Sail Pandora

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Last weekend my son Christopher visited me in Mystic for a weekend aboard Pandora.  Our plan was to head over to Shelter Island for a rendezvous with other SAGA 43 owners.  While just over 50 of these boats were made, we were able to assemble 5 of them for an evening of fun over drinks in Pandora’s cockpit.   As is so often the case when you want to sail, there just wasn’t enough wind so we motored much of the 25 miles there and back.

However, prior to leaving for Shelter, we took in the Wooden Boat Show at Mystic Seaport, a show that you just don’t want to miss if you love boats, wood or otherwise.   The display of big and little boats, all wonderful and VARNISHED like you’d hate if you had to do it yourself.

How would like to be responsible for all this varnish?  You’d need a crew with brushes just to keep up.  Yikes!!!  But wait, they do have a crew.  Of course, if you have someone delivering your G&Ts you probably don’t have to put on a painter’s hat anyway.  In this case, I am thinking “another Pims Jeeves, and be snappy about it”.

As I write this I could certainly see this as an appealing option and it as a cold one would fit right in about now as we sail along about 5 miles north of Block Island headed to Martha’s Vineyard.  The wind is on the Port quarter and we are moving along at a stately 5.5kts.   The sun is shining, there’s  fair wind.  How idyllic…

Well, back to last weekend’s boat show.  Here’s a perfect hatch aboard Spartan a recently rebuilt NY 50.  It’s just back in the water after a 4 year rebuild.  Everything about this boat is perfect.   Acres of teak decks and a crew of 6.  When we were standing there there was a swarm of able bodies using chamois (plural?) to dry off every speck of water lest it leave a water mark.  Heaven’s no…not a water spot!  Spartan is the only one of her kind left of a fleet of 9 launched in 1915 for members of the New York Yacht Club.  This link is to a site from a boatyard that had acquired Spartan as old hulk that was soliciting someone to rebuild her.  The photos of her under sail are something to behold.  This is indeed a yacht.  Interestingly, she is really a day sailor and not equipped for ocean sailing.  That makes her one massive day sailor at 72′ overall. 

It’s not all about big and expensive. Here are a dock load of wonderful small boats.  There were literally hundreds of boats at the show built and maintained by amateurs.   However, you have to love varnish and working on boats to own one of these babies.

Amazon isn’t much wider than Pandora and is nearly three times her length.  No wonder she slips easily through the water.  What a wonderful boat, one of a small number that has survived from the Victorian era.

Now it’s 13:30 and the wind has freshened a bit to 14kts with 10.5 apparent and we are moving nicely at 6.5kts.  We have decided to go to Cuttyhunk which is located at the western end of the Elizabeth Islands just west of Martha’s Vineyard.  Check out the article in Power and Motor Yacht about the island.  It’s wonderful to be making time like this under sail and we should be in early enough for “opening time”.  Unfortunately, it seems that Jeeves has gone AWOL so we will have to fend for ourselves.  It’s so hard to find good help these days.  Perhaps there will be a proper yacht anchored nearby that will lend their “man” to assist.  Hmm, perhaps not.  One can always wish, can’t one?

This week when Brenda and I returned to Mystic and Pandora to head up to Martha’s Vineyard for a week aboard.  One thing that we particularly enjoy when we visit Mystic is an evening cruise aboard the Sabino, a 1908 steamboat at Mystic Seaport that runs cruises down the Mystic River to Noank and back each evenings.  Our routine, since the early 80s, is to bring a bottle of wine and jhors-d’oeuvres so we can properly enjoy teh 90 minute cruise.  Oddly, having done this for many years, alost know one else ever seems to have the same idea, so we ate alone.  Bummer for them.  It’s an idyllic way to spend time as and we sat in the bow alone and undisturbed.  Here’s Brenda holding our spot.

Of course, what blog post would be complete without a shot of Pandora in the evening light taken from aboard Sabino. 

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As I write this, it’s 2pm on Saturday June 12th and we are about 40 miles south of Long Island headed to Montauk.  The winds have filled in nicely from the south at nearly 20kts (one knot is 1.1 statute or land mile per hour).  With the wind behind us and at a good speed, we have been clipping along at a nice rate of speed for much of the day, reeling off the miles as we head toward Montauk, the eastern most point of Long Island.

