I always find time “on the hard” to be tough in the post department.  While there’s an endless number of things to write about when I am aboard Pandora, somehow, well, it’s not that easy when I am looking out the window at dirt without a drop of water in sight.

I say that but today there’s plenty of water to look at as it’s raining steadily.  That’s good as the lawn and trees need water from time to time.

I should also note that, as I write this, the power is out, something that never happens aboard Pandora, being “off the grid” and all.  Where’s battery power and a trusty inverter when you need one?

And, speaking of being “on the hard”, Pandora was hauled a few days ago and is in a nearby boat yard where she will be for the next few months while I focus on our “dirt home”.

However, I do have to keep “nautical” so here’s a shot of Pandora in the slings. I had cleaned her bottom in Tortola before I left in mid May  and I know that she didn’t have a bit of nasty on her hull.  However, after a month in Hampton it seems that she got a lot of slime growth.  It’s amazing how quickly it builds up.

The running gear was covered with barnacles too.   No wonder her speed under power was a bit down. However, in spite of all that, we still went pretty well on our way north and kept up a good turn of speed.   However, I did notice that we fell short of the kind of performance I am used to from Pandora.

It’s funny that after all the long sea passages that I have made somehow the 350 mile from Hampton to CT, it just didn’t seem worth hiring a diver to clean her bottom when my run home was a “short” 350 mile run.   It wasn’t too long ago when a trip from Norwalk to Maine, 250 miles seemed like a major ocean passage to me.   I guess times and perspectives change.   One thing for sure, my runs, even the long ones, seem like a mere day sail to someone who has sailed around the world.  I almost said “across the pond” but that’s only about twice as far as I go so even that seems to me that it might be attainable these days.   Yes, it’s all about perspective.

Don’t lament that Pandora is on the hard and that this post is somehow going to awkwardly segue into a gardening post or perhaps a series of photos of our granddaughter Tori as I visited the Wooden Boat Show in Mystic last week and saw some remarkable boats.  What follows is in no way intended to cover the amazing breadth of what was on display but here goes.

Perhaps the best place to start is with a photo of a catboat and a Beetle Catboat in particular.  These lovely boats are still being built as they have for nearly 100 years.   The company, from New Bedford, once home to the largest whaling fleet in the world, was known for making whale boats, the sort known for giving “Nantucket Sleighrides” back in the days that ships roamed the world hunting whales.  After oil was discovered in Oil Creek Pennsylvania in 1859 whale oil was no longer needed.  Good for the whales as I don’t think that they would have lasted much longer with all the relentless hunting of them for their oil.

Anyway, as the market for whale boats dried up Beetle turned its’ attention to the then infant, recreational boating market and started making lovely little catboats.

The year was 1921 and they began making these iconic little 12′ yachts that would endure for a century.  I say that as the 100^th anniversary of these wonderful little boats is coming up in , you guessed it,  2021.  2021?  I can’t believe that I am writing about that year as bring right around the corner.  I can vividly recall a time when Orwell’s book, 1984 seemed like an impossibly long way off in the future.  Newly built wooden catboats and 2021?  Back in the 50’s everyone was thinking flying cars by now, not little wooden catboats.    Anyway, they were “contemporary” in 1921 and they still are.One of the decisions I made two boats and about 10 years ago is that I would not own a boat with any exterior varnish but I still think that there’s nothing that compares to a well maintained beautiful wooden boat.  What a sweet transom and lines. The attention to detail on this lovely sloop is something to behold.A great cockpit to enjoy a lazy summer afternoon sail. The detail is wonderful on Mystic Seaport’s schooner Brilliant too.  From the tip of her bowsprit….To the lovely varnished cabin.  However, unless you have the coin to get someone to do the varnishing for you, you may find yourself spending much of the boating season getting everything just right.   Brilliant is wonderfully maintained by the shipwrights at Mystic Seaport.  (copyright Mystic Seaport, for sure)

She was a gift to the seaport from Briggs Cunningham,  an important figure in the sports car racing in the 1950s.  Beyond the race car circuit, he also was a skipper in the America’s Cup in 1958 aboard Columbia and is the inventor of the “cunningham” used for trimming the luff of a mainsail.  He loved racing in many forms and spent time aboard Brilliant before donating her to Mystic Seaport in 1953.  I understand that he also provided for her future upkeep which The Seaport has done wonderfully for the 65 years that she has sailed under the seaport flag.

