This week in sailing...

Tijn, Philipp and I went out Tuesday.
Tijn, Alli, Robin and I went out yesterday.
Good wind on both occasions. Fixed the forestay/backstay ratio yesterday, which relieved the weather helm a bit. Forgot to put the cotter rings back in though, so I have to go out again tonight...

... and a couple more photos

This time from our point of view on board...

Rodeo

One of the highlights of the trip to Santa Cruz island was when Ian decided riding Shadow's rail in 15 kts of wind and 4 feet of swell was a rodeo, and started making all the motions! Yep, it's a workout for the core muscles! Which brings me to my quote, courtesy of Good Old Boat's newsletter:

There’s one thing about bashing to windward. You never forget, for one minute, that you are at sea in a sailing boat.

--Tristan Jones

First trip to the islands!

This past weekend, with all our preparations finally done, we took off for our much-anticipated island trip. We left SB Harbor at noon on Saturday and were done anchoring at Pelican by 6pm. Initially there was little wind, but as we got further out into the channel it picked up. By the time we reached the island it was probably blowing a little over 15 kts, so we tucked in a reef for navigating close to shore. We made landfall at Diablo and then ran down (wing-on-wing) to Pelican. We anchored very close to the western wall, and had absolutely no trouble with the bow and stern arrangement. We put all the foulies out to dry, wound down a bit and made indian dinner. Once night fell, we hung out in the cockpit and looked at the stars and meteorites -- it was Perseid shower time, and we saw some really spectacular shooting stars! I was surprised to see that most boats didn't have their masthead anchoring light on at night. We did...

We got up not too early in the morning and made tea. Then we hung out for a while, and later Tijn went for a swim around the bay. He took the composite picture above from the top of the bluff overlooking the anchorage. Shadow was the smallest boat at the anchorage by some 4 ft, and it's pretty obvious in the photo! We packed up and weighed anchor at 12:30, and we were back in SB and anchored by 5pm. The wind on Sunday was a bit mellower, but still probably about 14 kts or so when we got close to shore.

Minney's visit

Yesterday I combined picking up my new passport from the consulate with a visit to Minney's at Newport Beach. I traded a J41 spinnaker -- courtesy of Jim Moore -- for a bunch of store credit and scored us winch covers, a new working anchor rode (for the stern anchor) a couple books and a bunch of odds and ends. Had absolutely no luck finding sails that would fit Shadow Line. The main is the same height as the Hobie 16 main, but the foot is super long...

Sail dimensions

Mainsail (all of whose dimensions are an inch longer than I would like):
Luff 24' 2''
Foot 11' 4''
Leech 26' 9''

Jib (which is an inch shorter than I'd like):
Luff 23' 5''
Base of forestay to base of mast 8'

And slightly off-topic:
stanchion height: 18 1/2''
hole at: 17 3/4''
current traveler length: 43''
diameter of pot that will fit in gimbal: 4 1/4-5 1/4''
clearance to handle: 3 1/2''

Tank empty!

Yesterday Tijn and I went out to the boat to get some random jobs done. Tijn cleaned the sides of the green moustache they've been growing. I installed the thru-deck conduit for the masthead light -- it's raining today, which means the silicone seal may leak, sigh... I also redid the crimps between the main distribution switch and the lighter adapter -- that saved a 2.5V drop, awesome!

Then we took out the outlet hose for the water tank and drained it into the bilge. We'll fill it with relatively concentrated bleach solution, leave it a couple days, and then fill it up for good. Overall it was very satisfying to get that stuff done. I guess I still need to check whether the masthead light actually lights up.

Ian has donated some canvas and Tijn will be making covers for the motors from it.