Being on Pandora when the conditions are like this is quite exhilarating as it was conditions like theses that she was designed and built for.  Today she had bursts of speed at 9.3 kts and steady, hour after hour, speeds in excess of 8kts, a respectable rate of speed for any boat.

On Thursday afternoon I met up with my crew and we made our way to Annapolis to prepare to bring Pandora to CT and her next “home” in Mystic CT where she will be for the second half of June and into late July, when we take her to Maine.

With a total of 4 crew, including me, we would have enough on board to handle the boat if things got messy, and I felt secure knowing that each of them had good offshore experience.  Here’s Burt and Dick, two of the three. One was catching up on sleep down below.

As I wrote in a past post, I did some upgrades to my rig over the winter to prepare Pandora for offshore sailing. When the going gets tough, you have to be prepared to sail under reduced rig and a storm jib is a must.  Here’s a shot of my jib hoisted prior to departure.  Glad that the guys at Quantum Sails got the measurements right.  Now we are ready!

Taking a boat out into the ocean, especially a small vessel like Pandora requires lots of safety gear.  Aboard we have key gear to keep us safe in the event of  a “water landing” as they say on the airlines.  We have a liferaft and EPIRB (a transmitter, registered to Pandora that will alert the authorities via satellite if we get into trouble.  You may have heard that they young teen sailor Abby Sunderland had hers go off recently when her boat Wild Eyes was dismasted in the Indian Ocean.  Her EPIRB was able to alert rescuers and she was found and picked up by a fishing boat that steamed to her rescue.

You can’t be too careful as miles from land you won’t last long in the water without the proper gear.  

Here’s a shot of me sitting near the mast as we headed toward Montauk, clipped on of course, wearing an inflatable vest.   Everyone on Pandora must clip on to the boat whenever they are out of the cabin at night and on deck at any time when we are off shore and the winds are up.  It’s very hard to get someone back on board and especially tough when conditions are rough.  When it’s dark,  the odds are not good at all that someone overboard will be found.

Our trip from Annapolis took s north in the bay, through the C&D canal and down the Delaware River.  The river runs hard, combining tide and current so for much of our run down the river we were making better than 10kts over the bottom even though we were motoring in calm conditions.

However, a few hours before we passed Cape May and the mouth of the Delaware, the tide and current turned against us and our progress slowed to under 5kts over the bottom. The current can make a tremendous difference in boat speed as we were still making close to the same speed through the water.   A combination of current and a freshening wind on the nose slowed us down.

Green power?  Some think so.  It’s a good thing that the Salem nuclear plant is so close to Atlantic City as the lights were really bright in AC when we passed it in the wee hours of Saturday morning.  This plant is the biggest thing on the lower Delaware.

 We passed Cape May just after dark on Friday and began to make our way up the coast making our way toward Montauk point at the eastern end of Long Island New York.

When making a passage we have to keep the boat moving around the clock as there’s no way to just stop and sleep without diverting to a harbor miles away.  In order to make sure that everyone is kept rested and fresh, we divide the crew into watches.  In this case there are four of us so that’s two in each watch.  Beginning at 8pm, there are two of us on deck at any given time, with the off duty watch down below resting and catching up on sleep.  Our watches for this trip last 3 hours which gives a reasonable amount of time to sleep between time on deck.

While we ran the engine all the way to Cape May, a distance of about 100 miles, the wind filled in nicely from the south over night allowing us to sail much of the time.   The wind lightened up considerably later in the morning but ended up freshening again and is now blowing 20kts, a perfect amount of wind for this point of sail.  Of course, when you are running with the wind the actual speed of the wind seems like a lot less given that the boat speed is subtracted from the actual wind speed.   So far, our speed maxed out at 10.3 kts.  Not bad.

 As of now we have been underway from 4:45am on Friday morning, about 34 hours, and have covered 241 miles through the water at an average speed of 6.8kts.  A respectable speed to cover distance.

There’s a lot of ship traffic in the Delaware and this particular ship is one of the more interesting.  I can’t imagine what it must carry given these massive cranes on deck.  Imagine how she rolls in a seaway?  Perhaps they are put down on deck when the going gets rough.  The color, not common for a ship.  Perhaps a better color for a Mini Cooper car.  It does show up well thought.

 We expect to reach Montauk in the very early hours of Sunday and will make our way up to Mystic where we will leave Pandora and make our way home.

