Moon night sail

After Rachel and Paolo left, I chatted on the lawn with Chantal and Nancy and then Mary and Audrey. 

Then at 7:20 PM, I set out again for a sunset sail and almost full moon sail. The blue moon was the night  before but the afternoon was story and I was not inspired to bus out to the club that night.

Nice sail, some tacking.  Georgous clear evening and the moon was very bright.  I ended up at Dowkers South where I spent the night having conard confit and rice.  Great night. 

Next morning I cleaned up my Navionics on the iPad to create the course for Saturday's race.  I ended up using Aquamap.  

About 2PM, I hauled anchor and sailed around for 4 hours, saw and tried to chase Redline, but she seemed to be in a rush under motor.

Came back to the club. Had drinks with Christine, Claude and Scarlett.  Slept at dock.

Sailing with Rachel and Paolo

I rushed to the club early in the morning to tidy up the boat before Rachel and Paolo arrived.  Met Vero on the 209 bus.

They arrived about 10:45 and we set off on a very quarky winds with lots of oscillations, making it very challenging to sail from the club to the Gut.  Oscillation were about a minute or two and changes were often more than 90 degrees.  Wierd. 

We saild around the lake, weeds were starting to trigger the shallow alarm.  Rachel had made a nice salad and cheeze on sliced baquette.  

ON return, I was not paying attention and ended up south of the gut, and sailing back to the main channel bypassing the Gut.  Mee BAD

Rachel left salad, salad dressing and glasses aboard.

Oscilling winds

No Sailing - Rest - Thunderstorm

Last night at 8 PM, I decided to go home instead of sleeping aboard or maybe anchor.  There was going to be a bit windyabout 11 AM but it turned out to be a hail storm at home at 2PM.  

Grateful to have gone home.

Solitude - Grand Anse

At 1830, after the Windmill Point race, I set off for Grand Anse.  Nice sail in a North Winds, zero carbon anchoring.

Stayed for two nights as Sunday was windless.

Worked on the galley 12 volt outlet, engine buzzer, moved the Hobbs to the Yanma panel.

House battery got low.

Monday monring I came at 11:30.  While tidying up the boat and moving stuff to the storage locker, I badly twist my back and spent the evening and night on the berth. 

Windmill Point with Maud and Scarlett

 We met at the skippers meeting at 9AM.  There were four boats.

We swithched from the No 3 to No 1.

Winds were all over the place.  Light to 14 knots.  From East in the morning to West in the afternoon. There were storm clouds. rain, sun.  

Eventually Just Now, JP, and eventually Chaos passed us.  We raced for 5 1/2 hour.

Sucked some beer in the cabin, moved to the cabin when the rain started.

FFR - NOT

Rigging Tape fix

I biked home for Yoga with Katleen, bus back to the club, inspected the windex that failed last weekend, rigging tape was a temporary fix. 

At the FFR lawn meeting, nobody wanted to go out due to calm wind.  It was very calm.  Had a beer with Sylie, Dine and Lucie and did a clean up and laundry on Bellum after the Redline trip.  Slept aboard.

Shark and Redline Kingston to Dorval

I sailed with Dine and Lucy on Shark 2 to Pointe Claire and back.

Drove to Kingston, sailed Monday Kingston to Grenadier Island and motored Grenadier Island to Lock 28 at Galop

, then Motored through Lake St. Francis to Dorval arriving 

11th AQVA 2023

 Maud and Scarlett and I raced the AQVA in Wet and Windy condtions.

Came in 8th out of 40 boats

Photos

https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjASbm2

FFR on Amalia

Winds were strong, very strong - more than last Thursday

There was only Natalie and me to crew on Bellum. I was searching for additional crew around the club.

As we were walking on the Dock, I see Amalia getting ready with just two crew and asked to join them.  Good to be four rather than two. 

We had a lousy start, the fleet had started as we were raising the main sail. The boat was splashing water spray into the cockpit.

We passed Shark 5 on the downwind leg. Then the  shark passed us.  All of a sudden the shark made a snapping noise, and did a very fast 360.  She had lost her the bottom of her rudder. 

