Haul in Fall....

Well the fleet is hauled, cleaned and stored for winter. Cath and I spent three days on kimosabi, hauling, winterizing, cleaning and waxing and touching up the bottom paint to prep her for February launch in Port Charlotte, FL.

What Summer???

Actually September was the best month of all, weatherwise. Did a 5 day cruise over Labor Day with a group of good sailing friends. Great weather...

We all sailed up to Cedar River, MI for a couple of nights and had a great time.


Went to the beach for lunch one afternoon.


The Honda 2 had its work cut out for it... You can't see from the photo, but we are towing both boats!




The Admiral celebrates another birthday. She is not quite 60, but friends are reminding her it's close...

We got to try out our new Code 0. nice...

Summer 2009

Well, summer 2009 is fadin' fast... We've spent a couple weekends on the boat daysailing off our mooring in Fish Creek and done two mini-cruises. This summer has been the least use of my primary boat in over 30 years...

In July we took a 5 day mini-cruise across the Lake to Frankfort and Portage Lake.



Here is kimosabi at the Frankfort City dock. We sailed over with good friends Paul and Deb. They sailed their Hunter 35.5, in the next slip. A few people asked how I got around the big steel piling behind the main hull...

One day we took a 20 mile bike ride on an old railroad siding.



Cathie thought I should figure out a way to put this windvane that she liked on the top of the spar...



We ended up spending 3 days on the east side of the Lake and then sailed over to Manitowoc, then to Kewaunee (we lived there 7 years) before going home. On the way back across the Lake to Manitowoc I became very proficient at operating the radar...



Our next cruise was to be south to Milwaukee but the forecast was for strong south winds for a week. So we headed north... We ended up sailing to Fayette State Park on the Garden Peninsula in Big Bay du Noc. There we met up with Les and Barb on Noor.

Note there are few boats in the harbor as the strong winds kept many boats in there home ports...




After two days there, we sailed to Escanaba, MI, beating into a strong breeze.

Here are kimosabi and Noor at the Escanaba Municipal Marina. We were quite an attraction as we were told by a number of people "gee... never seen a boat like that before"...



Cocktail hour and Les and Barb at the dock.

The 4th of July has come and gone. Finally spent a couple of nights on kimosabi this weekend. First time since September... The Ginny displaying her colors at home prior to heading up to Fish Creek.





The tourists have returned to the Peninsula.










Had a great sail back from Menominee, MI yesterday. Our max speed was 15 knots. Here's Noor sailing along side.

Spring 2009

It was a l..o..n..g winter and it has been a slow warm up this spring on the Door County Peninsula. But the fleet is finally in and the toys are ready....

After three years use, kimosabi received a fresh coat of Micron Extra on her bottom. While it is no racing bottom paint, it works well for both salt and fresh water and holds up well.

Let the good times roll....

Winter 2008-9 "Sailing"

It's going to be a long winter... Wanted to get kimosabi in the barn this year but she is sitting outside waiting for some gel coat work by the great crew at Manitowoc Marina this winter.

An ugly sight...

On Sept. 15 the crews of Noor and kimosabi took a late summer mini-cruise. The first night was spent at the Peninsula State Park dock on Horseshoe Island. We had the place to ourselves...

We then sailed over to Cedar River, MI. I was a windy broad reach so we dropped the main and still cruised at 8-10 knots. We hadn't been in that harbor for 20 years. The entrance is now dredged and a 1st class marina has been built. We found cocktails at the Lighthouse Pub. The only game in town...

Prior to the cocktail hour we took a river cruise up the Cedar River in the afternoon. Didn't see any gators......

The next day we had a quiet spinnaker ride to Menominee, MI. After dinner at the new Irish Pub near the marina we returned to the boats with the moon and Menominee River Entrance light in the background.

The next morning we headed home and the Noor beat back to Fishy Creek. A nice week!!

10 day cruise end of July

The end of July we took a ten day cruise across Lake Michigan. The first day we sailed from Fish Creek to Washington Island with two other FBoats. Here a "flotilla" of 3 31' FBoats is at anchor in Peterson Bay, Washington Island. The boats are Noor, owned by Barb and Les Raduenz, an beautiful F9A, owned by its builders from Minnesota and kimosabi.





We then sailed across Lake Michigan to South Manitou Island Michigan and from there to Northport, MI.

Here, kimosabi is at the end of the dock in Northport.





From there we sailed to Traverse City and spent two nights at the municipal marina, just missing Madonna's visit to the annual film festival that is held there.

Here Cath sits by some artwork along the Traverse City River Walk.

From there we sailed to Leland, spending 6 hours in the harbor to have lunch and roam around. At 8 PM we decided to head 35 miles south to Frankfort where we spent town nights on the hook before heading home.

We really liked the expensive trolley bikes...





There are allot of neat older homes in Frankfort...

Sailing on "Wooton"...

We were going to do some sailing on kimosabi last Sunday-Tuesday but I got a call to help deliver a boat from Mackinac Island to Chicago. So...

We get to the island and what do we see...

Bob Seger's new ride at the dock after the Port Huron Mac.