With all the dredging that’s done on the Delaware, there are piles of fill on each side of the channel.  The constant currents are pushing all the sand around and it requires near constant dredging.  It’s hard to imagine that ships could have made it up to Philadelphia, more than 100 miles from the ocean prior to power dredging.  And, with the currents, what a tough trip it must have been under sail.  

Who can resist a shot off the stern of Pandora to see how wonderful the conditions are.  Even though we are making time, it’s quite calm and steady aboard. 

>It’s been a while since I last wrote about Jessica Watson, the young Australian Girl that sailed around the world, returning just a few weeks ago.  It seems that Jess has been hard at work, and was while she sailed aboard Ella’s Pink Lady, writing her book which is now scheduled to be available in August. 

Her new book True Spirit sounds like it will be a fun read and I for one will have to get a copy. 

You can check out more of what she has been up to by going to this link.  And some more detail about her book, True Spirit is here. 

As any self respecting 16 year old solo circumnavigating sailor would do, Jess filmed a promotional video for her book in the middle of the Indian Ocean that I found on YouTube. 

The book, according to her website…
 “she details the extensive preparation she and her team made for the big voyage, her journey and the battles she fought along the way – against sleep deprivation, gale-force winds, mountainous seas and the solitude most of us can only imagine. When she sailed back into Sydney Harbour on 15 May 2010, after 210 days at sea, she was cheered in by a huge crowd that included Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. To many, Jessica was our newest hero. She disagreed, saying she wasn’t a hero, “just an ordinary girl who had a dream and worked hard at it and proved that anything is possible”. This is her story. About Jessica: Jessica was born on 18 May 1993 on Australia’s Gold Coast. She left Sydney Harbour on her quest to become the youngest person to sail solo, non-stop and unassisted around the world on 18 October 2009 and arrived home triumphant seven months later. “

Further, somewhat random, details about her voyage are…

Some facts from the book:
• Jessica sailed more than 24,000 nautical miles in seven months
• Her favourite meal on the journey was steak & kidney pie heated in the onboard pressure cooker
• She suffered six knockdowns (when the mast goes underwater) during her journey, including four in one particularly bad storm off the Falkland Islands during 70-knot winds and 10m waves
• Jessica took with her 32 tins of spam, 150l of milk, 64 tins of potatoes and 160 popper drinks

Meanwhile, Abby Sunderland, another teen trying to sail around the world, had her voyage meet an unhappy end with her boat Wild Eyes was dismasted during a storm in the Indian Ocean.  Fortunately, Abby was rescued by a fishing boat and will take several weeks to find her way home.  She says that she is writing a book too.  I’ll bet she is, and it should be an interesting to read given all of the difficulties that she encountered along the way.

Now, all I have to do is to find another sailing voyage to follow. Any suggestions?

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St. Michaels Maryland on Memorial Day weekend. That’s where we have been for the last few days, enjoying the local color, the maritime museum and the views, both aboard and on shore. I have to say that this resort community on the Eastern Shore is a really wonderful place to visit, on season or off. Our last visit here was after Labor Day if I recall and aside from the hotter temperatures, its going to get up to the high 80s today, it’s a really wonderful place. After recalling all of our Memorial Day trips aboard over the years and the stunningly cold water of Long Island Sound, the nearly 80 degree water here, so early in the season, is quite a contrast.

With the summer sailing season just getting into swing up in New England, we’ve been sailing for over a month now. What a difference in mentality with the marinas switching to summer rates as of April 1st. In a short time Pandora will head up to Mystic CT for a month and then on to Maine for August.

I started a new business several month ago with a long time associate from my days at Dowden Health Media. Our business is focused on working with medical societies and university education departments with whom we will be developing educational programs for health care providers including physicians and others.

The reason that I mention this is that my partner Cathy and I are working hard and are committed to keeping the business “virtual” as long as we can. It’s been hard work but rewarding so far. When I say virtual, I mean that we want to be able to work where ever we are. In my case, that means working aboard Pandora some of the time.  

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to work aboard and now I can, at least part of the time.   It’s hard to stay focused when you are surrounded by so many distractions. However, when the fear of new business failure lurking, staying focused is easier than you would think.  Actually, the hardest thing has been the heat but when we are away from the dock, working has been a fairly straight forward affair with conference calls and other activities.  