We caught up to the fleet and we were not aware the course was shorten to one circuit.  We crossed the pin on the wrong side, but we were scored as first.

Tomorrow Natalie was turning 48!  Cake at the club.

Windy GNS

Scarlet and Daniel were schedule to race. 

Winds were forecasted to be strong and I got to the club at 5:15.  I rushed to change the headsail from 155 to 135.  Dine and Lucy were at the dock and they just abandoned their shark reservation due to the winds.  They asked if they could race with us and we certainly could use the help sailing and sail change. 

We got the sail down, folded and departed DOUBLE-TIME.  Put up the sails with reefed main and jib, did some tack and gybe before the race.

Great start - dodging boats at the start-line. Did well for the windward and then we fell behind.  I started the race and Scarlet took over the helm.

Winds were about 22 knots.  

Boat was a mess inside.

Beer and Supper apres.

Scarlet gave me a lift home.

Windless Thursday Race and halyard fix on Khaleesi

I biked to the club on the Japanese bike, a classic 10 speed racer.  

Before the race, I got an email from Liam that he had a halyard problem and needed me to go up the mast.  It was 4PM and the race was to depart the dock at 5:30.  I grabbed some whipping cord and my bosen chair while Liam come to the club.

The halyard for the jib was wire to rope and was badly frayed and the spinnaker halard was stuck on top of the mast.  There was no safety line so I went up by the main halyard, got the spinnaker halyard as a saftety line, sewed the new halyard to the old wire / rope halyard, cut the metal halyard and all worked out.

There was no wind, Guylaine cancelled, Maud and Felix arrived late, traffic was bad.

No winds, we motored out, drifted back and had supper  at the club.

Sailing with Rachel

Rachel returns from her sailing trip and wanted some more experiance on the water.

She showed up just after 11 and we set sail around the lighthouse sailing around the lake a couple times.  We practised gybes, wing-to-wing and had lunch while hoved to.

Drove Rachel home and went for my Verdun walk.  Returned home with chinese take out.

Myrtle Cup - viewing on Esmerella 1 and Sunday at the dock

 Gerald and Andrew set off on Esmerlda to view the Myrtle Cup race and we came back.  

The winds were increasing to 21 knots and I decided not to head out as I still had the 155 on the furler and the next day was supposed to be light winds with a cold front coming in later.  - DID NOT SAIL

I tidy up locker, packed the car to bring the Evolutoin 135 and other stuff back home.  I did some sewing of my main sail cover and the shark main sail covers

At 7:20, I decided to set sail to anchor and pick up Rachel at PCYC tomorrow.  The forecase was for a small bit of rain and winds decling to 7-10 knots overnight.  As I left the harbour to the club channel and some drizle came down and the water was very choppy and from the west so I would have to tack around the lighhouse with my 155 in 12 plus knots of winds. I returned to the harbour, had supper and the winds died.  Regretting not going out, I write my blog.  Trip time - 15 minutes    

Photos

TI via RL

After the Tuesday race,we decided to packed my stuff and head out through the zig-zag channel with Norm. A somewhat challenging transit through the zig-zag channel at night and then anchored at Soulanges.  

Beauharnois lockage was suppose to be at 9:30.  We got there before 9 and they did not cycle us in, even though the doors were open. We eventually got through at almost noon. 

Weather was iffy and the captain wisely decided to anchor near Stormont.  The rain came in hard for a lot longer than forecasted.

The next day we went through Snell and Eisenhower. I thought the passage was easy, but the captain seem more ipatient than what I was normally expected.

Made it to Iroqois, again some delay that seemed not substancail, but impatiance was there.

We were heading to Brockville when the unexpected happned.  Feul calculation errors.  Did not make sense.  Should not have happnened.  Maybe tank capacity specs were wrong, maybe thanks were not really full the last time we feuled.  Captain expressed concern that tanks were only 7/8 on departure.  

