Annapolis Boat Show = Good Times !!!

[Maine Sail]

Finally back at the BWI airport and wanted to thank my Annapolis Boat Show stars Gettinthere & Gunni.

Gettinthere, & his better half (really), set me up with the v-berth on there beautiful Enedevour 42 for three nights! We had some great times, good drinks, too many Pusser's Pain Killers, and lots in common.

I was surprised to learn how fast they committed to cruising and how fast they both learned and executed their cruise. In the short time they've been sailing they are like seasoned pro's. They both have the proverbial "handle" on the cruising lifestyel and you'd think they'd been sailing together for 40 years.. I learned about a great new coffee press and a contraption which makes soda water on-board, that I forgot the name of already..Can't wait until they make it to Maine..

On Saturday I blew off the boat show, big crowd day, and met Gunni down at Herrington Harbor on the Western shore. We headed out for a sail on his beautiful Beneteau 411, Saphire. On the way down I stopped to get some beer but forgot MD only has certain places you can buy booze. It apparently did not include 7-11 or the other convenience stores I stopped at... Doh'.. No worries Gunni had some Sierra Nevada's for us and he saved the day. I also had not counted on all the trafic and stop lights getting out of Eastport so I was about 20-30 minutes late...

Saturday turned out to be one of the best days I've had sailing in a while. We both had ear to ear grins plastered for abut 9 hours of brisk sailing. We exited the harbor and headed off towards the Eastern shore on a beautiful reach in 10-12 knot apparent winds. The forecast called for more, and we wished for more. We were having fun and steaming along not paying much attention to what was forming behind us, and we got what we wanted.. When we gybed to head back up the bay the wind began to build and then clocked about 90 degrees to blast us on the nose. The gybe gave us a chance to dial in Gunni's new Wichard boom brake. It worked very well.. As the wind built the other sailboats quickly dissipated from the bay. The winds piped and of course, having fun, we "reefed late" and turned it into a short Chinese fire drill in 25-30 knots apparent.

After reefing, clearly not enough, we battled some weather helm, basically dragging the rudder to lee like barn door... I was literally watching the ST-60 rudder bar half over to port on starboard tack... It was slowing our progress pretty badly.. We just had too much canvas up. She was rounding up, stalling, falling off, rounding up on and on for two to three minutes. The winds had built to steady 28-33 app so when Gunni came back on deck we shortened the head sail, again, then made a few minor tweaks to the reefed main. Within a few minutes we had Saphire well balanced and screaming along beautifully. Felt like 13-16 once balanced, not the 28-35 app it was blowing & gusting to. Gunni was actually taking his hands off the wheel and letting the boat steer herself through the short square waves and getting blasted in the face by bay water and grinning from ear to ear.

Once we got her balanced we tacked up the bay directly into the weather until it got dark. I managed to stave off night blindness by turning down the back lighting on his 12' Simrad while he was below getting an extra layer...

All and all it was a great day of sailing just the way I like it. It is nice to be able to set foot on a boat with someone where you know their skill level and trust their experience. Considering neither of us had ever sailed together, and we only knew each other through SBO, things went great and my cheeks still hurt from smiling so much.

Next time I am down on the Chess Gunnin better place a weather PO for some more 25-35 knot winds!!!!

Thanks Gettinthere & Gunni for a wonderful time and the camaraderie one would expect from fellow SBOers...

 

[gettinthere]

Finally back at the BWI airport and wanted to thank my Annapolis Boat Show stars Gettinthere & Gunni.

Gettinthere, & his better half (really), set me up with the v-berth on there beautiful Enedevour 42 for three nights! We had some great times, good drinks, too many Pusser's Pain Killers, and lots in common.

I was surprised to learn how fast they committed to cruising and how fast they both learned and executed their cruise. In the short time they've been sailing they are like seasoned pro's. They both have the proverbial "handle" on the cruising lifestyel and you'd think they'd been sailing together for 40 years.. I learned about a great new coffee press and a contraption which makes soda water on-board, that I forgot the name of already..Can't wait until they make it to Maine..

...

Great having you aboard, our pleasure.
I noticed that all the things you learned were from the admiral! Sounds about right!
Sometimes this last year has felt like 40 years!! Especially when doing laundry!
Thanks for the kind words.

The soda maker is a TwistnSparke. Unfortunately it has been pulled from the market for a safety recall. I suspect it's from some misuse of the product. Too bad, it works quite nicely.
It's a variation on the Soda Stream setup. But instead of using the soda stream cartridges, ours uses small co2 cartridges that inject into a 1 liter bottle. We then add any variety of Soda Stream syrup or dry flavorings to create whatever drink we want. No carrying a case of cans that end up bursting in a locker.

The coffee press is called Aero Press. The BIG difference over french presses is the ease of cleaning...much easier and much lower water use when washing. We tossed our french press long ago.

 

[Maine Sail]

Great having you aboard, our pleasure.
I noticed that all the things you learned were from the admiral! Sounds about right!
Sometimes this last year has felt like 40 years!! Especially when doing laundry!
Thanks for the kind words.

The soda maker is a TwistnSparke. Unfortunately it has been pulled from the market for a safety recall. I suspect it's from some misuse of the product. Too bad, it works quite nicely.
It's a variation on the Soda Stream setup. But instead of using the soda stream cartridges, ours uses small co2 cartridges that inject into a 1 liter bottle. We then add any variety of Soda Stream syrup or dry flavorings to create whatever drink we want. No carrying a case of cans that end up bursting in a locker.