A big help has also been the installation of a cell phone booster that I had installed over the winter when Pandora’s mast was out for painting. The booster has already proven it’s worth as local cell coverage is spotty on the bay around Annapolis. For example, in the slip where we have been keeping Pandora, I am lucky to get one bar on my phone. However, slip the phone into the cradle and I have three bars. That’s the difference between clear and dropped calls. Something that’s critical when the calls are for business.

Anyway, enough about work. The local sights of St. Michaels are wonderful with shady tree lined streets with historic homes lining the quiet side streets. Here’s a few pictures of some homes that caught my eye.

 Very few brick homes around here.  This one was moved from another location a few years ago.  Really quite unusual for the area.

We have admired this home during past visits. Notice the arts and crafts fans as well as the outdoor floor lamp.  Really a great place to sit and drink iced tea or perhaps an “adult beverage”.

Oh yeah.  Last night we had a bunch of steamed crabs, Maryland style.  What a mess.  When I asked the guy at the fish market how many we should buy to be sure we had enough, his answer was.  “My grandfather used to say “you eat crabs until you are tired, not until you are full”.  That’s about right, as I got tired after an hour of picking and yet could have eaten more. 

I also want to mention a great tip that my friend and fellow SAGA owner Keith told me about getting water without going to a dock.  That’s a particularly important thing for us as we tend to run out of water faster than fuel and going to a busy fuel dock just to get water in the tanks makes us unpopular with some.  Kieth suggested that I get some collapsible jugs and just fill them when I am ashore. What a great idea. It takes just a few minutes to fill four of five gallon jugs and pouring them into the boat with  a large funnel is a snap.  I can’t believe that it took 30 years of sailing to learn this.  Not news to you?  It sure is for me.   Now water usage isn’t as much of an issue aboard Pandora.  Besides, going to a dock isn’t Brenda’s favorite things so getting water this way is one less “career limiting move” for me too. 

Tonight we head back up north to the Magothy river for a visit with some friends and the next day, back home and to reality.  However in about a week it will be time to head up to Mystic as our next home away from home.

>Some terrific clips of the coverage of Jessica’s homecoming.  They are posted as a series.  Fun to look at.

I hope that you are able to take the time to watch this series of videos that takes you from Jessica miles outside of the harbor to her news conference.

The first one is a lead up to her arrival in the harbor. 

The next one is an interview of Jessica’s parents aboard the VIP boat waiting for her to arrive in the harbor.

Edition 3 overviews the voyage and route that she took.

This segment is an interview over the Sat Phone with Jess from local newscasters as she makes her way the last miles to Sydney.

This segment a bit of the story behind Jessica’s decision to sail around the world when she was 14 years old.

Enjoy a ring side seat as Jess nears the finish line after 23,000 miles of sailing.

Jessica crosses the line.

I posted this one the other day and while the quality is not that great as it was posted by someone that just videotaped it off of their TV. It’s the only segment that I was unable to find in the series that had been posted. It’s of her first steps ashore after coming up to the dock at the Opera House. A very emotional moment indeed as she greets her family after 7 months at sea, alone.

Jessica speaks to the thousands who came out to see her at the Sydney Opera House. And, she did so with remarkable style and poise.

Jessica’s news conference after her arrival.

Wrap up of the news conference.

That’s all for now. Now that she has made it back safely, it will be interesting to see what happens next for this remarkable young women.

>My son Rob and I were joined by our good friends Joe and Luke for our “annual Guy’s Weekend”  in Annapolis aboard Pandora.  On Thursday evening we rendezvoused, arriving from NJ, CT, NYC and Pittsburgh to spend a few days together aboard Pandora and see some of the sights of the Chesapeake and Annapolis.   Unlike some past years when we have faced rain and challenging conditions, this weekend had really terrific weather.  On Thursday evening we had dinner aboard with the plan of heading out the following morning.  The weather patterns for the weekend called for moderate to strong SW winds on Friday followed by a shift overnight to fresh NW on Saturday.  With this in mind, we headed out on a reach to Rock Hall on the Eastern Shore, a much different, and decidedly slower pace than near Annapolis.  We dropped the hook around the corner from Rock Hall Harbor in Swan Creek.  

After we arrived, we headed for shore and rented bikes.  This marina just past the mooring field in “The Haven” was a very nice place to get ashore and for $5 each we headed out to explore Rock Hall.   This is a nice shot of the Club House at the marina.

