Last Sail

Sunday morning, I dropped off boat stuff at the locker and picked up the boat frame, and loaded it onto the locker.  Sylvie and I organized her boat until 4PM.  

Then I drove to Confederation park to join a hike, but it turns out the hike was at 2, not 4. I drove back to the club. Chatted with Andre Baby and Mark Eisenberg,  bought a bottle of MMHA from Veronica and set sail into the sunset without any wind.  Motored to the waters east of the lighthouse anchored, cleaned the anchor rode, and had St Hubert Ribs (the one with minimal sauce) and potatoes and onions.  Read a bit and went to bed early as I was tired. 

Woke up at 7:30 in the morning, not winds so I motored back to the club and rotated stuff between the boat, the dock, the locker and the car.  Took down the headsail.  Eventually, we hauled out OS and then Bellum about an hour later than scheduled. 

I stayed to winterize the head, washdown, and raw water system.  Cutting the pick-up hose made things easier.   Packed up the food from the fridge, removed a stanchion base of Polvinge and drove home.

Not much wear and tear on the keel bottom after so many hits this year.

82 hours on the engine

approx 300 nm - to be checked.

84 trips from the dock, 32 were single-handed.

Total log 6777 nM.  1074 nM

Spontaneous sail with Sylvie

 After an information meeting about the club capital plan, Sylvie and I went out for a sail.  

We motored to the hot and sailed to Baie d’urfie and back to the club. 

I loaded up the car with locker and boat stuff and trailer and drove Veronique home. 

Emptied food at home and other stuff in the locker.

October 26 - Anchor DRAG

I departed the club at 11:30 with some help from Chaos.  A glorious day of sailing in 23C weather

Chaos

Chaos

I tried to anchor at Dowker’s but I kept hitting bottom, even as I tried to get out of the bay.  So I went sailing around the lake one more circuit and anchored at Grand Anse, ready for 15 knots gusting to 30. 

Sailing into the sunset

The forecast was for a windy night

Overnight was unnerving.  

The anchor alarm came on a few times as she dragged a few feet. 

At 5am the expected gusts came up to 28 knots from the North and the anchor dragged south 400 feet.  Then she dragged 1/2 nM to the shallows in the southeast.  I came to the cockpit, started the engine, and tried to keep the boat from drifting.  

At 5:45, I let out another 50 feet of rode for 130 feet, which seemed to stop the dragging. I was now in 8 feet of water. The initial anchorage was 6 feet. 

In theory, the west wind forecasted would have dragged her safely into the main lake. 

Drifted from Original anchor to Final Anchor

At 9 AM, I started to pull the anchor in 15- 19 knots of winds.  It was a slow delicate process of moving the boat forward, pulling in some rode, clearing the rode from under the windlass, moving the boat forward, repeat.  Naturally, there was a large bunch of weeds and we were close to shallow water.  

Motored out of Grande Anse and sailed back to the club in 15 knots WNW.

Sail with Darla

Darla and I set sail from 2 to 6.  We sailed abeam to the got and then to Baie d'urfie and back.  Gaucho followed us out.  We met Matchmaker on the way back.

A nice Sail. 

Met with Mr. Glen Levit apres. 

Frostbite 4 - NOT

Crew availability was scarce. Maud was not available.  Sylvie wanted to sail her own boat.  Bob was looking after his wife. And Christine had curling.  

Norm was available and willing, and Eric wanted to go out since Resolute II was on the hard. 

The weather was warm for October21 and sunny.

So Norm, Eric and I ventured out in almost zero wind, not really expecting to race.  

We motored past the gut and drifted around for a couple hours and then slowly motored back to the club and folded the 155 which was loosely folded in the sausage bag two weeks earlier (on the deck) and we put away the main, leaving the 135 for any opportunity to sail if David lets me stay for the last week of October.  

I cycled back for Morphe Blu's birthday.  Darla asked to go sailing.

Final Frostbite 

October sail - MAYDAY !!!

The weekend weather was supposed to be amazing for October   The week's forecasts so far have been very windy typical with 30 knots of gusts. Even at night.

So I departed Friday at 4PM in 15 knots south wind sailed to Grand Anse and started the engine to anchor in preparation for a 15-knots of a southernly windy evening at about 17:35.