The coffee press is called Aero Press. The BIG difference over french presses is the ease of cleaning...much easier and much lower water use when washing. We tossed our french press long ago.

Thanks! Hey what size is your Manson anchor chain 5/16 or 3/8"? I may have something for you..

 

[gettinthere]

5/16 chain

 

[Maine Sail]

5/16 chain

Cool, send me an address for your next stop over..!

 

[gettinthere]

Send a note of hello to Cam and get his addy, that's our next stop, around halloween. Thanks!

 

[Jim Seamans]

Sorry we missed you on Friday, Mainesail. We were tired after spending so much money. 50% on Pain Killers...

 

[gettinthere]

Jim, we must have had dueling painkillers at the bar.

 

[gettinthere]

We managed to keep our spending down to an LED anchor light, some Defender binocs, a Breeze Bandit, "The Boat Galley Cookbook" and a new Mack Sails 135 genoa. The biggest expense was all the Pussers painkillers!

 

[Ron20324]

On Saturday I blew off the boat show, big crowd day, and met Gunni down at Herrington Harbor on the Western shore.]

I didn't know Gunni was at Herringtopn Harbor, but is it North or South HH? Yes, Saturday was great sailing. I sailed from Eastport/Annapolis to HHS for a sailing club (SOS) Oktoberfest PArtry at the tent. You probably went by. I was beam-to right behind the commercial ship on the pier along the port jetty as you go in.

 

[rardiH36]

Maine Sail:

Wonderful narrative of your outing. A great read.

I note your description that the boat handled so well when you did dial in the best head sail and mainsail reductions. I can relate because I sail on the central San Francisco Bay where heavy winds are the norm. Unfortunately the heavy winds tend to be only out there in the middle "slot". Compared to 0-5 kts at/off Sausalito where I depart from. So it's an educated guessing game what to do. During the summer/early fall, I lean towards reefing the main to the second point before leaving the berth. Most of the time my 95% head sail can be deployed from the furler all the way. With this arrangement the boat is well balanced in the 25kts or so typical central bay winds. And I can maintain a respectable 7-7.5 kts. Maybe just a small amount of weather helm. Not bad for an old boat with very stretched out sails.

If instead I go with the first reef point --- and also certainly with the main fully up --- I'm over-powered big time! And going slower. Downside to this modus operandi is that once I get out of the high wind "slot", I don't have enough sail up. But then also I don't have many more minutes to go before it's time to douse the sails anyway.

The central SF winds can make certain boats go many times faster than most of ours -- as evidenced by a couple of pic's (attached) I've snapped over the last couple of weeks.

 

[Maine Sail]

On Saturday I blew off the boat show, big crowd day, and met Gunni down at Herrington Harbor on the Western shore.]

I didn't know Gunni was at Herringtopn Harbor, but is it North or South HH? Yes, Saturday was great sailing. I sailed from Eastport/Annapolis to HHS for a sailing club (SOS) Oktoberfest PArtry at the tent. You probably went by. I was beam-to right behind the commercial ship on the pier along the port jetty as you go in.

I think he's at Herrington South, on the party tent side. Yes we did go by you. There were a couple of Bene's tied up behind the big green behemoth and even a blue CS-36T closest in on the long pier. We came in after dark so you may not have seen us sneak in....

 

[Maine Sail]

Maine Sail:

Wonderful narrative of your outing. A great read.

I note your description that the boat handled so well when you did dial in the best head sail and mainsail reductions. I can relate because I sail on the central San Francisco Bay where heavy winds are the norm. Unfortunately the heavy winds tend to be only out there in the middle "slot". Compared to 0-5 kts at/off Sausalito where I depart from. So it's an educated guessing game what to do. During the summer/early fall, I lean towards reefing the main to the second point before leaving the berth. Most of the time my 95% head sail can be deployed from the furler all the way. With this arrangement the boat is well balanced in the 25kts or so typical central bay winds. And I can maintain a respectable 7-7.5 kts. Maybe just a small amount of weather helm. Not bad for an old boat with very stretched out sails.

If instead I go with the first reef point --- and also certainly with the main fully up --- I'm over-powered big time! And going slower. Downside to this modus operandi is that once I get out of the high wind "slot", I don't have enough sail up. But then also I don't have many more minutes to go before it's time to douse the sails anyway.

The central SF winds can make certain boats go many times faster than most of ours -- as evidenced by a couple of pic's (attached) I've snapped over the last couple of weeks.

All boats will eventually find balance based on the winds they are in. Problem is Gunni and I had never sailed together and we just needed to figure out where to dial her into which took a few minutes to do. Once we had her in balance she increased speed, drove through the chop better, had less heel and no more rounding up or weather helm. The rudder was also no longer pushed to lee to maintain course.

BTW this was a 150% IIRC that we shortened down to about 70%, if I had to guess. Shape was not "ideal" but we were still able to sail with decent performance and fairly close hauled for a shallow draft boat...

 

[gettinthere]

We put an offer in on the Southerly 56. We really like it. We found most of the boats weren't enough of an upgrade over what we already have. Sweet boat!

 

[Gunni]

Total blast Maine Sail! We took Octoberfest to Black Walnut Point, and accepted the weather god's challenge for the return! Carve out a few days next time and we can really get off the beaten track further down the bay.