I HATE SHOES

Exactly eight weeks to the day after injuring my foot, I am back in Baltimore ready to continue to make my way south. Soveraine looks as good (if not better thanks to the rain and not dragging up mud with the anchor) as when she left, thanks to Chris for putting her to bed so well. Not a moment too soon either, the temperature has dropped considerably and is supposed to be in the upper 30s tomorrow night. We'll head out tomorrow or Friday morning, depending on when Zach (a fellow 12 meter sailor) can get his butt to Baltimore. Pearce is the third crew, he has some 420 sailing experience and should round us out nicely. We'll sail down the Chesapeake into Norfolk and through the ICW/Albemarle Sound to Beaufort, with a possible stop to see another friend who lives on the outer banks. That should take a total of 5 days. From there we'll wait for weather and hop outside to Charleston, just about the same distance from Block Island to Cape May so that should take around 4...

What a nightmare, I thought to myself in that state of half awake/half asleep before even opening my eyes. My dream consisted of a trip to the ER and a diagnosis of a broken heel, which would have certainly put a damper on plans for heading south. But wait, why does my left foot feel tight and constrained? I cracked my left eye open and an unfamiliar ceiling lay above me. Tilting my head up and gazing down at a mass of cotton and Ace bandages confirmed reality. The plan was to head south to Norfolk on Wednesday morning. On Monday night Chris and I went out for dinner and, long story short, I jumped 7' from a wall along the boardwalk to the sidewalk below and when I tried to get up, couldn't support my own weight. Some hours later, the ER doctor told me I had broken my heel. I took a taxi back to the dock where Chris was supposed to meet me, but his phone was on silent so I asked the driver to take me to a cheap hotel. He ended up taking me to Willdwood, a bizarre grid of chea...

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...

Out of the 12 days so far in June, its rained for about 10 of them. Two more tomorrow and Friday, and it looks like three out of the seven of next week. This has put a damper on both the Weatherly  charters I make my money from as well as working on and sailing my own boat in prep for the departure later this summer. Which brings me to my next subject. I've been fielding a lot of questions as to when and where I'll be going once I leave Newport. In all honesty: it's still up in the air, the whole thing, and will be up until I'm actually there. I'd love to sail to Block Island. Sure, I'd also really like to make it to Florida. Maybe the Bahamas or Mexico, or even Cuba? Point is, I'm in Newport right now and this voyage isn't entirely about the destination. Wherever I am, that's where I'll be. To be frank though, there are some outlying engine issues that may put a hindrance on travel. In an attempt to fix a fuel leak, I found the filter housing ...