Sovereign Nations

Sailing the boat, as much as possible, and in as many weather situations as we can get ourselves into, before we leave for Scotland is the only way to insure our comfort and safety on the long passages to come.

The weather has been so spectacular as of late, with sunny cool days and lots of fresh wind, making our day sails as adventurous as any we anticipate in the spring.

This last Saturday we cast-off on glass water at about 0930 and by the time we made it under the Key Bridge (about 3 nautical miles from our moorings) we had two reefs in the main and a shortened foresail, it was incredible sailing and the boat performed flawlessly!

We sailed most of the day with winds ranging from 15 knots all the way up to 30 knots of sustained gusts and only put the lee-boards in the water once.

We are both getting a real-feel for the way this boat sails and communicates with us. She (S/V Itinerant) can get extremely squirrely quick if we’re not anticipating the trim in heavy winds but like I said, she communicates well with us and we’re learning to respond in kind.

After an absolutely perfect sail like this last weekend I’d be inclined to quote Lin and Larry with a, “Go Now, Go Cheap!”

…But we both are very much aware of how much winter there is left in these latitudes.

So, we’ll wait, after all, “The prudent sailor survives.”

First: Dena built the panel whilst I cut the forward solar panel-mount pieces.

Dena (above) turns 36 years old this next week… She is an incredible writer, a fantastic marine electrician,  a pretty good mechanic, a damn fine woodworker and a grit-yer-teeth and get-her-done plumber, She’s an intuitive lover and by-far my best friend, ever! I love this woman with all my heart and can’t wait for the next adventure. Happy Birthday my love…

…  Didn’t I tell you? Fantastic!!!

Then: I wired the solar panel above decks and Dena did the interior panel for the Solar Panel, The Mast and the LED lighting.

And of course we went sailing on thanksgiving… So’s we could test the gear you know (wink).

We did get around to hooking that propane heater back up as well as the clock, the barometer and the all important paper towel rack. So now the boat is ready for another winter in Fells point and we’re ready to celebrate Dena’s birthday on the boardwalk empire, winter’s off to a good start.

We lifted the stripped mast on to the deck and rigged it up on deck. The day was, at this point, perfect…

… With the wind generator tied off and the boat and crew ready to DO THIS THING!!!

… We hoisted our mast. The new wind-direction-indicator was telling us that it was our last chance to “beat the storm” (HA!!!) back to the slip. It kicked up a bit on the way back home but the rig was totally in place and the crew was elated, The Mast Was Back UP!!!

Not a creak, not a groan, every single piece went in place and it was an awesome feeling.

We even beat the storm that put the rig to the test that night. (When does that ever happen?!)

…So, next!

Ms Irene wasn’t that mean after all.  No spankings were administered.

See how happy I am?  Why am I so happy?  I don’t think this post will really answer that question…so it must be because I love the photographer.

What is that, you ask?  Why it’s the crack in the bulkhead under our mast.  I uncovered it a little while back when I took the veneer off.  That’s the forward side.  The aft side is no better.

That is also the reason for this post.

Remember way back when?  When we got knocked down and broke the port side forward lower chainplate right in half.  Weeeeelll, that also had the effect of pulling loose the bolts holding down the mast step.  We tried tightening, we tried loosening.  We learned that two of the bolts were installed between the horizontal and vertical parts of the compression system.

Invisible.

And untouchable.  In order to re-seat the step, we were going to have to take apart the compression system.  Which you don’t want to do with the mast in place.

So we researched getting the mast pulled and every yard we talked to quoted megabucks.  The last quote was such an insult that we left the marina we were berthed in, in order to get away from the madness.

Then we read about and discussed pulling the mast using a buddy boat (I’d do it with two boats, but our one “buddy” wasn’t really an option).  And then it was all about building an a-frame mast tower on the deck.

There are plenty of resources about doing this already on the web.  Suffice to say, we went and bought some 2x4s and a bunch of big ol’ bolts.

