Sailed down to Still Pond for the night

Well, that was an interesting week. I had planned to go down the boat on Tuesday, but I was busy making my awning and getting ready. Loretta, the girls, and I drove down on Wednesday morning for the 4th of July celebrations. I had heard that Havre de Grace has a huge 4th parade, and good fireworks, so I was looking forward to it. Unfortunately, the parade was the weekend before, and the fireworks were on the 3rd (now THAT makes a lot of sense).

So anyway, we get down there only to discover that there's no reason to be there, other than to hang out on the boat. That's good enough for me!

It was cloudy all day, so we got the boat squared away, put the awning up, and just hung out at the marina. Loretta and I, at Captain Steve's advice, put snubbers on our dock lines. They're amazing. I couldn't believe how much more comfortable the boat motion was. If you're going to spend any time on board at all, whilst tied up at the slip, I strongly recommend snubbers. The girls and Alex wandered around town, read, and ate ice cream. That evening, I made grilled chicken and we invited Captains Steve and Judy over for dinner. We hung around, swapped sea stories, and ate until well after nine. Then a storm looked like it was coming in and we went back to close the foredeck hatch (wet bed = bad night). We had some thunder and lightning, a bit of wind, and a lot of rain. It was cool to sit in the cabin and look out at this drenching rainstorm in the marina lights. It was warm and dry below, though, so it was all good. The kids played games and we just hung around.

Thursday morning it was clear, though. When I was coming back from my shower I stopped to chat with a lady who's family had moored their powerboat on the floating pier across from Puddleduck's slip. They had been in the Sassafras River to watch fireworks when they noticed everyone else leaving in a hurry. They hailed one of the other boats and learned there was a tornado warning for that part of Maryland (this must have been the storm that went South of the marina). They hauled up the anchor and ran for Havre de Grace.

We all went to Waffle House for breakfast, and then Loretta, the girls, and Alex left for home. I stayed around, because a coworker was coming down to meet me. Mike arrived in about an hour, and we spent the day looking at boats, wandering around, reprovisioning, and just talking about sailing. Then we spent the night at the slip, again.

Friday brought a hazy sunrise at 5:30, and I was visiting the head when I saw this light. Got the camera, snapped this, and went back to sleep.

We got up a little after eight, squared away the boat, and put out. The wind had come up, and we made between four and seven knots all the way out the channel, around Sandy Point, and down towards Still Pond. We left the marina a little after ten and finally anchored in Still Pond a little before six. Some of this time was spent trying to anchor outside the cove, which was much too choppy. Even though the cove looked crowded, we moved inside and things were much better. The anchor held perfectly all night.

Mike and I swam around and talked about sailing. We had sandwiches for dinner, drank soda, swam some more, and then climbed aboard for the night. I shot sunset pictures and wrote to Mouse.This is a picture of a Valiant (I think) and a Pacific Seacraft that were anchored just East of us. Wow. Beautiful boats. On the other side, to the West, was an Alberg 30. I sat and watched the sun set behind her.


In the morning, we went for another swim and then headed out into very, very light and fluky Southerlies. It took almost four hours to make the run from Still Pond to the mouth of the Sassafras. We had initially planned to spend Saturday night in the Sassafras, but we were getting the snot kicked out of us by the power boat wakes, and we knew we'd spend the whole day getting to an uncomfortable anchorage. We motorsailed back to Havre de Grace and got in at the slip a little after five. We squared away, took out the trash, got showered, and headed over to Price's for crabs. Unfortunately, Price's was completely booked, so we had to go to the Nauti Goose in Northeast for crabs. It was good, but it wasn't Price's. Maybe next time. I'm glad I was so tired when I got back, because the bed was definitely rocking when I went to sleep....

Mr. Sewsitall makes an awning

As long as I was going to have the sewing equipment out and strewn all over the house, I figured I should make an awning for Puddleduck. The cockpit gets really hot during the days when you're sitting at anchor. I figured a nice white awning would look good, and keep the boat cooler. Here are the first two panels rolled for seaming. I used 60" wide Sunbrella canvas in "natural" color. I could have made a bimini, which would have provided shade while sailing as well, but the bimin kits start at about 450 bucks, and I don't have that right now.



I started out working in my bedroom, but as soon as I looked around, I knew that wouldn't be enough space. I moved to the living room (the first picture, above). I quickly ran out of space there, and had to move to the family room. Immediately above, you can see the fabric laid out in the family room. All the seaming is done, including the swallowtails, but nothing has been trimmed yet.



This is Molly helping me mark the cut and sew-to lines on the edges.



Here's the awning in it's final shape, with the edges cut away. Don Casey recommends, in his book "Good Old Boat," that for a tent awning you measure from the boom to the lifelines, and then subtract 4 inches. I don't think that's good advice, because my awning ended up being a little short on the sides, which lets the edge sag towards the cockpit and funnel rain into it. I think I would prefer the awning go all the way to the lifeline.

These are the double reinforcement patches for the corners and sides where the grommets will be installed. You can also see the 3/8 inch boltrope for the edge.
This is the mitered corner, after the reinforcement patches have been installed. The mitering helps reduce the number of layers you have to punch through with your machine (or your palm).

Finally, here I am putting the grommets in, after the boltrope is sewn into the edge hem. Of course, I cleverly forgot to take a picture of Puddleduck with the awning actually in place. It did work out fairly well. It was definitely good to have at the anchorage! I'd like to have side seams, and I'd like to have the boat's name on the edges. That's a project for later, though!

Torn Mainsail!

My mainsail tore at the seam just aft of the lower slug. This is a very high-stress area of the sail, so I couldn't let it go without repair. Here's how I fixed it. First, here's the tear.

There was no way to securely sew that weakened fabric back to the seam, so I knew I was going to have to make a patch.


As you can see, though, there isn't enough room between the seam and the existing grommet for a patch. Besides, Vince, from Tidewater, who is a sailmaker, told me that I needed to move that slug towards the mast by 1/2 to 3/4 inch. This means the slug and grommet had to come out for the repair.


The first thing I did after removing the grommet was to realign the torn part of the sail with the seam and boltrope, then hold it in place with dacron sail tape. There is an identical piece of tape on the other side of the sail.


Then I made a patch out of 6.5 oz dacron sailcloth. I hemmed the edges using a zigzag setting on a Husqvarna sewing machine. Then I used 1/2" basting tape to sort of hold the patch around the bolt rope so I could sew it onto the sail. It didn't work very well, as the stiff patch kept pulling loose from the sail and basting tape. I hand-sewed a whipstitch seam just inside the bolt rope, then decided that was too difficult and fed it into the machine to actually sew it down to the sail. I was using V92 polyester sail thread and a number 18 Universal needle.


Once I had the patch sewn down securely, I used a #4 hole cutter to make a hole, then installed a #4 spur grommet.


That was the hard part. After the grommet was in, I reattached the slug using 1/2 nylon webbing that was wrapped through three times (as recommended by "The Sailmaker's Apprentice"). A few quick stitches and the sail was ready to go.