopefully that will ensure that we won’t need it!
While it hasn’t exactly been warm, at least it hasn’t been raining on the weekends. This gave us the chance to get down to the marina on Saturdays and Sundays over the past few weeks to tackle our list of pre-launch projects and tasks. I’m very happy to report that with the exception of washing the boat, everything is ready to go. It was just too chilly to talk ourselves into washing her, so we’ll have to take care of it when we motor up to the t-dock sometime over the next few weekends.
We have been busy, busy, busy. Some of the tasks went off without a hitch – painting the boot stripe, polishing the stainless, oiling the interior wood, loading cushions and supplies onto the boat, vacuuming everything, installing the anchor bracket, spraying the mast and jib slots, changing the fuel filter/water separator. Other tasks, not so much.
Painting the bottom wasn’t too bad, although poor Jeff’s back was acting up so he cheered me on while I tackled it. Hmmm. Last year I also had to paint the bottom because he was working and it was the only good weather day we had. I’m sensing a trend here.
All covered up and ready to sling some toxic paint!The roller gets pretty heavy as the paint starts to load up on it.
Painting the bottom of the dinghy didn’t go quite as well because it was so darn windy that day. It has a Jackson Pollock look to it now, officially making it the ugliest dinghy on Fishers Island Sound. At least no one will want to steal it.
All it needs is the outboard and some oars.
Installing the battery is always a treat. It’s heavy and in an awkward space. Getting the cover on and strapped down involves mostly going by “feel” – it’s basically a two-person job. After wrestling with the battery, and then wrestling some more with the rubber caps where the alternator cable connects to it, we gave each other a high five. Then we saw that the yard guys had threaded the alternator cable through the swim ladder. Doh!
Jeff preparing to do battle with the battery.
Getting the swim ladder out involved quite a bit of grunting and not a small amount of swearing. Picture trying to make a 90 degree turn in a space that seems like it’s only barely bigger than the ladder itself. We decided to give it a new home in the v-berth so as not to go through that again.
Once the battery was hooked up we had to figure out why none of the lights were working (we had an open circuit because we hadn’t finished wiring the computer fan for the Nature’s Head), and then we had to reverse the wiring on the light that had previously been used to run the computer fan for the Nature’s Head because we got it backwards on our first try. Sigh. We do it right because we do it twice.
We also filled the water tank, dumped in some Aqua Fresh, and started pumping the water out of the tank and pouring it in the sink. That’s when we discovered the leak in the sink drain hose that we had installed after replacing the seacock. There was a beat-up plastic washer that was preventing Jeff from threading the hose onto the drain, so we had decided to leave it off. Oops. Guess that wasn’t such a great idea.
Jeff taking the drain hose off.
One trip to Tru-Value Hardware and $1.37 later, we were back in business. Hey, it wouldn’t be a weekend working on the boat without at least one extra trip to Home Depot, West Marine, Defender, or Tru-Value.
Our new seacock installation with backing block. We’ll find out if we did it right if she doesn’t sink once she’s splashed.
All of this was accomplished over several weekends, but now it’s reward time. It’s been a long, cold winter (and spring), but when we see Pegu Club this weekend, she’ll be in the water!
With the calendar finally turning to April, we only have four weekends to go before launch. Even though Jeff was fighting a head cold, he was still game for getting a few things done on Pegu Club so we made our way down there last Saturday and Sunday. Now that he has weekends off, we’re able to get so much more done. And when the season starts we’ll have double the sailing days!
On our drive down to the marina we could see a reddish hue on some of the trees along the freeway, a precursor to budding leaves. We were pleased to discover when we arrived that the the last of the snow had melted at the marina, and the mooring balls had been placed in the water. It’s definitely getting closer to sailing season.
We started off by wrapping up our small electrical project – we think. The battery on our boat has two small boxes attached to the terminals:
Picture from the Defender website.
We were never sure what they were, but in researching how to wire the fan we discovered that they allow us to connect four items directly to the battery. All four slots are being used, so we bought another set for the computer fan. Since the fan needs to be on 24/7, there’s no need to use the off/on switch on the electric panel so it makes sense to simply wire it directly to the battery. The fan came with an inline fuse, so we spliced it into the marine grade wire that we had previously purchased and the ran the line from the fan to the battery location. Hopefully there will be enough space on the terminal to add the new ones. We’ll find out when we put the battery on the boat in a few weeks. If it fits and it works, the project will be crossed off the list.
In addition to the wiring we made some more progress on our thruhull/seacock installation. Pegu Club can’t go in the water until this project is finished, but it’s been too cold until recently for the sealant that we’re planning to use (3M 5200) so the project has been on the back burner. Now that temps have risen into the upper 40’s and 50’s in Groton, it’s time to get cracking.
Thru hulls are generally too long when you buy them, I think because the hull thickness varies on different boats and there are different styles and sizes of seacocks that people buy. The excess gets cut off after a dry fit, so we got to work on that so we could finish the installation the following weekend.
Jeff discovered that the original hole needed to be SLIGHTLY larger so he busted out his trusty Dremel and did some slight sanding. We hadn’t brought a mask with us, so he used his always-present hankie bandana-style.
