FFR not. PCYC sailing, Pirate day Maud Cup not

On Friday, I did some work online, and then I cleaned the Yanmar harness connectors and relay since the starter was not always responsive.  I don’t think it helped.  

At 3pm, winds looked dead, so I cancelled the FFR crew and sailed to PCYC, then sailed to the gut, bypassed the gut to the north, and decided to motor to PCYC. This might have been the second time I ever bypassed the gut.

New PCYC members

I docked at PCYC.  There was a racing meeting, and I volunteered to take 5 PCYC members out for a very light-wind sail, making a sunset return to the club.  They bought me supper and beer.

At the PCYC dock

Creation of ugly sail

I plugged in BELLUM at PCYC with Alex's blessing. 

Saturday we did the Rum / Pirate race on Adlib, coming in second.  Lots of swearing and rum afterwards. Interesting return when Andrea dropped the main sail instead of the head sail, and Adlib had no motor.

The winner was Frank, and he gave us his bottle. Maybe that was not a good thing.

Race 360

Party 360

Later that evening, O'Shea had docked in front of BELLUM, and she unplugged BELLUM to plug her in.  I asked about this, and she said it was her husband.  A few minutes later, Keven, the husband, came, didn't apologize, and questioned my presence at the club.  It turned a little nasty, and we cooled down. The rum didn't help the situation.

The night was rough as BELLUM fenders were squeaky in windy conditions.

Sunday, I bused to the Royal, got my car and went to the locker to gather some belongings from John, a friend of Svien who had sold his boat and was emptying his locker of treasures from the bilge. Nice guy. It was not easy to get the stuff from the basement to my locker, but

 I did it and then rushed back to PCYC for the Maud Cup redo.  This time I checked my email, but there was nothing, so when I got to the club, I found they cancelled the race due to weather.  Windy and wet.

I increased the lines on BELLUM and drove to the Royal to dump my booty from John, visiting the Dorval Museum on the way.  

Luka's New Nonsuch

I went back to the locker to organize that loot, met with John at his locker, and gave him a lift to his Airbnb.

A long day.

On Monday, Alex complained I was overstaying my visit, so Shana drove me to PCYC and had lunch with Howard while I bought BELLUM back to the Royal, where I tried to help Luka start the diesel on his new NonSUCH.  

I gave Shana a tour of the new club before she drove me back home.

Thursday race with Maud, Scarlett and John

Thursday, I drove down to the club in the afternoon.  John was at the gentlemen's luncheon, and I invited him to sail with us.  

I took the bike to the book Dubuc Optician and waited at PCYC for my appointment since I was very early.  I biked back to the club and raced with John Scarlett and Maud. The race was cut short to one circuit. Course shortened.  We didn’t know it was shortened. But the flag indicated 2, which is the shortened course.

We didn't even show up on the scoring sheets, even though we got a horn at the finish line.  I didn't care.

We had supper at the club. I shared a loaded Nachos with Maud.  I wasn’t hungry and had food aboard I wanted to eat.  I didn't eat that food. 

GNS Tuesday

After a Tuesday Yoga session, I dropped off  Raven's stuff at the locker and drove to the club. Saw Redline's return from Thousand Islands.

Natalie, Mark and Jasmine came to sail.  The weather forecast was for no wind, but winds did pick up.

Jasmine was recommended by Dale. She claimed some experience, but she knows certain techniques and lacks an intuitive understanding of racing, and she did not listen.

The departure was a disaster; I thought Natalie had released the starboard dock lines, but she had not.  I "assumed" that she did.  It was an awkward departure, but Mark did a great job of turning BELLUM around with BELLUM rotating in the docks between Tocade and my dock.  Tocade had departed already.

We were about a minute late due to a postponement, and I did not account for the warning horn.  We did okay.  Natalie helmed and did an okay job.  

We had a good race and a nice moonlight sail back to the club.

The weather looked rainy for Wednesday sail with ISIS group. I drove back with Vero.

AQVA 2026

The winds were forecasted to be not strong, and we were just Maud, Scarlett and me.  I had the 155 up from Friday.

We were a little late for the start.  I was confused by the calculations of my start time, so we were about a minute late.  Winds were quirky at the start.We had a good run for a while, and then the winds turned 180 degrees and got light.  

Winds died, and we were squirming to the finish line.  The crash boat came and told us we had exceeded the time limit, but nothing was declared on the radio.  We continued and finished 13th.  Brian W won the race.

Nice evening of cocktails, supper, and dancing.  We sat with Sylvie, Heather, Emma and Rick's daughter Evelume. 

I slept aboard, and on Sunday I biked to St. Eustache, back to the club, and drove home as it started to rain, since the bike battery was drained. 

13th position

Quarky winds

FFR - Jessica, Calyspo and Brian

 Before the race, we changed the head sail to the 155.  We were four and it went well.

We set off and had a good race.  

I finally gave Jessica the midship cleat that I have been meaning to give for a couple of years,  

Jessica and I had some drinks at the bar afterwards.

GNS S4- Scarlett, Maud and John

I arrived early and tuned the mast.  I moved BELLUM to the service dock for a pump-out and to the shear legs to clean the masthead jewelry for the AVQA.  I found the baby stay was about to fall off the mast, which I had decommissioned for the single-handed race, so I reinstalled it.  

The crew arrived a little early but not early enough to help.

At 5:30, the crew of BELLUM boldly went out into what might have been a squall.  It was forecast to pass us, but a large rolling cloud in the Northwest indicated a Lake St. Louis Squall.  

The day was nice, so nobody expected bad weather.  But earlier in the week, it was very unstable.

We all donned BELLUM-supplied foul weather gear, and by the time the race started, the weather was nice.

Good race.

Meet up with Aissam and Salim

The weather looked good, but there was a chance of rain in the afternoon.  Joe saw thunderstorms and cancelled, saying it was too dangerous.

We agreed to start a little earlier at 10 instead of 11, which was a good thing.

We sailed from the club channel to Baie d'Urfé and returned. After the gut, storm clouds were maturing.  Soon I decided to start the engine and made it to the dock about 10 minutes before the rain at 2:15.

All was perfect.

Somerled called with the estimates for the brakes, and by 2PM, it was ready.  

My plan was to go anchor to watch the Perseid showers with the new moon, but the forecast was for showers or rain.

I sat around in the boat until 4, when I decided to go pick up the car and go home.