Situation was not dangerous, CG was not able to depoy rescue.  We tried sailing, but the current was almost as strong as winds. We flagged down a power boat "Mike" who heped tow us after he dropped off his wife.  Took just to Tall ship Marina.  Somewhat tense, but calm and uneventfull.  It turns out we are out of fuel. Next morning we filled up with 192 liters, pretty close the the 200 liter as per spec. Primed the prmary and off we go to Gano met up with family, nice supper at Riva and Sound of Music at Springer theather.  Nice evening, 3 hour drive back to Bellum.

Tuesday race Maud and Scarlett

The weather forecast was wet for Tuesday but it cleared up for the evening so Maud and Scarlett came out to race. 

I had baggage for out Boy’s trip to Thousand Islands so I asked Rod for a lift to the club. 

We had an excellent start with the 155.  After the start, Scarlett helmed with some intervention.  

We were heading for the windward mark on starboard when Tocade on port tack refused to give way and we had to gybe to avoid collision.  I protested, I did not see Tocade do a penalty turn.  I did not persue the issue.  

We finished the race, sailed back to the club and I boarded Redline for a night time sail to Soulange on out trip to thousand islands. 

Night at anchor

At 7PM after Single handed race, I was planning to go home since Monday was supposed to be wet, but it was not. 

So I decided to go spend the night at anchor. I sailed in light winds to outside Venture and anchored.  Light supper and went to bed at about 11.  

I did not sleep well and the next morning, I weighed anchor and sailed with the 155 in 10-13 knot winds to the middle of the lake and back to the club.

Did some boat work - buffed the hit from the crash boat when trying to recover the anchor and investigate the Yanmar buzzer which was not as loud as it used to be.  Waiting for Adult Sailing.

Worked on the problematic engine buzzer that was no longer loud.

 

Single handed make up race

On Sunday morning, sixteen boats did the Single Handed make up race.  We departed at 10.  Started the race at 11 and my start time was 11:23.  I had a weak start,  We raced to 2:30 and had a beer with the fleet.  ]

After giving a promotional talk to the racing course promoting the Crew Bank and FFR, I then helped Erik put up the mast on his Pearson.

Mirage Cup - NOT

I decided not to participate at the PCYC Mirage Cup.  

Nobody at Royal registered ... Nor BYC.  Just PCYC.

Tired of racing, no crew and can't win.

Anchored at breakwaters

At 8 PM, after sailing with Audrey, I went out again to anchor just outside the breakwater.  The place where I previously lost my anchor.  I had some smoked duck and caught up on some YouTube.  The next morning I got up early for the Single Handed Pursuit race.

Audrey sailing

I did our Saturday Yoga at 9:30 at the club.    I was undecisive about going home or sailing.  At 1PM, I went out with Audrey W for a nice sail to Grand Anse and back.  We returned about 7PM.

FFR - Scarlett, Christine and Shelly

Nice evening race with Scarlett, Christine and Shelly.   

Good start for most of the fleet.   We did not do so well in the start.  Miss judged the gybe mark for the windward mark.  Did a 360 for missing the gybe mark due to inexperanced helmsperson.

We sailed back tacking through the Gut to the club.  Drinks and supper at the club  

Thursday Race - GNS

The weather looked grim.  Storms before the race and rain after race. 

But Scott, Maud, Mark and Scarlet came out to race the GNS

Scarlett did foredeck, Mark and Maud looked after the jib and Scott did the main and tatics.

We did a banana course, unfortuntley misjudged the wind shifts.  Learnt a new way to use the whisker pole - very extended to create a very wide jib.

After the race, we started sailing back but after the Gut, we decided to start the motor since there was lightening lightshow all around us. 

Supper at the club with just OS and Bellum.  The staff was very attentive.  We closed the bar.

Sturgeon Moon sail

I decided to skipped the Tuesday race to anchor out for the Super moon.  Departed at 7PM, sailed for two hours, with some tight tacks to the Gut and sailed to Grand Anse and anchored there to Wednesday and sailed back to the club from 10:30, arriving at 2PM, got a pump out and then helped Sylvie install sails on Tara II.

Did Adult Sailing and decided to get a lift back home due to lots of rain on Thursday.