As predicted by the weather service, which called for 50% chance of thunderstorms, we were treated to a fantastic light show from the passing cold front.  This shot of the growing thunderhead to the west was a clue as to what would happen next.  Later in the evening we were hit with some pretty impressive gusts, enough to knock everything that wasn’t secured onto the floor.  I would guess that the brief gusts were upwards of 40-50kts. It was impressive but brief lived.  It’s a good thing that we have a big anchor, a 65lb Bruce and lots of heavy chain.

With a strong NW wind the following morning we headed out to Annapolis.  Our trip was quite lively as the wind increased to a gusty 15-18kt breeze and hard on the wind we blasted along, sometimes as fast as 8.5kts, nearly 10kts with the ebbing current, our way toward Annapolis. 

Annapolis on a busy Saturday is quite a scene and this visit wasn’t any different.  A view up Main Street gives you a feel for how crowded it can be. 

The harbor and out into the bay has all sorts of craft but it’s always busy.  This boat is a sandbagger, one of two, Bull and Bear.  These two identical boats are owned and campaigned by a wealthy New York financier who fancies wooden boats.  He supports these boats, in partnership with The National Hall of Fame and Sailing Center, as they are trucked around for various events. I am told that moving these around is quite an operation.  They are wonderfully maintained and quite impressive.   The program is designed to help expose young people to sailing.  Bull and Bear have a very nice website where you can learn more about these wonderful boats. Perhaps you can even find a way to get aboard for a sail.  Not a bad idea.

We also decided to spend some time walking around the Naval Academy and I have to say that I was impressed with how wonderful the grounds look.  It reminded me of the Naval College in Greenwich England.  I expect that the founding fathers were trying to say something about the young United States by evoking the look of a similar institution.  And, to this day, your tax dollars are hard at work.  What a view of the harbor. 

And, what’s a view of the harbor without a shot of Pandora on her mooring?

 And a shot of the Academy 40 footers, that they race on the bay and further away.  These are not cushy yachts at all.  They are beefy and powerful in every way. 

The buildings on campus are quite amazing to see.  No denying that there is European influence here.

 Several views of the dome on the chapel where John Paul Jones is entombed.

One of the many wonderful old historic homes just outside of the Academy walls. There’s lots to see in Annapolis and no shortage of folks doing just that. 

>Jessica Watson returned home to Sydney Harbor on Saturday to a crowd of thousands after sailing alone and unassisted around the world in seven months.  An amazing achievement by any account and yet not a record according to the world sail speed record governing body.  It seems that in order to earn the record itself, she would have had to sail a minimum number of miles that would have taken her higher into the northern hemisphere than she did in actuality.   This link provides a video of the reasoning behind the ruling.  To me, and thousands of others who welcomed her back to Sydney, her achievement is, non the less, an amazing feat by any measure.

This video is a very touching view of her homecoming and first steps on land.   More to come I am sure in the coming days.

It’s going to be a difficult transition for many, including me, as we have to adjust to a “Jessica blog free world” now that she has returned home.   Oh well. 

What an amazing achievement.

>After seven months at sea Jessica Watson is scheduled to arrive back home on May 15th after having circumnavigated the globe on a small boat with no outside assistance.  This is a major feat for anyone and especially for someone so young.  Jessica is only 16 years old. There has been considerable controversy about someone so young making such a voyage.  I, for one, am really impressed with how she has handled herself and with her crew for making sure that she had a boat that was easy on her, as easy as ocean sailing can be.

Jess’s trip has been widely followed in Australia with regular television interviews and even a call from the Prime Minister on “Australia Day” a while back.  Because of a desire to bring her in to port at a predictable time, she has made a point of timing her arrival for May 15th, tomorrow.  

I, for one, will miss following her voyage and will surely have a bit of withdrawal when she stops posting.   Today’s post, Thursday, is a particularly good one and worth reading.  While I know that she has been well coached to always put her best foot forward, it surely comes through that she has had a life changing experience.  In some ways she has changed things for many who have followed her for this last seven months.

Brenda and I surely wish that we could be there to welcome her home.  It’s been fun to follow along.

A video of a discussion with Jessica, her Mother as well as port officials was posted today and it certainly provides evidence of how her trip has captured the imagination of Australia.  I can only imagine how excited she, and her mother, must be. 

Here’s to one tough, determined lady, Jessica Watson on Ella’s Pink Lady about to complete a successful circumnavigation of the globe…alone.

