7 Days to Splash

Red Herring is almost ready to go back in the water.  Thanks to Steve Yount for helping with the sanding and taping on Saturday.  Then thanks to Judy Tucci for the painting on Sunday.   Red Herring’s bottom has a nice shiny coat of red VC 17m.  Just a few more things to do before splash.

I have an appointment at the marina to a 8AM lift-in on Monday May 4.  We’ll be sailing again soon.

BTW — Steve Stayed in Erie overnight and slept on the boat.  Shhh — don’t tell him it wasn’t in the water.  🙂

Washed and Waxed For The Season

It was a sunny day in Erie and the temperature finally broke 60 degrees, so it was a good day to wash and wax the Red Herring.   The work went pretty easily and reasonably fast with a lot of help from Andy Maille.  Here’s a picture of Andy making the boat much shinier!

In case you’re wondering:  16 days til Splash — and it looks like we’ll make it.  If it rains tomorrow I can still do some interior work and install the batteries.

20 Days And Counting

Only 20 left til the boat goes in.   The cover is off.  On Monday I put the cushions in the boat.  OK — so cushions are not required equipment for sailing, but they were the easiest to get onto the boat in the VERY cold weather on Monday.  This weekend will probably be washing and waxing of the hull.  Crew help will be appreciated this weekend if the weather is OK.

Erie Yacht Club Racing Fleet 2009 Schedule Posted

I’ve posted the 2009 Racing Schedule.  You can look for it one of the “page” tabs along the top of the blog.  I’ll keep it updated with results through the season.

Oh, and the cover is off the boat.  It was chilly, but there was little to no wind, so I called Judy and she was on her way to help take the cover off.  When I got there it was already off!  I guess the Custom Cover guys got there yesterday (or it was stolen :).  So, on to the To Do list.

25 Days Til We Sail Again

According to my countdown we have only 25 days until we put the boat in the water (May 4th).

Red Herring from under the winter cover (looking toward the stern).

It’s time to start thinking seriously about getting the boat ready.  I’ll be posting the To Do List soon.  In the meantime, I took the ladder down to the boat today and went in through the back zipper in the cover and took a look around.  Here’s a picture from under the cover.  I think I’ll be taking the cover off on Friday or Saturday.  It is time after all.

I also picked up the repaired spinnaker from Dave Bierig today.  Since I was down there, I put it right into the boat so I won’t have to drag it back again.

In other news:   Red Herring won the Trost Cup this year.  For those of you who are new, most of the racers have very little wooden sailboats that we race once a month on a vibrating “lake” (like the old football games we used to have) at The Oasis (a local watering hole).  Apparently I did something very right with my boat’s bottom because no one could touch me all year.  The six-month season is over now and we won first place.   I also won first place a few years ago with WebSailor.  Now, if we could just sail the real boat that well!

I’ll post a picture here when Steve sends it to me from his iPhone.