Today, I was working at my friend’s company and a strange thing happened. When she walked in, she asked me to take a look at some photos that were on her cell phone. On her way into the office, she had passed a sailboat for sale. She wanted to know what I thought of it.
I [...]
I thought I’d add another name to the vendor black list.
Apparently, Quantum Sails of Newport doesn’t think much of its customers, at least in one case I’ve seen. I was looking at the stack pack on a friend’s boat, and there was a section about three inches long that the stitching had missed going through [...]
Recently, I was asked why I have such an oversized anchor hanging off the bow roller on the Pretty Gee. That’s a good question. The primary anchor I have on the Pretty Gee is a New Zealand-designed Rocna 15. It weighs 33 lbs., and is the same anchor that an acquaintance of mine [...]
Today, I went over to Wickford Harbor, in Rhode Island. I went to see if I could help Wyatt out with some issues he’s having on his Dehler 33. He seems to be having some problems with the VHF radio, which is original to the boat from 1997. I brought my SWR [...]
One of my goals, as part of leading the halyards aft project, was setting up a new lazy jack system on the Pretty Gee. The original system only had two legs and really didn’t do a very good job of controlling and containing the main sail. This past week, I finished setting up [...]
Recently a friend asked me what work I’ve done on my boat. Here’s a list of the various upgrade projects that I’ve either done or am in the process of doing on the boat over the last two years. The ones with the asterisks are works currently in progress.
Main Hull and Bottom
Installed Jacklines [...]
Sunday, I helped Ken and Dottie bend the sails on Sea Spirit, their Cal 25. We took her out for a quick sail. Ken fired up the 8 HP Tohatsu outboard and we motored over to the swing bridge. We had missed the 14:15 bridge opening, so we waited for the next [...]
My friend Alex was stuck up in New Hampshire for work. He lives in Portugal, but occasionally visits New England because of his job. Since I had some boat hardware for his boat, I went by his hotel yesterday to drop it off. Alex looked miserable, sailing withdrawal… Since my boat isn’t [...]
Today was a good day. As I was hoping, we got the boat launched today. Here’s a spring boat projects quick update.
As part of the spring refitting, I finished up the mounting of the TackTick displays that I installed last year. Last year I upgraded my boat’s instruments to TackTick instruments after having some [...]
Here’s a quick update on the various boat projects going on at the moment.
The new line-controlled genoa cars have been installed. The new block and tackle for the outboard motor lift, that has an integrated cam cleat, has been installed. I’m upgrading the blocks for the backstay adjustment, and will be using a [...]
Woohoo!!!
I just got a package in from Garhauer Marine. If you don’t know what Garhauer Marine is, you’re missing out on one of the best vendors for blocks and such on a boat. They’re a family-owned company in California that sells both direct to the public, and to manufacturers. Catalina and several [...]
You can get most of the Pilot Charts and Sailing Directions on-line. The Pilot Charts are PDF files, the Sailing Directions are Zip files of self-extracting archives, which are, unfortunately, Windows-only executables. I hope you find them useful. If anyone needs the Sailing Directions in Mac or Linux readable format, let me know, [...]
Heather Neill announced her plans to circumnavigate the globe in s/v Flight of Years, a Pacific Seacraft Flicka last year. This was a rather unusual announcement, given that Heather was not a sailor, and had relatively little experience sailing at the time of her announcement. You can read about her and her preparations at [...]
On a sailing forum, the question of capsize or pitchpoling a multihull came up recently. That’s a good question, how common is capsizing a cruising multihull? The poster was talking about two trimarans that had pitchpoled. I’d like to look at that now.
The risk of capsize on a cruising multihull is miniscule, provided the boat [...]
This Tuesday, I will be hauling the Pretty Gee for the season. I always dread this annual task, since it means that the sailing season is at an end. The long cold dark of winter will be settling in soon. I have some more projects for this winter.
New Instruments
The first one is [...]
A few weeks ago, I ended up taking one of Dave’s friends sailing for the first time. Wayne had never been on a sailboat, much less a trimaran. The weather was mid-70s and the winds about 15–20 knots, with clear blue skies. Somehow, I get the feeling, he’ll be back crewing with us [...]
Here’s a video from the downwind leg of the trip to Tarpaulin Cove, back on August 18, 2007.The weekend this was taken had some pretty nasty winds, with gusts of over 35 knots from what I was told. A friend told me that some moored boats in Newport had dragged and been damaged during that [...]
Recently, I was out sailing during the Indian Summer weather we’ve had this October. A Cal 25 from my marina was setting out at the same time, so I thought we’d take some video of them sailing alongside us. I have a few more videos that were taken this season that I’m working [...]
I was out sailing over the weekend. As I was leaving New Bedford Harbor, I noticed the Black Seal, a beautiful Gaff rigged, three-masted staysail schooner following me. I was under just the genoa, and the Black Seal had all of her sails up.
Here are a few photos of the Black Seal, as [...]
Saturday, some friends and I went out sailing. The sky was blue and the wind was blowing, with gusts up to 35 mph. reported. The seas were 5–7 feet according to several of my marina neighbors. They were not planning on going out. I can understand why. The seas and [...]
Well, after all the time the barrier coat and new bottom paint took, I thought I’d post a few photos of the Pretty Gee with her new paint job. The bottom paint will turn a verdigris green from what I’ve been told, but is still copper colored at the moment. As part of [...]
Well, Thursday was a good day. Thursday morning, I finished applying a royal blue bootstripe to the Pretty Gee and that afternoon, Arion and I put her back in the water. She is back in her slip and awaiting a chance to do some more sailing. Saturday, Dave and I finished rigging [...]
I finally had a chance to finish painting the bridge deck and put the non-skid paint on it. After sailng and working on the boat over the last two months, I’ve ben very pleased with how well the new bridgedeck has worked out. The locker is easily accessed from the cockpit, as well [...]
Unfortunately, the painting of the bridgedeck keeps getting interrupted by thunderstorms… really good thunderstorms… so I’ve been working on other projects. I hope that next week will have a few dry days in a row that I can get to the boat during to finish the painting.
The projects I’ve managed to get a start [...]
We finally got the Pretty Gee de-trailered on Friday, in preparation for the soda blasting and bottom painting. This was a bit more complicated than I had hoped.
We placed the two beams under the boat, and soon it was clear that the two beams that Arion had made up to do the de-trailering weren’t [...]
Yesterday, I had the marina launch the Pretty Gee. I have some work to do on the trailer, and putting the boat in the water was the simplest way to get it out of the way so I can try and get the trailer balanced. I did have another motive for putting her [...]
Here is a photo of the finished cockpit stereo speaker installation.
The speakers aren’t behind deckplates as I originally planned. However, the space they are installed in does not let water into the boat’s bilge as it drains into the rudder quadrant locker. This space doesn’t really present any danger of flooding the boat if [...]
One of the projects I’ve decided to do this year is creating a bridge deck on the Pretty Gee.
A bridge deck is a raised section in the front of the sailboat’s cockpit that is designed to prevent a pooping wave from entering through the companionway. Currently, there is no bridge deck on the Telstar. [...]
The Bridgedeck
Well, it’s been a few weeks since I started my spring projects on the Pretty Gee. I’ve decided to make it a permanent installation, instead of a removable locker. I’ve gotten some 3/8″ plywood and will be roughing out the shape of the locker with it. The plywood will be the [...]
I’ve finally gotten around to installing the ground tackle upgrade for the Pretty Gee. I removed the original foredeck cleat and the starboard side bow chock. Eventually, I’ll have to get around to removing the port-side chock but can’t get my fingers past the bowsprit to do it [...]