>It’s amazing how quickly it became summer in Annapolis.  We spent the weekend on Pandora as our first real weekend aboard, beyond sleeping aboard while getting her ready for the water.

This last weekend we actually did some sailing, and with two other SAGA 43s.  Both couples, one we had met briefly prior to launch and the other that sailed down from Baltimore.  On Friday evening we made a very brief run from Sprig’s Pond, where Pandora is docked for the next few weeks, off across the Magothy River, north of Annapolis, and anchored behind a small island where we joined our new friends aboard St Somewhere.  Dave and Barbara, who retired last year, were just back from a trip south down the Inland Waterway and the Bahamas for the winter.

It was fun talking to them about their trip south for the winter and comparing notes on the details of their boat. It’s amazing how similar and yet different two identical boats can be.  As with most larger sailboats, SAGA 43s are built to order and are all semi-custom.

It seems that most folks don’t have photos of their boats sailing so I try to take shots of any boats we are with so I can share them.  Here’s a shot of St. Somewhere close hauled headed toward the Rhone River, south of Annapolis.  That’s about what Pandora looks like with only minor differences.

As I mentioned in previous posts, I am working to get Pandora in shape for offshore sailing and have been focused on heavy weather gear such as storm sails.  My current sail configuration is good to about 30kts (33mph) of wind and above that it’s very difficult, and dangerous to handle the boat.  With this in mind, I had a running forestay installed to hold a storm jib.  My largest forward sail, the genoa, is 600 square feet, a lot of sail. My inner staysail or jib, is about 400 square feet so I wanted to have a sail that could be set when it’s too windy for the outer larger sails, hence a storm jib of less than 200 square feet to be hanked on the inner, running stay.  A running stay is one that is designed to be attached and removed as needed so it won’t get in the way of the working sails.

In this case, the inner stay is attached to the deck about four feet behind my inner fixed stay.  Here’s  a shot of the stay in place.  Notice the lever setup that hooks it to the deck.  It’s pre-adjusted so that when it’s installed it’s at the correct tension.   As there is so much tension on s storm sail when the wind is up, this rig is backed up under the deck by a massive plate that is bolted to a firm bulkhead in the chain locker.   This way the stress of the sail is spread over a large area and is sure to hold.   Without the strong attachment point, the stay would rip the deck right off in a blow.  Not a good thing to have a gaping hole in the deck.  That would be bad, very bad.

 This is the same stay removed and stowed on the side of the mast, and out of the way.  It’s a pretty elegant solution, one that my rigger figured out.  Notice the curved stainless channel to the left.  It’s designed to ease the stay in a curve and get it out of the way.  Nice work.

A detail shot showing how the stay is attached to the port stay at the deck.  It’s a snap to move it from here forward, something that’s a necessity in storm conditions.  It’s got to be easy when the boat and deck are heaving all over the place in rough conditions.

Sometimes some of the most satisfying projects are the simplest.  This shot of the aft head shows a nifty addition that I made to the seat.  The problem is that when the boat is jumping around and you have to “use” the head and sit down, the seat tends to swing to one side with the motion of the boat, thus breaking the hinges. This neat edition of retainer blocks (the ones in the middle of each side) project down from the seat by  1 1/2″ and keep the seat stabilized so it doesn’t slide off and stress the hinges. I can’t take credit for this idea but did make the blocks out of Starboard, a hard plastic material.  Pretty slick if I say so myself.  Now, when was the last time you saw a picture of a toilet on a blog?  Often?  I didn’t think so.  It’s a first for me.  One certainly needs to know that their “throne” is secure, doesn’t one?

The Chesapeake is a world of contrast with the old mixed in with the new.  As we were headed back up to our slip on Sunday afternoon, I spotted this old wooden oyster buy boat chugging along.  A very pretty sight in the evening light. 

Just out of frame was a much different view, one of nearly a dozen massive ships waiting at anchor to be called into Baltimore to drop off or pick up a load.  It’s impressive to pass one of these behemoths at anchor so close.   We were indeed very, very close.

Finally, no blog post of a weekend trip is complete without a shot of the setting sun following a wonderful evening sail.

Back to reality and work.  We will be headed back down with some friends for a weekend Rendezvous with our friends in The Corinthians.   More then.