An interesting footnote is that my wife Brenda worked on Stewart McKinney’s congressional campaign back during the Reagan years and Stewart was married to Lucy Cunningham, daughter of Briggs.  Stewart has the unfortunate distinction of being the first member of the US Congress to die of AIDS but that’s a story for another day.

So, back to boats.  When we were in Antigua last winter I saw magnificent yachts with guys swarming all over them for weeks at a time doing nothing but varnishing and painting, all in preparation for a week of racing in the classic yacht regatta.  We weren’t there for the races this year but I hope to put it on my calendar for April 2018.  Stay tuned.

I say, varnish away.  This beautiful Elco just wouldn’t be the same in carbon fiber so bring out those brushes.If I had to downsize to a lake boat, varnish or not, I’d be tempted by something like this.She sports a properly sized ensign on her stern. A pet peeve of mine is yachts with wimpy flags. And speaking of “composite” construction, this Legnos 10-3 was built back in the 80s and has graced the Mystic waterfront for much of the time since then.   Peter Legnos, the designer and builder behind this boat built our first boat, a diminutive 20’ catboat a Mystic 20 and the first boat that Brenda and I owned, back in the late 70s.  I don’t have a photo of TAO handy so a shot of a painting of her done by my friend Christopher Blossom will have to suffice.  “Bob, Bob, you’re recycling pictures again.  We have seen this photo in at least two posts already!”  Glad to know you are paying attention.  I think that it’s a nice painting.  She was a wonderful boat but not very well suited for ocean sailing.

Brenda says that when we sell Pandora  we will get something to putt-putt around on with a glass of wine in hand.   This would be a good one, wicker chairs and all.
Or, perhaps white if natural color wicker doesn’t seem right. Another favorite of mine is the converted sardine carrier Grayling.  There’s no doubt that a beautifully varnished coach roof makes her particularly fetching. And speaking of cocktail cruises, this launch would be perfect.  Very classy with a straw hat on a summer evening.  Wicker here too.
However, all “yachtsmen” were not gentle souls so enter a real Viking Ship, the Draken Harald Hårfagre.  Now doesn’t that just roll off the tongue?   These guys, and I expect that most of them were guys.  Well, at least the “at sea” ones, were tough.  No “lily assed” creature comforts for them!I expect that the wouldn’t have been caught dead in this deck “enclosure”.   No way! They’d be out in the elements every time and all the time.   Seeing this prow come at you out of the fog would give pause for thought. This figurehead says “watch out!”.  I guess that this radar isn’t “vintage” but handy. She’s a “real” boat for “real” men.  This is shot is from the ship’s website. Impressive with their apt “blood red” sail. This video is if her sailing along in decidedly non tropical conditions which are, of course, what would have been preferred any self respecting Viking.   All I can say is Arrrggg….  Which I think is pirate speak for “we are having an awesome sail”.

Even though they have a decidedly un-viking dodger on board, Brenda would NOT have approved and it seems clear that some of the crew look like they felt about the same way.  “Lars… Are we there yet, I am frigging freezing”.  “Oh, just shut up or I’ll gore you with my horned helmet”Well, I guess that I have beaten this topic to death so perhaps I’ll call it quits for now and close with a shot of the stern of the Mayflower which is being rebuilt at Mystic Seaport.  Next time, when I am feeling a bit overwhelmed by all that I have to get ready aboard Pandora for next winter’s cruise in the Caribbean I’ll remember this photo and know that my to-do list could be a LOT WORSE.

Years ago a friend observed that after a frantic summer of parties, boating, barbecues and the like, that the minute Labor Day weekend draws to a close you can almost hear the iron doors of summer slam shut and everyone goes home.

In a way, my arrival at the marina in Deep River has that sort of finality as Pandora will be hauled for the “season”.  However, for us, the season is different as “summer” is when Pandora, and me, take a rest from the admittedly frenetic moving about that we do for the rest of the year.   Actually, “frenetic” is the word that Brenda uses to describe our time afloat as we “hurl” ourselves from one place to another.  Romantic life?  Well, sometimes.

