Lori at the Helm

Donavan and I went sailing yesterday, just the two of us. We really enjoy sailing with friends and family and usually have a few others on board with us, so it was a little different experience than usual. The weather was perfect for sailing--steady winds, temps around 80, and just enough cloud cover to shade the sun. And because the water levels are so high right now, there is a "no wake" rule for the time being, so the shores aren't washed away. So the big power boats that typically fly by and create big wakes have to keep their speeds at a minimum. That made me happy. When we first arrived at the marina, Donavan installed the new bimini, while I organized the cabin. (We're planning a 4-day sailing vacation over the 4th of July with my daughter Jane, and I'd like to at least start with an organized space, even though it will only last a minute or two.) A fellow Northern Lights Sailing Club member parks his sail boat next to us at the park-and-launch area of the marina. So we got to chat a bit with him while he worked on his boat. I'm finding that sailors are very friendly people.

Right out of the marina, Donavan had me steer the tiller and turn into the wind so he could pull up the main sail. We shut off the engine of the boat, and I stayed at the tiller while Donavan hung on to the "main sheet," which is the rope that connects to the main sail. Ropes are called "lines" or "sheets"  or "halyards" on a sailboat. I'm not sure what makes a rope one or the other. Since Donavan had the main sail covered, that left me with just figuring out the tiller and how to steer and come about. A couple of weeks back I tried to sail, but there was barely any wind, and it kept gusting and changing directions, so didn't get much practice at all. Yesterday felt like my first real sailing experience. Most of the time we sailed at around 3 knots, but at times were up to 5 to 6 knots. We pulled out the front sail (the jib) for a while, but then the wind started picking up, and I started to feel like the boat was out of my control. The wind was behind us, and so I had difficulty going the direction I wanted us to go, without completely heeling over. I am still getting used to that feeling. When the wind picked up, Donavan would let out the main sail, which allowed the boat to be more upright, but it still felt uncomfortable to me with the jib out. Everything went quicker, and so I had to react quicker with the tiller. Since this stuff is not intuitive to me, I decided we needed to pull the jib in again, and just focus on learning how to sail and steer.

After an hour of sailing, I was exhausted. My brain was tired from all of that coordinating rope/tiller/sail/wind. And watching the arrow on top of the mast while looking out for boats, and remembering to tighten my core muscles so my lower back doesn't hurt, was a lot going on for me. That makes me feel old and dumb just writing that. I asked Donavan to take over as captain again. Let's be honest. He still needed to captain even when I was steering. I am told "helmsman" is the correct term since being a captain requires knowing some crap that I don't. I think that sailing with your significant other tells a lot about the relationship. I definitely had to trust what he was saying, and when things got rough, we just handled it calmly. I understand that there can be a lot of yelling on a sail boat, and have even seen sailing lessons advertised as "learn to sail, and no yelling."  Although I can see the necessity for projecting your voice towards crew members to be heard over winds and waves, yelling orders shouldn't be the norm. And that's definitely not Donavan's teaching style.  So we had a really good day, and despite my frustrations with myself for being so freaked out by heeling over, I am looking forward to sailing again soon, and having a new skill to learn.

We sailed for a couple of more hours, with Donavan at the helm. I had the chance to take a few photos while sailing. As you can see in the photo of my feet, the phrase white-knuckling-it also applies to toe knuckles! The wind became gustier at the end of the afternoon, and it was approaching dinner time, so we headed back to the marina, and parked the boat. We went to the Sail Away Café for dinner, where we had great food on their outdoor patio. There was even live guitar music that kept us there for dessert.

First solo sail and no fail

Today was my first attempt at solo sailing. I was able to finish up the repairs to the rudder a day early, and Lori had some stuff going on this morning so she couldn't join me. With light winds, I thought it was the best opportunity to try solo sailing. It does make you think a little bit more about making sure all the lines, and everything, are where they're supposed to be. After leaving the marina I headed North up the river, but within an hour the winds had completely stopped. I had a little lunch and decided I might go back and do a little maintenance on the winches. But when I started approaching the marina, I could see the flags were fluttering, so I headed South past the marina, and put the sails back up. I was able to sail for a couple of hours, sailing 3-4 knots in the light wind, and getting used to tacking by myself. Then it was time to pack it up for the day and head back in.

I video taped some of it, and may post some of it here. Tomorrow Lori and I are planning to go back to the boat, with forecasted winds 8-10 miles per hour. With just the two of us, we can spend some time and get Lori at the helm of the boat, and start getting the feel of sailing.

Lake Pepin Trip 1.0

Early Friday morning I met up with friends Heidi, Troy, and Bradley at the boat in Afton. After getting the boat launched, Heidi took off and met up later with us that evening in Lake City. My original estimate was an 8 am departure, and 6 pm arrival.  We ended up getting to Lake City by 4:30. There was virtually no wind. We did try to put up sails on the North side of Lake Pepin, but when the wind meter said 0.0, we didn't bother with the sails.

On the way down, everything went well. Bradley made us cinnamon raisin french toast for breakfast, and we cooked up some brats on the grill for lunch. We ended up using only 3.5 gallons of gas all the way down. One of the concerns was the river current on the return trip. After leaving the St. Croix and leaving the Mississippi, we picked up about a knot of speed. Knowing that the river between Prescott and somewhere North of Lock and Dam #3, the currents were going to be the strongest, we decided it would be smart to try heading up-river for a bit to determine if it was realistic to make the return trip in the time allotted. So we turned the boat around and found at half-throttle we could still make up-river at about 2.5 knots.