And we cut and we bolted.  After wrestling this contraption onto the deck, we attached the mainsheet rig to the apex and prepared to haul it up against the mast.

And up it went…

TOO SHORT!

The rig was beautiful and would have worked perfectly.  It was completely stable fore and aft, port and starboard.  But alas.  It was too goddamn short.

We needed to be able to pull from several feet above the spreaders, but this thing barely reached them.  So it was back to square one.  Now that we’d moved the boat, however, the nearest boatyard was Tidewater Yacht Services.  So perhaps that other yard did us a favor by running us out of their marina with their silliness.

On our way in, we had some military scenery.

Ominous, yes?  Those guys are always good with the names.

And we met a yard worker named James, who drove the crane over and left.  We waited for the yard’s rigger.

The whole experience was fantastic, once it got going.  The workers were efficient and treated us with respect.  We’re the kind of boaters who want to do our own work and many other yards wouldn’t have let us aboard, let alone take part in the mast’s actual removal.

You are looking at James (right) and Steve from Tidewater Yacht Service.    Steve is the rigger and James seems to be a crane operator, though I doubt that’s the extent of it.  For one thing, he climbed our rickety ratlines after they’d been disconnected from the chainplates and were hanging loose at the bottom.  This was a nerve-wracking procedure.

The crane is in place, the rig is loose, and the lower shrouds are disconnected.

The two Jameses worked together on disconnecting the aft stay.  Removing the SSB antenna from the insulator at the base of the backstay was a bit of a science project.

The last stage was removing the upper shrouds, and he’s still smiling.

I guided the wires through the pipe between the mast and inside the boat, then ran back on deck to get the photo above.  With the backstay removed and the forestay, roller furler, and foil pulled to the mast, the crane lifted the weight of the mast straight up.  The aluminum extrusion slid out of the stainless step without a hitch.

James and Steve guided the base of the mast toward the bow and the other James lowered the weight of the mast directly onto the hard dodger.  It worked.  There were handshakes and thanks, some flashing of plastic money, and we motored back to our slip.

We stripped the mast of all parts that could get caught on things as we maneuvered it off the boat.

We marked all the pieces as we took them off: spreaders, stays, shrouds, topping lift, and all the halyards.

While removing the halyards, we had to leave pull lines in the masthead.  Leading the halyards over the sheaves with no line?  Not to be considered.

We left this block because we were going to use it later…keep your eyes peeled.

Looking up the mast from the base, it looks like it’s in pretty good shape.  The wires are in good condition and it’ll be easy to put that back together.

Next step – get the mast off the boat.  This is a big deal.  This is two people maneuvering hundreds of pounds of expensive bulk from one moving surface to another moving surface during peak water-taxi hours.  Meaning: wake.

We get tossed around a fair bit in this slip, and we knew we couldn’t count on a calm spell.  We had to be ready to keep working and protect the mast and boat as best we could.  So we didn’t take any pictures during that part.  So sue me.

The answer was to use the toerail as the fulcrum point and then treat the mast like a lever.  We slid it forward until it touched the ground and then heaved the high side off the boat.

This is how heavy that mast was:

Taking the mast and rigging off raised our waterline by three inches!

Once the mast was on the dock (so much easier said than done), we had to move it into position.  Note the whisker pole topping lift sheave – the one you’ve already seen.

We had to pull the mast onto the finger pier so that it wouldn’t block traffic and so that we could make sure it didn’t get bounced into the water.  Shiver.

Our boat is in bits and pieces, but they’re well-secured bits and tightly tied pieces.

Then the storm hit and we took the rest of the day off.  Next, removing the mast step from the deck.

Puff chasing, we made our way from Frog Mortar Creek out to Middle River and down to Hart-Miller island.  The wind died altogether as we rounded Pooles Island and, on glass, we motored to our anchorage for the night.

