I HATE SHOES

Chris and I left Newport and motored out of Narragansett Bay on Wednesday morning, still a little groggy from the bon voyage blowout the night before. The wind was expected to build out of the southwest that afternoon and I wanted to be at Block Island before that started. And after a blissfully uneventful five and a half hour motor sail, we were anchored. We spent the next two nights there waiting for the southwest breeze to tire itself out and a fresh northerly one to take its place. On Friday morning we weighed anchor and set out for Cape May. The breeze was a gentle 5-10 knots until compeltely dying at noon, the sails came down and the motor pushed us along until it filled in, this time from the northeast, at around sunset. During that afternoon, I witnessed something I hadn't seen before at sea. What started as one or two small flies buzzing around the boat had turned into what seemed like at least three dozen, of all varities, as well as a couple of flying ants and wasps. W...

After many days in the 90s sanding, painting and fixing stuff below the waterline, she was back on the hook last Thursday morning. As far as the inboard goes, I have finally realized that it is indeed the shifting cable, and only have to tweak it. So there it is, shes ready to head south with fresh bottom and topside paint, a working inboard and all of the rigging set to go. It took a little over a year, but I brought a 50 year old "classic plastic" back from the verge of being hacked up and crushed. I have a couple of regattas in early/mid August on Weatherly  and after that I'll be pulling the hook up and starting the trip south. The plan is to head through Long Island sound, down the East River and pulling into an anchorage in New York harbor. I'll wait for a weather window and head to Cape May, possibly all the way to Norfolk if the weather holds. Then it'll be a few days of motoring along the ICW inside of Hatteras and through Beaufort, North Caro...

Soveraine  was hauled out on Monday afternoon. Things I was looking to accomplish: a bracket for the outboard I purchased, paint on the bottom and topsides, repair a through-hull in the head and take some play out of the rudder. There was a delay in getting my boat hauled so I figured I would get the transmission ready to take out since I had been talking to a guy in Connecticut who said he could get me in touch with someone who could rebuild it. About half way into the removal I discovered that the shifter cable was loose. This was interesting, could it be the cause of the sudden "slipping" of the transmission? I threw everything back together, turned the engine over and discovered yes, it certainly was. I now have a fully functional inboard again, and just after I purchased a brand new outboard! After she was out of the water, I scraped all the hard growth from the bottom which was in the amount of 5 gallons in volume, and roughly 10 lbs. A LOT of growth. I sanded the b...

After buying a used filter housing that kinda, sorta fit my engine and spending thirty something dollars on fittings, I threw in the towel on that option for a host of reasons. The weather cleared Friday evening and I had a revelation that I didn't need the hard copper piping since this was all upstream of the injector pump. A trip to West Marine ended in a bulkhead mounted Racor at 2 micron filtration downstream of my existing 30 micron Racor, plumbed to the fuel and injector pumps with flexible hosing. It worked perfectly. Elizabeth came into town on Friday and after picking up some supplies for lunch we were planning to sail to Block Island. When the key was turned and the ignition button pressed however, nothing happened: dead battery. I had read about, and knew I had, a manual crank starting option that I had not attempted before. With Elizabeth at the compression lever and my hands cranking as fast as possible, it started on the second try! By the time we had this sorted an...

I honestly didn't think this winter was going to end. Even after the first sail on Lyra, even after 7 charters on Weatherly, living aboard through a blizzard, a hurricane, countless smaller snow storms, freezing fog, a desk job, and a troop of high school swimmers, it still seems surreal I'm on the other side of it. Friends are making their way back into town, and have been trickling in over the past couple of weeks. Every day I count more boats in the anchorage and mooring field. The pulse of Newport slowly begins to strengthen as she shakes off a long, cold hibernation. It was a strange path that led me back here and this past winter punctuated it well. Soveraine  is reborn as well, and when I get a new turnbuckle this afternoon she will be seaworthy for the first time since I've had her, and I'd guess a long bit before then too. The chainplates are finally complete and they mark the end of a long, long list of essential items I knew I had to tackle when I purchased...

I knew full well when I got Soveraine  that the transmission was stuck in forward. I thought it was probably a linkage issue that would be easily fixed. Once that possibility was ruled out, I toyed with the idea of leaving it stuck in forward, since I had throttle control. I would really only need reverse and neutral coming into a dock, and, and in all practicality not even for that. I got to the dock I'm at now slowly coasting in after cutting the engine a few yards before gliding alongside it. No sweat. But, since I have the time, I decided to get it looked at professionally. A friend of all Newport boaters and a lifetime diesel mechanic John Whitney came over to look at it and promptly said it had to come out for him to really diagnose it. He said it probably was just a worn part that needed to be replaced (he even narrowed it down to one or two specific pieces, given an exploded diagram of the reverse gear), not a huge deal, just not something he could do with it sitting in m...

**WARNING: Due to the blizzard in Newport, I have written a technical blog post detailing how I went about designing new chainplates. It is dry as a bone and there is only one, uninteresing picture. You have been warned. I should also mention that to the right of this post is a link to Amazon and you should see some products scrolling by. These are not random ones chosen by Amazon, but ones I have personally hand-picked because I use them almost daily. I'll go into more detail about them in subsequent blog posts. You'll also see a sprinkling of books, movies and other media I come across that I've found interesting, useful and/or inspirational. Yes, I do get a small kickback from each sale, but in return you get a product that has not only met my standards, but has held up to my daily use in the marine environment. Chainplates are important. For the uninitiated, they hold your mast up and keep you sailing in all kinds of weather. Not something to skimp on. I discovered ...