When we reached Lock #3 at Welch, we radio-ed in, and the lock master allowed us to just float, rather than hang onto a line. He gestured that we'd only be going down about 8-10 inches with his hands. I thought he was kidding, but turns out he wasn't. Normally it's a 6-8 foot transition. I believe we only went down about 8 inches before the gates on the other side opened up. When we arrived at Lake Pepin, we met up with some of the members of the Northern Lights Sailing Club. We pulled up to our slip, met up with Heidi, and got some dinner before Troy, Heidi, and Bradley headed home.

Saturday morning after breakfast and coffee, the club met up at 9 am and figured out who would be sailing on which boat for the day. At first nobody signed up for the morning shift on the Donovan Too, and thought I'd try solo sailing. But one of the organizers had not signed up, so she planned on joining me, and another club member called and was delayed, and ended up joining us too. We had a really nice sail for a couple of hours before lunch.

coming after morning sail

When we returned, Lori and Jane greeted us entering the harbor. After a quick lunch, and a quick swap of a couple of passengers, we headed back out and sailed the rest of the afternoon. Jane spent most of the time nested in blankets and pillows in the v-berth with a movie, while the grown-ups enjoyed the sail and had great conversations. Throughout Friday night and Saturday there was a fair amount of discussion about possible storms coming Saturday night and Sunday, including mention of 40 mph winds. After we had dinner on Saturday, we decided to move the boat to a different slip in the harbor that was more protected from the wind. We also put a tarp up over the cabin to shed some of the rain. We did have some wind and rain over night, but nothing near the predictions.

wind and rain

Sunday morning there was some light rain, and winds were blowing about 20 mph. The club decided not to go out sailing, so most of the boats were loaded up and headed home. Our friend Wilbur arrived in Lake City around 10 am, and transitioned Lori and Jane off the boat, and Wilbur on for the return trip to Afton. After getting Lori and Jane on their way home, Wilbur and I got more fuel. I noticed for some reason the fuel line was disconnected from the fuel tank. I grabbed the line and reconnected it. We motored around to the gas dock and about half-way the motor quit, as if it had run out of fuel. I checked the fuel and we still had a couple of gallons left. I tried many times to get it to start, but didn't. Thinking there was something wrong with the 6-gallon tank, I changed over to the smaller 3-gallon tank. I quickly got the motor re-started, pulled up to the gas dock, and topped off the tank. Wanting to run on the larger 6-gallon tank, I switched back over to that one. We iced up the cooler and were ready for the return trip.

Coffee or Tea ????

So we headed out and when we got just outside the harbor, we were broadside to the wind blowing about 20 mph, the motor quit again. I tried several times to re-start it without luck. We were quickly being blown into the sea wall of the marina, which is essentially a big berm of rocks. It was less than a minute from the time the motor quit to us being against the wall. I switched the line back over to the smaller tank again, and got the motor started about the time the boat was being pushed sideways against the wall. I put the motor in reverse and opened up to full throttle. As we backed out, the motor was coming out of the water because of the waves. Once we got the boat out far enough, we turned it in the right direction and headed North. Both Wilbur and I were fairly sure that we hadn't hit too hard against the rocks, but I did have Wilbur check all over the cabin of the boat for any leaks. One of the things that I knew did happen, was that the rudder had been pushed back and the prop had gotten into the rudder itself, and shaved off about a 1/2" by 6" area on the rudder. After we gained some composure, we threw the sails up and rode the waves to the other end of the lake, doing about 5.5 knots, since the wind was directly at our backs.

some of the boat repairs that need to be done 

We were able to sail until the point where the channel was too narrow for sailing. We motored our way up through Red Wing with a mix of rain and sun, before spending the night at the Treasure Island Marina, which was about 6 hours after we left Lake City. We grilled up some more brats, corn on the cob, before settling in and relaxing. Wilbur broke out his accordion and played for a bit. We left about 8:30 on Monday morning. When we got to the draw bridge and lift bridge in Prescott, Wilbur commented that there were millions of dollars of infrastructure being used just for us, and were stopping traffic too. We made some lunch, and finished up the last 11 miles to the Windmill Marina in Afton at about 2:30 pm on Monday.

After getting the boat back up on the trailer, we started doing damage assessment. We had chipped some paint off the keel, a couple of scrapes down the side from the bow to the keel below the water line, a couple of small chunks of fiberglass taken out of the keel, and some smudges of slime above the water line where we had scraped against the rocks the day before. While there are some repairs that need to be done, they are relatively minor, compared to what could have happened.

The return trip took about 12 hours, and headed down-river took about 8. We've already planned a second trip to Pepin in July, so Lori and Jane can go through the lock and dam. We're all looking forward to that.

It was a great weekend for us. We enjoyed meeting more people in the Northern Lights Sailing Club, and are looking forward to a fun Summer full of sailing.

Leaving early in the morning for 4 days on the boat

Early in the morning I will be sailing the boat from Afton to Lake City on Lake Pepin, which is about 45 miles down river. Then spending 2 days sailing on Lake Pepin, then sailing back to Afton on Sunday and Monday, or that is the plan anyway.  Lori and Jane will join me at Lake City on Saturday morning and will be staying on the boat overnight. I will have a different crew there and back, and each of the 3 to 4 sails we make out of Lake City. The boat is ready as I can make it and I am excited for the weekend. The weather looks ok but not great. I will try and post some over the weekend.