First Friday Fun Race

Andrea, Daniele and I went out for a fun Friday race.

Since I had removed the drum on Wednesday, I put up the no 2 mylar head-sail.  Nice sail.  Never used it before.

Fun race, but we did not really do too well.  We were just behind Ghost Owl, Dissidence, ReGalia, Chaos, Prozac ... 

30 minute race only.

Our first race of this year.  Lousy winds on previous Wednesdays.

We can do much better.  But the sail was lots of fun ....

Windmill Point - NOT. SPI practise

Getting ready for the Strathcona Cup Race on Saturday, Patrick, Cedric, Sylvie and I took off with the intention to shake out the spinnaker for Saturday's big race

Winds were very light.  We sailed west of the fleet to start the spinnaker back but the wind changed 180 so we could have sailed the spinnaker out of the channel.

Put her up a couple of times.  Tried dip pole gybe and end-to-end gybe.  End to End worked easily.

Came back tot he club and had supper.

Lori took this as we were returning to harbour.

Fun Saturday, Go to Dowkers, Sunday Sail Past

I picked up the 6HP Johnson from Chris, went to Canadian Tire to get an inverter to try on the Nespresso and got to the club about 10:45 in time to meet for the Friday Fun race briefing.

I decided to unload the car and then go to the meeting, but that (and social stuff) made me late for the meeting. Nice meeting, Kelly, Ed, Jason are taking over the Fun Race with Nigel helping out in the background.

Daniele bought supper and breakfast so we could stay at Dowkers.  We left about 2 and had a nice sail until 6ish in 15 knot winds with gusts to 23 !

Dowkers was very crowded, so we headed straight for Dowkers South where there were only 3 boats.  Wind forecast was to veer from west to north so Dowkers South was better.

Danforth held very well, in clay and weeds. 

Finally fixed the wash down pump.  I bleed-ed the air by pushing on the outlet with a screwdriver got it working much better.  Stretchy hose was crap.  Coil hosed worked better.

Nice supper of Costco pork chops with Rosemary and garlic marinade.  Opened Lynda's VSOP.  Tried to launch some Chinese lanterns, but it was too windy.

Next morning the wash down pump was used to wash the cockpit.  The anchor was fairly hard to get up with all the mud and weeds.

Sailed towards Pointe Claire and then picked up Jimmy for the sail past at BYC.  I hit the dock with the bow on approach.  Josh will look at it.

Winds died and we drifted for a while to get in line for the Sail Past.  Had some beers at the dock and then drove Jimmy back to his car at BYC.

I came back to the club to close the boat.  Tried out the inverter and it could not drive the Nespresso.

Chatted with Mike and we tried to bring a kite stuck on his rigging. Got home about 10:30.  Should have eaten at the club.

Windless Wednesday

Andrea and Jimmy trying to race in windless conditions

It has been a long winter and a very long spring.  Last two Wednesday races were  cancelled due to excessive wind.  Now it was pretty much windless and Jimmy and Andrea and I were eager to get out.  Most likely there would be no race.

We motored out to the gut and sailed to the race area. 

We waited to race and when the race was declared cancelled, we started sailing back.

Jimmy was at the helm and I was not paying attention to the GPS.  Well, we ended up aground south of the Gut and had to get towed out.

Our tow out

 Lots of bugs, like last week.  New head sail had many moth cadavers from last week.

First sail 2015

Norm and Chris and I were going to race Wednesday, but the fleet did not go out due to strong winds.  The Lasers went out.

I came to the club early to finish the washdown pump installation.  There were problems with the water intake nipple. 

Since the fleet was not going out, we went to boathouse to get some fittings.  The fittings did not fit.  Norm had a fitting that fitted. 

Chris and I wanted to go out and Norm was against the idea.

On our way out of the harbour, we noticed Norm's boat had the forward hatch open.  Had been opened since launch.

Norm took the helm, we motored to the gut, buoys were missing, including the gut.  Put up the reefed main and full new genoa.  Nice tack to Baie-D’Urfé and ran back to the club in time for last calls.

New sail, new instruments worked great.

Had supper and drained and cleaned the forward locker.

Nice to be finally out sailing.

Prize Giving Shark with Audrey

3rd place Frostbite PHRF

Major upgrades to Bellum

Saturday October 25, we took down the mast for major upgrades including



Washed all lines

installed new halyards, swapped red jib halard to become spinnaker halyard
Spinnaker halyard was shortened to become pole up

Extend back stay line, Updated Backstay adjuster blocks to harken blocks 308

Replace all boom lines

Installed Harken Mark IV Furler and SCHAEFER Halyard restrainer


Installed Lazy Jacks

Replaced Compass Cover Screw

Straightened anchor light

Replace mast halyard, electrical wires and coax and plugs

New antenna - problems - old was loose mast, new bad solder connection, short connector, used old connector

New wind instrument - Raymarine Mast Head Unit

mast top - tapped 10-32 instead of metric thread which was stripped.

reversed pole car up / down

Fixed mast head cover - new 10-32 screw

Put the mast back up Sunday, November 2 in cold weather.

Thanks very much for your help, James, Bill, Pierre and Armelle, Keith, Daniele and especially Norm for his relentlessness assistance in planning and installing the furler, PL259, demasting, masting and so much more.