NIght at Grand Anse and autopilot cleaning

After a day at the club washing the dinghy and reinstalling the dock wheel, the winds declined; I departed the harbour at 7PM and sailed on one tack to Grand Anse, arriving at 9 PM.

360 Photo

Zero carbon anchor and sautéed sausages with onions.  I forgot I had peppers and tomatoes.  

The next morning I lingered till 2PM and sailed into the main lake in a run. Before the gut, I turned and beat it to the southwest and northwest and decided to return to the harbour, arriving at 3:30.

Chris showed up with a wheel puller, and we pulled off the wheel from the binnacle.  It has seized since our Bahamas trip.  It came out easily with the puller.

I disassembled and washed out the Raymarine wheel drive with fresh water and fine-tuned the clutch adjustments.  It seemed to work reasonably well, with the broken screw holes discovered in January 2025 in the Bahamas.

Cleaned the shaft and wheel of the corrosion.

The autopilot worked well afterwards.

Chris and I went to check out Tara's water, and we put up Chris' head sail.

I bugtek the boat, dinghy and dock and biked home.

Sunday Maud Cup - NOT

Sunday morning, I got up early and biked to the club, rushed to the boat, got her ready, and checked the club website to make sure the race was not cancelled.

I departed the harbour at 9 AM with a reefed main, but she was hard to control so I opened a reef jib, and it was still hard to control.  I checked my email and found the race had been cancelled at 8:49.  I turned back and returned to the harbour in shame.

I spent the day at the club, cleaning the dinghy with Tocade's pressure washer and reinstalling the medium dock wheel.

At 7, the winds declined, and I went out again.  See next log entry.

Sailing with Rachel, Daina and Barry followed by race on

I brought the car home to empty it at the locker, picked up Rachel, Daina, and Barry, and we set sail at the club, departing at noon. Nice sail; tacked to the gut and sailed to 1:15, anchored, had lunch and sailed again to 4-ish. 

I decided to stay at the club and offered Rachel the car to bring everyone home, but the logistics weren't working out, so they took the BMW, and I stayed for the FFR and found a place on Winged Hussar with Joe and Brian..

Brian

Fugu

Boat cleaning

I picked up some industrial Q-tips, which were great for cleaning the teak edges and louvres on the teak doors.

I also got these drill brushes from Temu, which were great for cleaning the non-skid

Windy Thursday Race

Scarlett, Maud, John and Natalie joined us for Series 3, Race 2 in windy conditions.

Tuesday Race Cancelled

 At 2, I decided to cancel the race.  Tornado warnings, etc.

AT 17h32, the Racing Organizer cancelled.  Scarlett went out with her crew on the J.

Rachel sailing and then single handed to sandbars

After morning yoga, Rachel came, and we set sail with both the main and the jib, since the main had not been put away the night before.

The winds were great.  We sailed to the gut and had to do one tack at the red, then a second tack to get through the gut, and it was easy sailing through the TRY regatta.  We had lunch while sailing, and then the winds died and became very fluky.  It was difficult to follow the fluky winds.  It kept changing directions.

We sailed by the Pleasurecraft Raft Up and then sailed on.

It turns out that I had emptied the water tanks while washing the Friday BBQ dishes.  There lots of dishes.

At 5, I dropped Rachel off at PCYC to take the 211 back into town. The service dock was quite busy, and I had to tie up near the mast crane.  A safety officer from the TRY regatta helped me dock as I had problems getting close to the dock. Rachel threw the midship line to him, and we did a fairly elegant docking.  The safety officer was wearing goggles and a big hat.  It turned out to be Jerome!  

I walked Rachel to the 211 bus, and I returned to the club and tried to get permission to stay a while or the night.  Nobody could give me permission, so I hung around for an hour and then took off.  I headed towards the west, but winds were too light, and I limped to the sandbars, passing Dissidence.

Saturday fluky winds

The next day, Sunday, was a lazy day.  Fugu, Dissidence, and Zig-Zag were rafted up nearby.  They had not invited me, so I did not ask to raft up.  I sailed by and shot some photos.

I sailed back to the club and cleaned up the bugs from the night at the sandbars.

Made a BBQ from leftovers from Friday and biked back home in the evening.

Sunday winds - very light