Then a Mayday came in on the VHF about a couple kayakers who went overboard south of Pointe-Claire yacht club. I had passed a couple on a kayak earlier and waved at them after avoiding a collision with them.

There were not many boats on the lake and the water temperature was 12.9 C, I felt compelled to help.

I acknowledged the Mayday on VHF and headed towards PCYC  where they were reported. I kept an outlook for the MOB and reported that I had no visuals. Quebec Coast Guard Radio reports they were near AD20   

In the meantime, the Hovercraft CCGS Mamilossa was in the area and AUX 1299 was launching their boat at Cartier and it would take 20 minutes to get out.

As I go to AD22 the mayday was terminated with the recovery of the tow kayakers.  Later I monitored the recovery of the kayak and the transfer of it from the hovercraft to AUX1299.

I acknowledged and sailed to anchor at Dowkers in the sunset.  

Bellum was just as fast in 15 knots of wind as at full throttle.

Evening supper was sausages with caramelized onions, peppers and a potato all in a cast iron skillet  

Overnight Bellum gently glazed the bottom. I pulled the boat closer to the anchor.

I got up at 9 in the morning.  At 11, I manually hauled up the anchor, just to try it out. I sailed into the main lake as the winds were picking up just ahead of me glazing another rock.  Forward was me was becalmed.

I met up with Obsessive Scientist, Matchmaker and Gaucho. I sailed around chasing the other club boats, photographing them.

It was nice sailing in variable winds.  I was in no rush. sailing.  It was so warm, I took off my shirt.

Eventually, the winds lowered and I put up the whisker pole until after the gut when the winds switched from west to east and I put the whisker pole away and motored back to the club.  I was thinking of anchoring outside Dorval Island but did not. Had a drink on Gaucho, BBQ a steak on Bellum and then met up with Mike, Jason and Ed at the wine-tasting event and had a nightcap at the bar.  The night was cool (about 6 C) and glad I did not anchor out.

  

No Sailing

On Wednesday, I biked to the club to

• Help Haul out Redline
• Winterize Tara II engine
• Winterize Resolute II with Shipwright

I was planning to sail, but the weather looked wet and the overnight was going to be gusty to 30 knots.

The wind got bad at about 4 PM and was very rainy so it was not pleasant to cycle back. 

At 5:15, a sunny hole developed and Audrey and I took advantage to bike back home.  I had the trailer with me.

My bike battery died about two miles before getting home but there were no hills left!

The rest of the week was windy.

Frostbite 3

After going through my crew bank, Norm and Sylvie confirmed, However, Sylvie slept in and missed their race.

I had planned to change 135 for 155 but with just two of us, we decided to race with the 135.

As forecasted, the winds died about noon but we were able to carry out two races.  

Ghost Owl did a dick move at the first start  - tacked in front of us while we were starboard and they were port.  They pushed us and a Shark way out of our way to avoid a collision.  And she ended up having a better start than we did.

Norm helmed both races. We went for light wind sail after the race and motored back.

Evert was PRO on RC. A well-run race.

Transmission oil

I did engine and transmission oil changes.  The transmission oil was quite dirty.

Fast sailing with Sylvie and Katleen

Saturday was supposed to be windy and Sunday not so windy.  The forecast for Saturday was 13 to 18 with gusts to 25.  

I had a crew with Andreanne lined up but she cancelled last minute as I was cycling to PCYC to watch their crane day.  Sylvie texted me to say she was at the club and it was too windy for her to go out alone so I cancelled PCYC and came to the club at noon.  

We took Bellum out with an intention of just using the reefed 135.  As we exited the harbour, winds were steady at 25 to 27 knots and I decided not to deploy the sail.  I headed west and the winds declined, and we deployed the reefed 135-head sail and had a good run at 6.5 knots to the gut.  Then we tried beating and it got rough.  We beat for about 3 minutes and had to bear off to avoid some shallow spots.  Beamed to Baie'durie, sailed around and then closed haul back to the gut and beamed back to the club.  

We needed to get back before six when the winds were forecast to increase to 19 gusting 29.  

Forecasted Winds

Actual winds

30 knots overnight

Nice docking at 4h30 in a strong south wind.  

I had oysters with Audrey and Scott and then bbq sausages on Bellum at the dock.  Temp was supposed to be 5, fine with the heater.  Better than riding back home and back to the club early for the Frostbite.

Very windy night at the dock.