DH Sailing

Up the rig flying the spinnaker

Don't worry mom I have a harness on!

Self portrait

Cody at the helm

The new deck hareware setup. Note that almost of the control lines aim at the driver so they can be adjusted without anyone else on deck.

The sun over St. Pete

The view from above

Peace man

Sailing toward Egmont Key

Leading the charge, bagel-in-hand

Space Commander reporting for duty

More downwind practice

Photos from the mooring field

Here are some photos I took while living on Furthur. The first 3 are long exposure night photos I took for my Studio Critic class, the rest just give you an idea of what life is like onboard.

On the foredeck

Eckerd in the background.

Looking out my back door

Chart table and the Captain's Quarters

Breakfast of Champions

View from my bed

Sail storage

Furthur with Arthur's boat Platypus off the bow and Eckerd in the background

Jujubean the dingy!

Life in the mooring field, part 2

Sorry I haven't updated in more than a month, I spent over 2 weeks living on Furthur in the Maximo mooring field off Eckerd. Arthur came by DIYC one wednesday when I was working and suggested we sail Furthur back to Eckerd. The deck hard was installed, there was a nice sea breeze, and I hadn't had lived in the mooring field for about a month. After finishing work with Speed Merchant Services, I threw a coat of Teflon wax on the bottom of Furthur to slow the growth or algae and barnacles.

Expecting a reach and beat in 15 knots of sea breeze, I hanked on the #4 jib and organized the cabin for sailing. Arthur came back from the store with some food, drinks, and 2 gallons of gas. We finished rigging the boat and launched her without any issues. But as luck would have it, right as we hoisted the main the sea breeze died. We did the longest bare-headed jib change, as I had to switch all the hanks from the #4 to the #1. Even with the #1, we were making little to no headway in lumpy swell with no wind. I broke out the motor and we took off for Eckerd.

After running the outboard dry once, we found some pressure and started sailing again. Arthur loves tuning and tweaking boats, and we started experimenting with different settings. This was extremely educational and really helped me get the boat up to speed. Because the SC27 has masthead rig that bends like a telephone pole, backstay tension mostly controls headstay sag. Adjusting the backstay drastically changes the boat's sailing characteristics: more tension de-powers the jib, but helps our pointing upwind; less tension powers-up up the jib at the cost of pointing, but this is great in light wind and/or waves. The new hardware layout allowed for instant adjustments, which will help us change gears faster.

We anchored under sail and a friend picked us up in the dinghy. For the next two weeks, I mostly slept on Furthur instead of in Kappa. I would row to class in the mornings, hang out in my room or on the boat during the day, eat dinner ashore, then row out at night. While anchored off Eckerd, I faced some serious trials, including being unable to row out to in a storm. On a different morning, I woke up to waves hitting Furthur's bow from the side, instead of head on. The keel had just touched the mud off Eckerd and I was 10 feet from the mangroves. I called Cody and started prepping for the extraction. Pulling up the anchor revealed that the chain had wrapped between the fluke and shank, keeping the flukes from digging in. I reset the anchor in the channel with the dinghy as Cody just charged in the chest deep (for him) water to reach Furthur. Between heeling the boat over to reduce draft, the little 2-horse outboard screaming at full throttle, and the anchor line loaded on a winch with one of us grinding, we were able to get to deep water. The chain wrapping around the anchor and dragging was a random turn of fate. Luckily, the grounding was soft and Furthur appeared to have no structural damage. Cody and I also learned a lot about grounding recovery!

There were plenty of good times too. I took friends cruising, Cody and I practiced double-handed sailing, and we continued to learn how to sail Furthur fast. Then I got an email from West Florida PHRF, the SunCoast Race Week Notice of Race had been posted. SCRW is 3 days of point-to-point distance racing around and out of Tampa Bay between the St. Petersburg, Davis Island, and Bradenton Yacht Clubs. This would be a perfect opportunity to line up against some other boats in a distance race, hopefully with some downwind sailing.