Fairlee Creek is known to be a tricky place to enter.  There’s a nice big red marker and then a flurry of small red and green cans that end just before the pinch.  The pinch being a 90 degree turn into a shallow spot between two beaches that are 20 feet apart.  That part?  We get to figure that part our ourselves.

This is the narrowest entrance that we’ve been through, and we didn’t go through without a small amount of travail.  We bumped, we grounded, and then a nice man waded out to us and asked, “How much water to you need to float this boat?”

Dena’s response was, “Oh, honey, you are so sunburned!”

The nice man was unphased by that comment.  He seemed inured to the pain of red skin.  Perhaps it was a permanent color rather than a summer thing.

He shoved and shoved, and lo and behold, we floated right off that shoal.  Motoring gently, we entered the beautiful bay of Fairlee Creek, where the depths range between 8′ and 5′.

We set the anchor about mid-way through the main bay, maintaining some distance from the black Rinker from which issued cheesy music and screaming kids.

The hot, still air called for swimming, and I was not to be stopped.  When I realized I was starving, James helped me out…

And then he jumped in as well!

We floated around, swam, and watched the boat turn with the tide.  Happy with our holding, we launched the dink and James rowed us to the spit that hooks around to protect the bay.

We got out to walk the beach and pulled the dink up on the pebbles of the protected side.  The Bay side of the spit was a rocky, tan sand

I came back so James could see this weird piece of metal.

And sat quietly, minding the dingy and letting myself soak up the peacefulness of the place.

The large sign screaming BAR made us want to slake our thirst and we rowed over for a meal and some drinks.  But alas – the place is only open on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  Sigh.

This is what we saw when we came back down to the dock, and the vision was enough to make us happy we gave it a try.

Still water and slight wind allowed us a very peaceful night’s sleep, though it was too hot to share the v-berth.  One in the berth and one on the settee, we slept deeply and well.  We woke at 7am so that we could ride the high tide during the slack current leaving Fairlee Creek and this time, we beat the channel!

The osprey put on a little show as we gained the red marker.

Then we were out and sailing!  We had great wind all the way across the bay, on a broad reach and kicking 5 knots in about 5-10 knots of wind.  It was a great example of efficient use of the breeze.

Entering the mouth of the Patapsco River, the wind began to die and we turned to run before it.  We kept the jib up and full until we got past the Francis Scott Key Bridge.

But we had to roll it up and motor before we hit Ft McHenry.

We tied up to the t-head at the dock and rowed our slip-lord’s Boston Whaler to a different spot before taking our accustomed position in Belt’s Wharf, Fells Point, Baltimore, MD.  And here we are, home again home again.

We almost died!

No, we didn’t.  We had a great, wonderful, amazing three-day sail and do-nothing vacation.

But that doesn’t make the best story, eh?

So here’s what happened.

The trip started out ten minutes before we left the dock.  James got the call that told him he wouldn’t be managing the Port Townsend West Marine, a position he’d done a phone interview for and didn’t really want.  I was at the marina’s head and he’d forgotten about it by the time I got back to the boat.

That was a representative moment.  We left this dock and left our usual mindsets and worries behind.  Literally.

We put up sails where Frog Mortar Creek empties into Middle River.  After three hours of tacking between Hart-Miller Island and Pooles Island, we sailed, laughing, through three squalls.

Just after the first squall, we decided to gybe and pull a reef in the main.  We made the gybe safely but had the sails in too tight for the next maneuver.  Our now-considerable experience with being quickly overwhelmed by wind in this boat kept us alive to what we were doing, and as soon as the rig registered the tension, as soon as the sails groaned and the boat heeled to 20 degrees, James tossed off the jib sheet and Dena released the main.

There.  Done.

One exciting moment averted.

James went forward and pulled the reef in.  He got the forward three reef ties and Dena got the aft two.  By the time we had the boat broad to the wind again, it had eased.  We exchanged wry grins and shook the reef back out.

