On A New Tack

Calm seas, but head-on winds After a very refreshing night of sleep in an actual bed (not on various spots in the cockpit and saloon), we woke up early to another beautiful day!  We did our morning checks of the engines, cleaned the raw water strainers and had breakfast. We pulled up the anchor, secured it and the bridle and started our trip up the outside of the Keys.  Our plan was to get to No Name Harbor , located at the very bottom of Biscayne Bay, just South of Miami. This was one of our stops during our ASA sailing school and is a great anchorage.  This day was pretty uneventful.  Even though the trip from Boot Key to Biscayne Bay requires a gradual turn to port for the entire trip, the wind magically made the same turn and we motored the entire way.

Exciting! Time to actually hit the water!! (or did the water hit us...) 7am  and we were up and at 'em! Melinda made some delicious egg and asparagus scramble that we had on a tortilla, along with some diced melon.  The folks from American Yacht Outfitters were back by about  8am  to get the last few things done.  They wrapped up the rest of the items from their punch lists, the water tanks were topped off from the dock pedestal and we were heading to the fuel dock right around about 9:30am.  Right when we wanted so we could have the best/longest wind for our sail.  Nick, from the outfitters, took the helm to bring us to the fuel dock and after about 50 gallons of diesel, the half full tanks were topped off. Bob did a great job of getting us out from the fuel dock and back to the narrow channel to Charlotte Harbor, which we would take to get to the Gulf of Mexico.  The plan was to motor until we got out to open water in the Harbor before raisin...

Vendors meeting deadlines and submersible docks The trip to help move of friends Leopard 45 from Jacksonville to Ft. Lauderdale started with a flight down to Punta Gorda Airport.  We left the ground in Raleigh just in time to avoid the early AM thunderstorms that were forecast to become possible PM tornadoes. When we landed at PGD airport, Bob was already waiting in baggage claim to pick Sue and I up (which was super nice).  We then went to do perishable provisioning for the trip and divided and conquered the shopping list.  As we were driving to the Burnt Store Marina, Bob warned us that there were a number of people on the boat, trying to get things like their vinyl enclosures and cushions squared away before they departed.  They had been promised that everything would be done by that Friday.  They got close to completing on time. SV Counting Stars at the Burst Store Marina Our cabin (Port Aft) On the plus side, the folks working on the boat,...

Tech Article posts are those that came about because of something I was writing in a more typical blog entry and decided to break out as a reference item. Hull speed is nautical speak for maximum theoretical speed for a "displacement" boat. A boat is basically just plopped into a body of water and displaces an amount of water equal to the weight of the boat.  A boat's weight and it's displacement are the same.  That is true for every boat that is not moving. Once you add movement, that can change. A displacement hull is the name used to signify a boat design where the hull just pushes water as the boat moves. The fastest a displacement hull boat can move (Hull Speed) is determined with the formula: HS = 1.34 * SQRT(LWL) HS is the Hull Speed in Nautical Miles per Hour, aka knots   LWL is the  L ength at the  W ater  L ine in ft. As an example, as 38' monuhull sailboat, may have a 33' LWL.  Therefore, the Hull Speed for this b...

It's been a month and we haven't been on a sailboat, what do we do? Ever since our Learn to Sail vacation, we have been thinkin about another opportunity to sail.  We still had the potential to sail on S/V Counting Stars in April, and a possible trip with Lisa and Jesse to the BVIs, but that wasn't for a while, so we had to start looking at other options. A Google Search of "bareboat charter NC" returned a few results, one of which was Bow to Stern Sailing , located in Oriental, NC. They were exactly what we were looking for and they were an easy 2.5 hour drive from our home in Cary, NC.  Oriental is a small town on the Neuse River, a brackish tributary to the Pamlico Sound.  The Neuse River, which starts as a small freshwater river in Raleigh becomes a 2+ mile wide body of water by the time it reaches Oriental and the area sees great wind for sailing. We called and spoke with them and I wasn't sure if the ASA certifications would be enough, but after a...

At 7:45am we woke up to the sounds of voices in the cockpit of the boat.  Voices that we didn't recognize. Long story short, the Captain stayed out very late (4am-ish), eventually walked back to the boat, but "decided" to stop and take a nap on the front lawn of someone's house.  After his nap, we woke up and called an Uber to take him back to the boat, not quite sure of where he was.  It turns out he was only a 5 minute drive to the boat. Oh, and then there was Charles, he was one of the voices we heard in the cockpit, along with two others, all of which returned to the boat at 7:45am.  Charles was probably a little drunk, but his two drinking buddies were pretty well gone. It took some time to get rid of them, but after we did, we had breakfast, had a quick review and then took the final test for ASA 104 (we scored 95 and 99). We were 101, 103, 104 and 114 certified! We cleaned, packed up and said our farewells to the Captain, Charles, Caroline and "A...

Day 6 was the trip back up to Ft. Lauderdale.   We started the day early and were all eating breakfast before 8:00am. After breakfast we performed Engine Checks.  One of "About Time's" engine was new, the other was original.  It was quite easy to tell which was which (both visually and audibly). After the engine checks and topping off the oil in guess-which-engine, we took the ASA 114 test.  I got a respectable 94%. Before leaving the Harbor, we did some close quarter motoring drills and then left the harbor and  turned south to go around the Southern Tip of Key Biscayne. After getting just beyond the bottom of the Key, we turned, raising the sails and headed out to sea for a mile or so, then turned north to head towards Ft. Lauderdale. We had great wind and the benefit of the Gulf Stream, so we were moving along at a very respectable 10 kts! Eventually the wind shifted and weren't getting quite as much speed, but I ended up at the helm fo...