I’ll admit that I am ready to take a break as the long passages north and south with crew do get tiring.  The 1,300 mile run from Tortola to Hampton and then another 360 mile run to Deep River totaled some 11 days at sea, plenty of time away from Brenda all the while trying to keep Pandora in shape, and salt free down below with crew who aren’t quite as focused on keeping things below as “salt free” as I am, on those long ocean passages.

Fortunately, running Pandora from Hampton took less than three days and we were able to sail, with the wind directly behind us, for nearly the entire way. According to the Delorme transponder, our fastest recorded speed, at an exact moment when the tracker captured the speed and location, once every two hours, came in at 8.3 kts.  By contrast, the highest recorded speed on the run from Tortola to Hampton came in at 10.4 kts and I expect that there were times when we went faster than that.  And, while I’m quoting “Delorme moments”, the highest recorded speed we hit in January, on our run south, came in at 12.4 kts and I recall seeing speeds, several times, of just under 20 kts as we surfed down a particularly large 20′ wave.

This is our track from Hampton to Deep River, Pandora’s “home” while she’s “on the hard” this summer. And this, the track for our entire 2017 run, not counting the part from CT to Hampton and then on to Beaufort as I didn’t have the Delorme unit on board. Alas, no “proof” of that part so you’ll have to trust me.  All and all, a long run, never the less and I don’t even want to think about the number of repairs that I made along the way. Oh yeah, remember those dolphins that visited us a few days ago during the run north?  Well, here are the “best” photos that I was able to capture of their visit and I’ll say that it is supremely frustrating to photograph dolphins in “real life”.  I find that they are, as a rule, not nearly as cooperative as Flipper was where it always seemed that he’d jump out of the water on command and give everyone the perfect shot.  Most of the time my shots showed water only but sometimes a few in frame out of the several dozen that were cavorting around Pandora.I almost got a great shot as one shot along nearby.  It was remarkable how fast they zipped by Pandora even though she was moving along at better than 8 kts.  In between my shots there was lots of jumping and flipping out of the water, especially from the juveniles, but most of the time I just missed the best shots only to capture a brief partial shot.  At least I got this one’s beak. And most of this one that jumped nearby. And, thanks to a camera that takes 3-4 shots per second, the tail reentering the water a fraction of a second later. “I gotta tell you Bob, those photos aren’t really that great.  That’s the best you can do when surrounded by several dozen dolphins?”  I challenge you to do better unless you are shooting Flipper.  I’ll bet you can’t.  Besides, you had to be there to understand and you weren’t.

All and all, it was a pretty easy, and mercifully short run home with the inevitable view of Montauk light, as re rounded the point, which I hadn’t seen since last October  when I began my run south. Well, me and Pandora are home now.  She’ll be hauled in a few days and I’ll be “hauled” into the realm of projects.  Ironically, all this happens at the beginning of the Memorial Day weekend that signals the BEGINNING of most sailors season, but is the end of mine.

When we tied Pandora to the dock yesterday I distinctly heard that gate slam shut signaling the end of Pandora’s 2016-17 sailing season.

When I stopped in to see the yard manager Brian, yesterday, he asked me “why are you pulling Pandora for so long?”  My answer, “we need a break and besides, I have a bathroom to remodel”.  Indeed, lots to do so I’d better get cracking.

 

 

It’s been a bit over 24 hours since we left Hampton, VA, on Thursday morning and we have covered about half of the 350 miles toward home at a speed of just under 7kts.  That’s not bad given the fact that we ran the engine until noon yesterday and for much of the rest of the time we have been dead downwind with only the mainsail up to move us along.

The jib doesn’t work well when the wind is directly behind us as the boom tends to slam around in the lee of the main.  I need to talk to the designer or perhaps a rigger to see what we can rig up to keep the jib boom under control.  Of course, one option would be a whisker pole but I don’t particularly like the idea of having to go forward when things get dicey to pull it in.   Having the jib poled out would speed us up a bit but perhaps we are fast enough anyway.  I generally don’t find myself motor sailing much to keep our speed up so perhaps that’s the answer.

The wind has been  directly astern and running in the high teens and now low 20s.  That sounds like a lot of wind but as we are now moving dead down wind at about 8kts, the apparent wind is not bad at all.  Pandora tracks very well under these conditions in spite of waves that are in the 6-8′ range and the autopilot handles it just fine.   I am happy to report that the pilot is behaving well as the “crazy Ivan” problem that we had when the plotter failed seems have been resolved now that the new plotter is in place.