The rest of our sailing was characterized by rain that obscured the Eastern Shore, followed by glorious jesus beams and the blur of timelessness.  We didn’t keep track of how long we’d been out, and weren’t all that concerned with exactly when we’d arrive.  We’d get there when the boat got us there, and we hoped it was before dark.

We arrived around 7pm in full daylight and nosed into the north side of Swan Creek.  The chart showed the major buoys, but someone had added two red cans at the first big curve and shoal and three green cans at the second.  We did sounding on the shore side of the green cans and then in the bend right before them.  We dropped the main anchor, a 25 pound Bruce, in 8 feet of water, paid out the chain and set it hard.  Adding a bunch of rode put us riding back in 5 feet and we felt like that was plenty.

Dena was forced by her overweening sense of responsibility to dive in and try to check the anchor.  AKA, Dena went swimming.  The water was murky and the anchor wasn’t visible, but she did find out that we’ll need the zinc on the prop shaft replaced soon.

We made cocktails from Absolute Citron and Lipton Half and Half (lemonade and tea).  We sat in the cockpit as the light faded from the sky and shared our first Cuban cigar.  That set the stage for the rest of the 36 hours we spent there.

It was perfect.

Our day off had perfect wind, perfect sun, perfect temperature and humidity.  We made enough power to run everything, even the refrigerator, and it confirmed that we can live like that.

We swam and drank.  Dena read aloud from The Sotweed Factor, by John Barth, which is written in 18th century prose and is laugh-out-loud funny.  We both slathered sunscreen on all day and still got minor sunburns.

The hardest work we did was sailing our dinghy to the nearest marina for ice.  Even the ride back from that was perfect sailing, the wind taking us back to the boat in two tacks.

Highlight of the day: Dena taking off her swimsuit bottoms and a poor little fish falling out.  It was stunned, with a look as though it had seen god on its tiny little fishy face.

The wind changed during the day and we got closer to the shoal to the east.   James discovered this fact when he jumped from the dinghy into the water onto a pile of rocks.  We used low tech sounding equipment to find the depths all around the boat (finding bottom with our feet and holding our hands up to show the depth).  We decided we were alright because of the flooding tide, but needed to keep an eye out.

As the wind picked up and dark fell, we took fixes on multiple points on shore so we’d know if we moved.  We expected to swing in a semi-circle around the anchor as the tide changed, but needed to keep off the shoal.  A beautiful night, talking and drinking.  When we decided to go to bed, the boat had swung a bit closer to shore and Dena felt edgy about it.  After very little time in our berth, we got back up and decided we needed to put out our second anchor.

We dug the Fortress anchor out from the lazarette and grabbed the longest line we had.  Dena got in the little boat and rowed to the bow while James tied the line to the anchor with a bowline.  He paid out the rode while Dena stroked her way out toward the channel.  The Fortress got tossed off the stern of the dinghy, James hauled in until it set, and Dena rowed back to the boat.  It was more simple than either of us could believe and we slept like rocks all the windy night.

When we arose, the boat had swung and we now had our two anchors strung out before us.  All of the tension was on the Fortress, but the two rodes hadn’t tangled, so we were perfectly satisfied.  We rowed to the marina and left the dinghy there.  We didn’t feel like cleaning up after ourselves, so we got directions from a local dog-walker to the nearest greasy spoon (Pasta Plus?) and made the mile and a half walk.  Though it was nice to stretch our legs, we were perfectly happy being back on the boat.

One more swim for Dena and we started cleaning up to go.  The boat was back together, dinghy on deck, and we were underway by noon.  That’s after us talking about fucking off as much of the day as possible.  There just wasn’t that much work.

Sails up just past the last green, wind generator making power, solar panels gleaming, the wind blowing at 10-15 knots and pushing us to hull speed.

We made long tacks from one side of the bay to the other and backed into our slip at Maryland Marina around 5pm on Friday.  Yet another cover band was massacring music that wasn’t good in the original versions and we ate, showered, and slept, but not as peacefully or as enjoyably as we had at anchor in Rock Hall.