The never-ending project to fill my hole in the ocean while bailing it out

Sailing Season ‘08 is here!

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Description

The big day had arrived:  Raising Chip Ahoy's mast and preparing to launch for Sailing Season 2008.  Wally Riddle was at my house at 9:00 am; we quickly got the mast onto its supports aboard the boat, the Honda outboard loaded into the back of his pickup truck, and with Barbara -- the day's "official photographer --  following we made quite a caravan driving the short distance across Marblehead to Riverhead Beach on Marblehead Harbor.  (Jun. 2, 2008)

-- More Launch Photos --

Once we got the mast raised, we installed the new boomkicker.

Today we launched Chip Ahoy and I brought it around Marblehead to its mooring.  (Jun. 3, 2008)

-- More Launch Photos --

Chip Ahoy out on its mooring off the the Village Street town dock.  It's great being able to walk down to the end of my street and see it again swinging out there beckoning.  There sure are still a lot of empty moorings this year.  (Jun. 7, 2008)

My plan was to take the launch out later in the morning, tweak the boom and mainsail a little to keep its roach from hitting the backstay, then head out on my first sail of Season '08.  A four-day heat wave was approaching, due to roll over us any minute bringing temperatures well into the 90s.  Unfortunately, the "tweaking" turned into a far more time-consuming project taking well into the afternoon and it turned out less than successful.  My first sail of the season had to wait.

After advice sought overnight and much provided through the discussion group list, the experts advised that I just raise the boom; that the roach rubbing the backstay was perfectly normal, nothing to be concerned with.  I need a slightly longer boom, which I'll deal with next spring after finding a replacement.  This morning, I followed the advice and adjusted everything back to where it was when I boarded Chip Ahoy yesterday!  Then I finally cast off the mooring at noon and went for the first sail of Season '08 at last.  Everything worked just fine, and it was great being out on the water again -- especially in this heat wave we're experiencing.  (Jun. 8, 2008)

The sun was bright, temperature in the mid-90s, but the wind was light and very variable -- flukey I call it, spinning the Windex like a clock out of control.  Eventually I caught up with John Graichen aboard his C22, "Malacass," just inside the Bakers-Misery Islands channel.  We'd hoped to meet up and do another "photo shoot rendezvous" out on the Sound.  Our cell phones zeroed us in and we were soon alongside each other.

-- More Photo Rendezvous Photos --
CLICK HERE

After days of rain showers and thunderstorms, today was too perfect to resist, so I took a comp day off from my job and headed out.  This was only my third day of sailing since the photo shoot rendezvous, so far just on weekends.  I was due for a weekday sail, when Salem Sound has little boat traffic.  I headed out between Misery and Bakers Islands (on the horizon), looped around Misery, then tacked back to the harbor directly into a SW wind, variable from 15 knot gusts to the doldrums for stretches.  I got back to my mooring at about 4:00 pm and took a short nap aboard.  (Jun. 25, 2008)

I'm replacing the inexpensive old Davis foil-over-styrofoam radar reflector with a new Davis Echomaster aluminum model.  I rigged it to an eye strap and micro-block on the starboard spreader, which worked for years suspending the old one.  The metal fins on the new one quickly chafed through the 3/16" halyard:  I found it laying on the deck the next day.  I've since rigged the prescribed harness with the reflector in the "catch rain" position recommended in the Davis instructions.  Now I need to add another eye strap and micro-block on the spreader close to the mast so the halyard completely clears the reflector.  I'll need to have the boatyard do this now that the mast is raised and rigged.  [See progress to follow below]
I can hear my fellow C22 owners:  "Just drop the mast -- it only takes a few minutes!"  Not on Chip Ahoy it doesn't:  It'd take 4-5 hours to remove the sails and furler, disconnect everything else above and below deck and drop the mast, then raise it back up, reconnect and readjust all.  I'll pay the boatyard to just hoist someone up to the spreader, have the job done in less than half an hour.  (Jun. 28, 2008)

This is crazy!  This morning I just ordered two cords of firewood for the winter off months in the future -- $730 delivered -- to arrive and be dumped in the coming week.  Due to the skyrocketing cost of heating oil for the coming winter, wood stoves are suddenly in great demand along with firewood.  The price is $90/cord more than last fall and expected to climb higher; the supply will likely become unavailable by late fall.  I've got to cut down all the overgrown bamboo (Japanese knotweed), clear out the wood racks (buried in this jungle somewhere) before the firewood is delivered -- in early July for crying out loud.  (Jul. 5, 2008)

Repair of Chip Mate, the 9 foot Beacon Boats dinghy, was completed today.  (Jul. 6, 2008)

See:
The Dinghy Repair Project of 2008

Today I brought Chip Ahoy around Marblehead to Marblehead Harbor to have an eye strap and two micro-blocks put on the spreader for running up the radar reflector (see above).  While I had someone up at the spreaders, I had him replace the halogen bulb for the deck light, which I recently discovered wasn't working (delayed burn-out?); I previously replaced the steaming light just above it, blown from the lightning strike of 2006.  The trip around under motor was uneventful -- except for snagging a lobster pot buoy's line in the prop!  Fortunately, the outboard started up in neutral and I freed the boat by shifting it in and out of reverse at idle speed until the line unwound.  (Jul. 7, 2008)