I don’t know when we are likely to round Montauk, at the eastern tip of Long Island but It’s probably going to be around 03:00 tomorrow.  It might even be sooner by a few hours as the wind is supposed to freshen to the mid 20s with gusts around 30, again from the same direction, so our speed will probably be in the 8kt range for much of the trip going forward.

As I think about some sort of pole to hold the jib out, I can’t help but imagine having to pull it in and stow it in 8′ seas and gusts to 30kts.  That doesn’t sound like fun to me.

Yesterday, just before dark, we were visited by a large pod of dolphins, perhaps 30 or so.  They darted around Pandora for about a half hour before vanishing as quickly as they arrived.  The pod was made up of adults and juveniles with some that were quite small swimming along with their mothers.  As you’d expect, it was mostly the “kids” that leapt high into the air as the raced back and forth down the side of Pandora.  My crew, Jim and Charlie were as thrilled as I was to enjoy the spectacle.   And, try as I might, I just couldn’t seem to capture any of them doing acrobatics, the dolphins, not Charlie or Jim, of course.

As we rounded the tip of the DE/MD peninsula to make our way north yesterday we hugged the coastline much of the way and in spite of being about 10-12 miles off the coastline, I had cell coverage until late afternoon.  I wasn’t expecting that as in past years it’s been rare to have coverage that far out.  Oddly, in the Caribbean coverage generally extended up to 15 miles from shore, probably because the towers are so high up on the mountains.  Of course, the coastline of the U.S. is a lot less mountainous so you’d expect the signal to not go out as far.  However, in spite of that, it seems like it’s better than in past years.  Perhaps the technology has improved.  Oddly though, coverage at our home is still terrible, even with a booster installed in the attic.  Go figure.

Anyway, we are having a great sail with steady winds pushing us along our way.  At this point, we expect to carry favorable and plenty strong winds all the way into Long Island Sound.   It’s hard to say if we will make it there soon enough to catch the last of the flood tide that ends tomorrow morning at 04:30 or if we will have to buck the strong ebb all the way once we round Montauk.

For now, we are enjoying what will likely be two days of near perfect sailing as we make our way the 350 miles from Hampton home.
My plan is to take Pandora directly to Deep River, up the CT River and have her hauled for at least 6 weeks so I’ll have time to get some projects completed after a long winter of wear and tear and some 4,000 mile of sailing.   I may do some short trips with Brenda over to Long Island and perhaps Newport with friends but that assumes that I get the guest bathroom remodeled.  Not sure how that’s going to be finished as soon as I’d like as it’s nearly July and I haven’t done much in that department.  Oh well, I’d better get cracking.

I guess that’s it for now.  Sorry, not pictures as my SSB modem is just too slow to send large files over the SSB radio when I am outside of cell range.  My routine is to send the text to Brenda who will post it.
Until Saturday…

It’s Thursday morning and we were underway by 05:30.  After waiting two days in Hampton, the winds are now from the SW so we won’t be motoring into the wind.   Unfortunately, the winds, albeit from a favorable direction, are too light to sail but they are supposed to increase to around 20kts later today and should hold for much of our trip.

If things go well, I expect that we will be in Essex as of Saturday afternoon.  I am hopeful that we will be in by late afternoon as the tide will turn against us in the race and river at about 16:30 which will slow us down a lot.

However, for the moment seas are very calm and we are motor sailing, mostly motoring, along at a reasonable clip, although slower than normal as the bottom is a bit slimy after sitting in the marina for 5 weeks in Hampton.

As we headed out this morning, we had a wonderful sunrise. We also passed a warship heading into the harbor. She was flanked with four patrol boats complete with blue flashing lights warning us to keep our distance, which we did.I forgot to mention that when we arrived in Hampton I was greeted by a dead fridge and freezer.  The pump that supplies cooling water to the compressor had failed and the unit had shut down.  With the cabin all sealed up and in the 90s, the freezer and fridge soon were that hot too.  With them all buttoned up things got nasty pretty fast and when I opened them up I was greeted by,… Well, let’s just say it was a seething mass of flying insects and maggots.   Brenda would have just loved it.  Sorry, no pictures.  I do have my limits.  “Thank goodness Bob.”