The ride was on "Wooton", a Rogers 46 owned by a gentleman from Chicago, and it was interesting. She had just finished the Port Huron Mac also, taking 1st in Section.

Along for the ride was Captain Larry Burris and Rich Baker, a first class mate.

This boat is an all carbon racing rocket. See: http://www.bangthecorner.com/news/read/5126

Bob Perry also recently reviewed the boat. See: http://www.sailingonline.com/perry_rodgers46.html

Going to weather on "Wooton"gave new meaning to the term "beating" for me. With its flat bottom, while sailing or motoring into 2-3 seas, it was like being inside a timpani while someone was playing it... Boom...Boom...Boom

The helm was so responsive one could drive the boat standing backwards......


The Rogers 46 has a bulb keel drawing 9'6", a plumb bow and a VERY flat bottom., making her a downwind flyer.

When we got to Chicago we learned that the boat's berth at Belmont Harbor was an exciting place over the weekend. Two power boats docked one finger away caught fire and sank. Here the dock is being repaired and the photo of the Pacific Seacraft on the same pier as "Wooton" shows fire damage to one side.

Check out her sailing in light air below!!

Back in Action

"Benny's board" is done. I decided to put red bottom paint on it. Maybe the bottom will be frightened by it and stay away...

The board is in and the mast is ready to raise. Good thing we used two halyards as one 12 year old snatch block sheave disintegrated while the mast was being raised. Big load to get the 42.5 foot stick back in its proper position. the boat is now back in commission and ready to go. We plan on taking it to our mooring in Fish Creek this weekend.

Side Trip...

My daggerboard repairs were interrupted by a last minute, rush order boat delivery from Manitowoc to Beaver Island. The boat was a Moody 46. We made good time (for a monohull) on the way up the lake, about 150 NM in 19 hours.

The weather was ...

...a non-stop 11 hour thunderstorm with wind, rain, fog and more lightning than any of us had seen in our lives.

We (Admiral Cathie and Les Raduenz, also an F-31 owner that did the Abacos with us, and I) got to the island about 7:30 AM to find all outside land and cell phones were put out by the storm. After meeting the owner and him treating us to breakfast, we all took a 2 hour nap about 9:30 am, not knowing when we would get off the island as we couldn't make contact with our pilot...

I woke up at 11:30, stumbled up into the cockpit and what do you know, up walks Jack Culley Sr., the Corporate CEO and part-time pilot. The ride home was quick....but the crew was the best...

First 2008 Sweet Water Sail - Grounded...

June 2 was a great day for our first sail back home with good friends. Started out with shifty light air out of the southwest with the temperature finally warm enough to enjoy. We sailed out of Sturgeon Bay into Green Bay with the screecher and "Otto" driving at 60 degrees apparent wind with Zephyrs on the water. Was great sailing sometimes faster than the true wind speed.

For the ride back home the late afternoon thermals kicked in and we had a rousing sail short tacking up the ship channel. We were about to tack and .... bam, we lightly "touched" a solid uncharted object. No big deal.... I dove on the boat yesterday and discovered that the object ate the front corner of our daggerboard. So.... just lower the rig at home, remove the mast step and fix the board.

Received the suggestion from the FBoat listserver to use two halyards. When we owned an F-27, because some idiot put the launch ramp on the wrong side of a bridge where we lived, I had to raise and lower the mast on our F-27 with the boat in the water, but the F-31 mast is a little more intimidating... Anyway we did it this morning, no problem using the genoa sheets tied to the screecher and spinnaker halyards.




A fellow F-Boater from southern Wisconsin asked where we hit.......






When I pulled the board I discovered it appeared we must have hit an uncharted dock crib from the 1800's as there were wood splinters stuck in the foam. The damage was actually minor and not as bad as the zoomed in photo makes it appear...The dock cribs were made by stacking timbers to form a box similar to the walls of a log cabin and then filling them with large rock. The docks were then built of wood and placed on top of these supports. That explains why we "touched" while sailing in supposed 9 ' of water. Anyway, it was an easy fix, filling the missing corner with #407 Filler/Fairing. I'll sand, laminate two layers of 4oz cloth, fair and paint tomorrow...

I'll report on the completed project in a couple of days...

The Bahamas Cruise - Things that worked...

The additions for the cruise that worked included the new electronics, especially the S1 Tillerpilot. Forget the solar showers. Get a 1 gallon garden sprayer, paint it black. It works well in the head or back of the boat and wastes no water.

The two 65 watt Kyocera solar panels proved more than enough power to run the electronics, refrigeration, lights, Sirius Radio and Stereo (which are power pigs) and the 160 watt inverter for charging various battery-powered stuff including the laptop.


While not US Coast Guard approved , the two solar yard lights on the capshrouds made us easy to spot at night.

I bolted a small anchor roller on the port bow net. The Admiral reports it helped retrieve the 22# Delta and Fortress 23, each on 30' of chain. The Delta only dragged once. We discovered the cause when we re-set it. A large plastic water jug was neatly folded in half on the plow...

We picked up the truck yesterday from where we had it stored and plan to hang around FL until the snow melts back home...