>Pandora launched as planned on Friday morning in Annapolis.  After all of the preparation it always amazes me how quickly it all happened and then we are floating.  With months of preparation and organization when it comes time to launch.  The guys show up with the lift, rig up the straps and off they go.  Aside from my sanding and painting the underside of the keel, the whole project couldn’t have taken more than 15 minutes from when they showed up until Pandora was afloat.

That’s a big lift but the mast is even higher.  At just a shade under 65′ tall, Pandora’s mast will just fit under the bridges on the Intercoastal Waterway to Florida which has a 65′ controlling height on the bridges.

Amazing how big she looks in the slings. Actually, the closer to land she gets the bigger she seems.  Get her off shore in nasty conditions and she seems down right diminutive.

After hitting the water, we moved to the other side of the lift dock to begin finishing up on the last minute details.   How serene it all looks.

It would seem that after the countless hours of work that getting the boat ready entails, that we’d be ready to go once she splashed.   No, no, no…

Let me list the ways, the many, many ways.

The chart plotter and all of it’s interconnected wind direction and speed, boat speed, water temperature, auto pilot, GPS, radar, repeaters are all interconnected and ALL DIDN’T WORK!!! Blank screens, mindless blinking boxes, NOTHING WORKED.  Did I say that NOTHING WORKED?  I made a quick call to my friendly electronics guy and two hours later we were back in business.  Fortunately, when I called he picked up immediately (you have to love those cell phones) and within 10 minutes he was aboard.   I was sure that he was going to say “I’ll be able to come by next Tuesday” but he didn’t.  He waved his magic wand (after tearing apart a slew of interior cabinetry) unplugging all sorts of things, plugging them in again and putting them back together again.  After that, everything magically worked again.  Pretty unsettling that it can all be that easy/hard but Pandora was happy again. 

Meanwhile, the sail maker, no, make that two sail makers, were aboard taking measurements for a new storm jib (more about that in my next post).  I had hoped to buy a used one but no such luck.   Getting the fit just right is a trick with the new inner forestay wasn’t in the cards with a used one so I caved and ordered a new one.  Brenda was thrilled, as you can imagine. Another “boat dollar” later it’s on order.

To complete the moment, the rigger was back on board for a rig tune the new rig and a bit later his assistant was back to finish up on a few last minute details.  It’s amazing how there’s always “one more thing” to do, and to charge for on a boat.   The good news is that the rigger walked me through all of the details of tuning the rig so now I understand how to do it myself.  Which is good as it will need adjusting again after the new standing rigging is used and stretches a bit as is worked into shape.

My good friend Chris Blossom, the marine artist, loves to tease me about Pandora, with all of her complexities and constant repairs.  His boat, a 30 year old Luders 33, fitted out for offshore sailing as well, is much less dependent on electronics and his bills are much, much less as well.  It’ fully a fully capable boat but it’s a lot less complex.  There’s something to be said about low tech.  However, I do love all of those things that go beep.

Meanwhile I spent over an hour on the phone with the HP printer guy in India trying to get my new on board printer to work with my laptop.  This is critical for business as we will be splitting our time between home and Pandora this season.  On the boat I now have all of the technology that I need to stay connected, just like a “real office”.

Along with everything else that was done to the boat over the winter, we put a flat screen TV on board last year.  However, it was never connected to an antenna and to date have only used it for watching movies.  Now that we have this slick new mast head TV antenna (I don’t even want to think about what that cost to watch “free” TV) we have HD TV aboard Pandora.  The real trick will be to see if our solar panels will be able to keep up with the power demands of a TV, refrigeration, printer/scanner, navigation computer, Brenda’s laptop, my laptop, multiple instruments, microwave, water pumps, GPS, plotter, radar, cell phone chargers, lighting and all of those shiny electronics that go beep (when they work) that keep Pandora happy.  Yikes, it better be a sunny summer on the water as solar panels don’t put out much when it’s cloudy.  Perhaps it’s time to get a wind generator.  More on that later.

Until mid June Pandora’s home port will be Sprig’s pond near Annapolis in a slip.  Here’s  a shot of Pandora (across the dock, stern too) near Lumen, another SAGA 43.  Lumen is just visiting as her owner Peter recently arrived from Florida where he had her for the winter.  Peter keeps Lumen in Maine and will be back in a few weeks to continue his trip back home.

For now, Pandora and Lumen are docked together.  Not exactly a flock of SAGAs but more than are usually on the same doc.