Last Saturday fun race with Alan and Marie

Last minute call to Alan and they were able to make it to the last Friday fun race on Saturday at 10AM

I got there early to prepare Bellum (moving safety stuff from Cygnus to Bellum) and inspect Josh's work on the anchor locker.  As always it looked good.

Pressure water pump was DEAD :(

Nigel decided on a gold cup course instead of the traditional pursuit race.  He also forecasted winds would increase from 8 knots to 11 knots.

We took off at 10:20 ish, trying to sail, but the winds were too close.  I had to get the crew up to speed with tacking and so on.  Forget explaining what a gybe was.  We go the hang of it.  We were early for the start and sailed to the pin instead of RC.  We were going fast, but in a bad position, too low down.

 At the last leg of the Gold Cup, winds died we drifted back through the finish line, loosing time to those ahead of us.  Once we finished, winds appeared to pick up.Or maybe we were no longer down wind.

We beat Nigel who had put up a small headsail in anticipation for stronger winds.

Rafted up at the sand banks.  Redline came by but could not tie up.  Tara II came by.  Party !  Lots of drinking

Supper was pork chops, with sauted mushrooms and cole slaw and macaroni salad. 

Sailed back in the dark.  Lousy lousy docking when we missed the stern docking line

Wednesday Race

Daniele picked me up at the office and grabbed a McLunch.

Redline was at the service dock, I went to say hi when the club called to tell me I had a visitor walking in the harbour.  My prospective buyer for Cygnus.

We showed Cygnus to André.  He appeared interested.

Afterwards we went to visit Redline. Chris showed up.  We set out sailing with a southeast wind out the channel.

We put up the main and No. 1.

We crossed the line early and turned back and went out again.  Tara II almost hit our aft.  There was a general recall.  We kept going.  I figured if it was a not general recall, we were in a good position.  It was a general recall and we came back to start again.

We came in last ... four minutes behind Tara II, something is wrong.

We also figured out that the jib sheets were incorrectly rigged.  We were not using the aft block.  This improved the use of the genoa track.

Sunday afternoon sail

Daniele and I got to the boat about 2PM.

Alan cancelled.  He cancelled Saturday too (it fairly rainny)

Upon arriving at the club, I talked with Jason and he showed me his boat, which had just been converted to electric drive while Daniele got the groceries and other stuff aboard Bellum.

I installed the new washers on the faucets

We got out at 3:15 PM and sailed for about 3 hours.  Ricked helped us depart the dock.  Winds were from the west so we motored out. We could have gone through the inner channel near shore and saved a bit of motoring.

 Sailed to Ile Perrot and back to the gut and back to Beaconsfield and returned to the dock.

We used No 2 and should have probably used No 3.  We reefed the main after an hour and half.  The reefing system worked well.

We successfully docked using the stern line from the piling to the spinnaker winch. The trick was to remove the lifelines.

We decided to have supper at home.  Nice Costco rib steak and a Hoya Cardenas.

Friday Persuit Race

Had a nice race with Daniele. 

Back to dual handed sailing and loving it.

Our start was 8 minutes after the Shark.  We caught up and came out 11 out of 15.  Sail was the No 1.

Would have done better with Cygnus since the winds died.

Good Raft up.  Stayed overnight and watched everyone go out for the Annual Regatta.  We had a afternoon commitment with MF.

First Wednesday race

Daniele picked me up to go to the club. Stopped at Amir for lunch.  She cleaned the new boat and cleaned the old boat.

Josh came by and we agreed to fix the anchor locker but leave the deck and traveler for later.  Should keep an eye on the deck.  Wetness there was higher around the second leg of the port hand rail.  The traveler could be protected by some stick on antiskid decal.

Chris showed up early.  We took off early and did some practice tacks.

Chris was a the helm. Daniele and I handled the sheets and traveler. 

Winds were shifty.

We  started at the wrong side of the start line, we could not get to RC at the one minute mark so we headed for the far end of the line and pinched to make the start line.

Timing of the sheets and tacking needed more precision and team work. One bad tack at the leeward mark when Therapy tacked in front of us. We tacked but should have veered around him and held our course, avoiding the incoming boats.

We came in close to last.  Boat performed well.  Crew needed tuning.

Return to Lake St. Louis

We got up early, somewhat early and started motoring to Valleyfield.  We arrived at the first bridge at 1. That was perfect.  I figured it would take two hours to get to Beauharnois just in time for the 3PM passage forecasted on the seaway site.

The first bridge opens and we all go through.  I had to slow down and tried to back up because the bridge was not all the way up.

We go to the second bridge and they opened the  bridge 10 minutes before we got there.  They closed the bridge before we got there.  They re-opened the bridge in 15 minutes.  arggg..

We go to the lock at 3 and there were no boat there. They had passed early.  F**K government workings.  Next passage 8:30.  We docked and washed the boat.  At 5, they let us through.

We rushed to meet the Friday fun race.  The fleet was just sitting around without any winds.  We circled around and headed for the club when we decided to anchor at the sandbars.  Better at anchor then the club.

Our track:

http://tinyurl.com/otkpawu