Wind Song is safely tied up in her new home at the Tawas Bay Yacht Club.
We took possession of the boat on June 11th in Manitowoc, WI; and pulled into our slip in Tawas Bay on July 4th, in time for the club barbecue and the “Light Up The Bay” fireworks display. My original guess was 400 nautical miles, I think it was actually well less than that, but I haven’t done the math yet. My estimate now would be 375 nm.
That breaks down to 6 days in Manitowoc cleaning, commissioning and provisioning, and an 18 day delivery cruise.
The first half of the trip was marred by weather delays. One day of moving the boat, three days in port, rinse and repeat. I was starting to fear that it would august before we got home. Once we left Charlevoix we didn’t take another day off until we got her home. Some days we only moved 20 miles because we were dodging potential thunderstorms and looking for a 4 hour weather window when we could make it at least to the next port . . . But we moved it every day.
Highlights:
we did it!
still not sure it was wise, but it sure was fun. and after 3+ weeks of close quarters, we still like each other.
sailing under Mackinaw Bridge.
I was also starting to get frustrated by how little of the trip was under sail. Once we opened the sails up, it was magic. This boat sails pretty well! And yes, I AM still young enough for sail handling on a Big boat (although raising that big main IS work!)
Brownies and Blueberry Pancakes
one of my accomplishments in the six days in Manitowoc was getting the 30 year old Hillerange working.
While not as important as getting the jabsco working, it did feel like a victory.
the engine did not let us down.
probably the biggest paranoia of the trip. Once you tell people what you are doing you start to hear so many stories of the people who had to have their boat hauled out halfway through their delivery cruise for repair!
lessons learned:
fog!
we crossed Lake Michigan under power in zero wind, zero waves and zero visibility.
man was that scary! Not the worst fog I’ve been in, but less than a mile for almost all of 55 nm. Couldn’t see the lighthouse in Frankfort when the gps was saying it was .3 nm off our bow.
not nearly as bad when we were passing in front of the sleeping bear dunes, but not as nice a view as I’d been dreaming of. there Was a time when the bottom 10 or 20 feet of the dunes were visible, and then they vanished. The Manitou Islands were playing hide and seek all day.
old PEX breaks easily
finger tight is fine…. Put down the wrench john.
The systems on this boat really are not overwhelming.
I'm figuring them out one broken piece of kit at a time (the 15mm x 1/2 PEX swivel elbow is in the mail).
a paper chart and a compass still work when you find out that none of the electronic do.
ok, we had the hand held Garmin that we used on our Capri 18, and navionics on the phone and iPad, but the compass was our main source of navigation.
note to self: you SUBTRACT the declination … you don’t add it!
Thank you to everyone who has answered my many, many rookie questions over the last month!
my original plan was to buy a cruising boat and just daysail for a year to get to know it, then plan a cruise for next year.
finding a boat in Wisconsin was an interesting turn of events.
John
We took possession of the boat on June 11th in Manitowoc, WI; and pulled into our slip in Tawas Bay on July 4th, in time for the club barbecue and the “Light Up The Bay” fireworks display. My original guess was 400 nautical miles, I think it was actually well less than that, but I haven’t done the math yet. My estimate now would be 375 nm.
That breaks down to 6 days in Manitowoc cleaning, commissioning and provisioning, and an 18 day delivery cruise.
The first half of the trip was marred by weather delays. One day of moving the boat, three days in port, rinse and repeat. I was starting to fear that it would august before we got home. Once we left Charlevoix we didn’t take another day off until we got her home. Some days we only moved 20 miles because we were dodging potential thunderstorms and looking for a 4 hour weather window when we could make it at least to the next port . . . But we moved it every day.
Highlights:
we did it!
still not sure it was wise, but it sure was fun. and after 3+ weeks of close quarters, we still like each other.
sailing under Mackinaw Bridge.
I was also starting to get frustrated by how little of the trip was under sail. Once we opened the sails up, it was magic. This boat sails pretty well! And yes, I AM still young enough for sail handling on a Big boat (although raising that big main IS work!)
Brownies and Blueberry Pancakes
one of my accomplishments in the six days in Manitowoc was getting the 30 year old Hillerange working.
While not as important as getting the jabsco working, it did feel like a victory.
the engine did not let us down.
probably the biggest paranoia of the trip. Once you tell people what you are doing you start to hear so many stories of the people who had to have their boat hauled out halfway through their delivery cruise for repair!
lessons learned:
fog!
we crossed Lake Michigan under power in zero wind, zero waves and zero visibility.
man was that scary! Not the worst fog I’ve been in, but less than a mile for almost all of 55 nm. Couldn’t see the lighthouse in Frankfort when the gps was saying it was .3 nm off our bow.
not nearly as bad when we were passing in front of the sleeping bear dunes, but not as nice a view as I’d been dreaming of. there Was a time when the bottom 10 or 20 feet of the dunes were visible, and then they vanished. The Manitou Islands were playing hide and seek all day.
old PEX breaks easily
finger tight is fine…. Put down the wrench john.
The systems on this boat really are not overwhelming.
I'm figuring them out one broken piece of kit at a time (the 15mm x 1/2 PEX swivel elbow is in the mail).
a paper chart and a compass still work when you find out that none of the electronic do.
ok, we had the hand held Garmin that we used on our Capri 18, and navionics on the phone and iPad, but the compass was our main source of navigation.
note to self: you SUBTRACT the declination … you don’t add it!
Thank you to everyone who has answered my many, many rookie questions over the last month!
my original plan was to buy a cruising boat and just daysail for a year to get to know it, then plan a cruise for next year.
finding a boat in Wisconsin was an interesting turn of events.
John
