Cruising With The Family

I finally remembered that sailing isnt all racing.   Rita has been here all week with Wyatt and Owen, then Paul came this weekend, and we all went cruising on a beautiful Saturday in the bay!

That’s Rita with Owen, Sue with Wyatt, Paul driving.

Owen stopped eating long enough to notice he was on a boat and we were sailing!

Woo Hoo! Wyatt’s driving us upwind.

Shakedown Cruise

Well finally!  Five of us went on a little shakedown cruise tonight — the first sail of the season.  About 6PM tonight Andy came down and cranked me up the mast so that I could reinstall both wind instruments.  Then Ben, Dave and Steve arrived and we went out for a shakedown and a little upwind practice.  The winds were light.  By 7PM they were down to 5-6 knots from the NW.   Then they proceeded to die.

We droppped the sails a little before 8PM.  The air temp was 50, so it was a little chilly going upwind, but hey, we were sailing!  We worked on sail trim and did a little speed testing sailing next to Raven (the only other boat that was out tonight).

Then we went back to the dock for Triscuits, Turkey Pepperoni and so good Cheddar.   No beer tonight.

So, finally it’s real.  The first race is two days away.  Can’t wait.

Brig Niagara at EYC

This morning the Brig Niagara was tied up at the Yacht Club.  How cool is it to walk the dog and see a 19th century sailing vessel moored three doors down from your front door?  Life is good.

Splash — Let The Season Begin

We splashed Red Herring this morning at about 8AM.  She’s floating and tied up safely (I hope) in her slip at Bay Harbor East Basin.  More later.  But thanks to Judy Tucci, Andy Maille and Mark Kubeja for helping with the last leg of the journey.   The first race is a week from this Wednesday.  Hopefully, we’ll get a little time for a shakedown cruise and some tuning before that.

Trim Pix

Here’s a link to several pictures of Red Herring under sail during a few different races:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajmiceli

Let’s take a look at these and critique our sail trim.  If you have a Yahoo! or a Flickr account you can comment on the pix at Flickr.  We need to squeeze another tenth of a knot or two out of our performance.   And, by the way, thanks to Dave Fresch for many of these pix.

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.

50 Days to Splash

Ok — I admit that I’m getting antsy to sail again.  As of today, we’re only 50 days away from Splash.

Our off-season continues.  Two weeks ago I sent a copy of a Sailing World article to the crew about asymmetrical sail douses.  Last week Ben drew up a useful graphic to help us decide quickly which drop to use under various conditions.  I sent that out to the crew too.

This coming Saturday I’ll be attending the full-day North U. seminar on the Racing Rules of Sailing.  See you there.