Happily, If I can use “happily” so close to “maggot”, I had a spare water pump which I installed.  Let me just say that it took a while to clean everything up but now the fridge is again working fine even if it remains a bit, shall we say, aromatic.

I’ll sort through that when I get home.  Yum…

I guess that’s all for now but I expect to post again in the morning and again when we round Montauk on Saturday.

Until then, don’t forget to check out “where in the world is Pandora” as I’ll be posting our position every two hours for the duration of the trip.

It’s Wednesday morning and I am here in Hampton VA aboard Pandora, preparing for our last 350 mile run home.   It looks like we are going to have a good run as there will be brisk SW winds that will carry us the whole way to Essex.  We arrived on Monday evening after a terrific visit with our son Rob and his family.   Yes, we could leave today but the winds were out of the east and right on our nose leaving Hampton and then no wind for much of the overnight hours so we’ll wait another day.

I haven’t worked out the speed assumptions in detail but I expect that with a foul tide and wind verses solid winds behind us our actual arrival time won’t be much different so a Thursday first light departure it is.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot that EVERYONE is pining for a current picture of our granddaughter Tori, so here goes.  Yes, yes, I know…. She’s so cute that it hurts.   “Bob, Bob, did you take that photo?”  I did, thank you.

Ok, I got that out of the way so now I’ll talk a bit about water in fuel.  Nice segue, right?  Recall that when I was running from Tortola north last month, I switched fuel tanks about 500 miles from shore, and discovered that I had picked up some water along with fuel, I think, in NC.   Well, what a mess.   I had the three fuel tanks cleaned and he found several gallons of water in the offending tank and a little bit in one of the two others.  His rig for filtering the tanks was pretty neat but it did look like quite the Rube Goldberg contraption.   For those of you who are too young to know who Rube Goldberg is, here’s a link to the Official Rube Goldberg society website.  So, the hoses ran down into the cabin and into the fuel tanks via an access port. A powerful pump sucked fuel out of the tank, through a filer and squirted it back into the tank, stirring up any water and sediment that might have collected.   What the heck, go ahead and trash the cabin.  Everybody else does.So, some 6+ hours later, three clean fuel tanks.  Wasn’t that easy?

And, remember the failed chart plotter?  Well, I put in the “new” one that I purchased from a local electronics dealer.  It’s in too but, wouldn’t you know it, the “new” plotter is running on an older version of the software verses my “old” one so the network won’t communicate.  The fix will be simple when I get home but I’m not home. However, we were able to put in a sort of “work around” so I can get most of the information I need between the two plotters.

As I mentioned, we are sticking around Hampton for two days prior to heading out which isn’t so bad as it’s a nice little city.  Yesterday we visited the Air and Space Museum and if you haven’t been there, it’s worth a visit.  I did a post about the museum when we did our first trip south in 2012.

Pandora is in a slip in Blue Water Yachting Center is an excellent facility and the dockmaster Dave is a very nice guy.  He has worked with the Salty Dawg Sailing Association, the folks that do the Salty Dawg Rally to Tortola each November, and offers a very nicely discounted rate for dockage, if you stay a month.   The amount you save for a month here will more than pay for the SDSA membership.

There is a very nice waterfront restaurant and they even have pool.   And, shocker that it is, they actually have terrific WIFI at each slip.  I am on one of the furthest out slips and it comes through full strength.   I say shocker as most marinas boast wifi but it’s terrible.  Good job Dave.  Very nice facility and it’s a short walk to a grocery store. Huge long fuel dock. This morning a lovely crabbing boat.  I think that these are called Chesapeake Deadrise boats.   And Hampton University in the background.Along my walk earlier today I spied this little cottage with great gardens.  Clearly, the owner doesn’t spend much time on the water given the extensive gardens that surely need daily attention. So, here we are spending yet another lovely day in Hampton.  Perhaps we can carve out some time to visit the local brew pub on the waterfront.  Yes, I suppose we will as the marina runs a water taxi over to the the town pier where the pub is located.  Besides, it would almost be sinful not to spread some “green” around town before we depart.  Right?

Oh yeah, don’t forget to follow our progress on “where in the world is Pandora” on this homepage.  Unless it’s terribly “sporty” I expect to post each day as we make our way north.

Keep those cards and letters coming.  Oops, time for lunch, well almost but it’s good to think ahead.

Did I mention that our granddaughter Tori is just so cute?