Summer update

Obviously I haven’t been keeping up with my weekly blogs. It is very difficult to write something every week (at least for me). I wanted to get a 'Blue' entry done first. The key is to write it up after things were successfully resolved.

The weekly entries are good because it gives me a chance to go over what happened at the race. The mental playback is helpful in remembering my mistakes. We will see whether or not I can return to regular updates.

This summer has been great! The weather has been beautiful. The new crew has worked well. We have managed to improve over the course of the season. Jeff, who stayed on from last year, was a great help in getting the newbies sorted. Two weeks ago we had a first. At the beginning of the season we were having difficulty staying ahead of ‘slower’ boats. Success equals happiness!

Kevin, Wes, Jeff, and Monica after their Aug. 22 win

I plan to do all of the fall sailing events. A great season and it isn’t over yet!

Blue

On Wednesday race night, I arrived down at the club and discovered that the boat had been moved to the Blue Crane. The Blue Crane is a great crane for larger boats who need to get a haul out during the season (see above: Notorious, a 30 footer getting some TLC). It is not so good when you are trying to launch quickly in windy conditions. The area around the Blue Crane isn’t paved so it is difficult to get the trailer moved into position. It is not a race night dry sail crane.

The move was necessitated by the repairs to the breakwater on the Club's south side. The construction equipment needed space so some boats had to be moved to create that space.Although there were some comments about how easy it is to use the Blue Crane, e.g. Kev and Notorious,  there were surprisingly (not) no volunteers! The three J 24s were selected. (The selection process remains somewhat of a mystery to me.) The Blue Crane would be a big negative on my 2012 sailing. The Blue Crane made me feel blue.

I asked for a mooring. Leaving the boat in the water is not ideal but at least it would allow me to have convenient access to the boat; it would make the best of a bad set of options. The Club agreed.

 

Aristosera temporary address, Juliet 12

The other two Js didn’t want to do this. In addition to the cost of mooring lines, keeping the boat in the water would not be good for the hull. I realized that I would have to do some major boat washes on a weekly basis. I have the free time to do this; not so for most other people.

The bottom after about one week

The White crane in action

Room was found to return the boats to the drysail area. I was very happy to be back to the White Crane; no more blue!