” ’cause I’m a cowboy…on a steel horse I ride.”
Once that was finished we measured several times, checked our math (dusting off our fractions skills from elementary school – converting, adding, simplifying), and used a marker to draw where he was going to cut the thru hull (which he cut at home).
Back at the marina on Sunday, Jeff sanded the inside of the hull where the backing plate would be installed, along with the outside of the hull where the thru hull flange would be. A potent cocktail of dewaxing chemicals was used to clean the area (a proper mask with filters was used this day), and then one more dry fit confirmed that we would be all set to finish the installation next weekend.
This project has gone much more smoothly than we anticipated, undoubtedly due to Jeff’s extensive research. The new seacock, thru hull, and backing plate provides for a much beefier-looking system than the prior factory installation. The old setup didn’t have a backing plate, which I think is the primary difference. Anyway, our plan for the next boat is to replace all of the seacocks and thru hulls (unless the prior owner has already done it), so this project is a good confidence booster. Provided that Pegu Club doesn’t sink within minutes of her being splashed into the water!
Finally, Jeff had a bit of energy left so we removed the brackets holding our old anchor and took the old chain and rode off of the boat. Then we measured out the new rode placing a zip tie every 25 feet and using a different color at the 100 foot mark.
Hopefully that will make it a bit easier to keep track of how much we’ve let out when we anchor. The new chain and rode went onto the boat, and we called it a day.
While it was a bit nippy from the wind, it was nice not to be freezing, and it was really nice not to have to shovel a path to the boat. I think it’s safe to say that winter is finally over!
One of the things we kept hearing after we bought our boat was to mark our calendar for the annual Defender warehouse sale. At the time we had never heard of Defender, let alone the annual sale, but soon we discovered the glory that is Defender. We have made many, many, many stops there when driving to the boat.
Defender is a gigantic marine outfitter that ships items worldwide. 99% of the time, they have the lowest prices on any given item. They have over 50,000 marine products in a 110,000 square foot warehouse, and fortunately (or not, depending on how you look at it), they are located within 15 minutes of our marina. It’s become a running joke between us. We’ll go there several weekends in a row and finally we’ll look at each other as we’re driving away and say, “I think that should be our last trip for a while.” Then we’re back again the following weekend.
Home Depot for boaters.Red right return to Defender!
The end of February brings the arrival of the annual Defender catalogue – over 300 pages filled with marine goodness. We look forward to it as if we were kids waiting for the Sears Christmas catalogue. It is pored over in detail, lists are made and remade. And then, it finally arrives – the last weekend of March. The Defender warehouse sale.
The warehouse sale runs from Thursday through Sunday, and those four days represent 20% of Defender’s annual sales. Their already-low prices are discounted at least 10% further, and there are many blowout deals. Tons of vendors are available to answer questions about their products, similar to what you would find at a boat show. Coming at the end of winter, the place is mobbed with boaters who can’t wait to start the season. It has the feeling of the first day of school – everyone is excited and seeing people they haven’t seen all winter. The Rotary club even sells hotdogs and chips from a cart.
Last year was our first Warehouse sale and we were very impressed with how smoothly everything ran. You can tell that Defender has a lot of experience with this. Normally only a portion of the warehouse is open to the public, but for the Warehouse sale they open up the entire area. You can get things from the shelves yourself, or if the items aren’t on the shelves you can give the sales staff the product numbers and they’ll pull it for you from the back shelves. They have a projector on the wall with last names displayed as your order is ready so you can talk to the vendor reps (or browse) instead of hanging around waiting for your order. Typically there are three cash registers, but for the sale Defender sets up well over twenty so even though the line is snaking through the warehouse it moves very quickly.
We had hoped to arrive at Defender on Saturday when it opened, but it didn’t quite work out that way. We ended up parked along the side of the road, quite a ways from the entrance, but it didn’t matter – it was time for the Warehouse sale!
The white sign at the far end marks the entrance to the long driveway. Cars were parked all along the road and the driveway and the parking lots were jammed.
List in hand, we immediately ran into a coworker of mine and chatted for awhile. I asked him if he would be coming back the next day and he said no, and I said we wouldn’t either. We had our list and we were ready. It was time to get down to business.
Just a few of the many aisles.
Even though we aren’t in the market for a dinghy (and we won’t buy another inflatable one regardless), it’s fun to see the displays of all of the models. Defender is the largest inflatable boat dealer in North America, and the largest Zodiac and Achilles dealer in the world. They have all of their available models displayed for the warehouse sale.
The room was too big for me to capture all of it.
We collected our items from the pickup area, including our much-researched anchor, rode and chain.
The pickup area is towards the back, along with some of the blow out specials.
And even though the line was VERY long, we were checked out within minutes thanks to all of the registers they set up. They really do a top-notch job.
There are more registers outside of the camera frame.
As we were driving home later that day with our goodies in the back of the car, we realized that despite our best efforts, we were going to have to go back again the next day. And my co-worker? When I saw him today, he said he went back on Sunday too.
Adventures on the Club 