Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Fixes to the battleship
Aug 26 2011
Hello all,
Today Rosa and I took our sweet time waking up, then lunch, 2 movies, trips around town, and finally we're ready to leave the dock by 3pm. The weather here is great, lots of wind from the hurricane, and clear skies making it 100F. Anyway we get out into the bay and I'm determined that we're going to sail to Destin. We've been motor boating so long because there just isn't any wind in the summer, so anyway we take off with full sail.
Let me relate to yuall some mistakes. First is having the dinghy in my poor excuse for davits. Immediately it's grabbing water. So I try to lower it into the water but the aft section fills with water. So it's low in the water, the motor is still on it, and it's getting more water. Great, so I furl the head'sl , hop in the dinghy and get the life jackets, fuel can, then the motor into the big boat. Note that the seas and wind make this interesting, but Rosa was an awesome help. So I'm tired after that so wonderful Rosa hops in the dinghy and bails the water out. Go Rosa!! Ok so I get her back onboard, let out the jib and keep trucking.
I pull out my Kestrel anemometer, and it's blowing 16-20kts. I'm reading about these cruising boats not having to reef until 25kts. Not so for Nadesico! We're getting knocked down every little puff, so I reef the main, and that's not good enough so I bring in the jib a bit too. Anyway after that Nadesico is happy. Man it's been a long time since we've sailed in a fresh breeze!
Last fun thing is Rosa caught a big one, almost 21' long! That's right, here we are sailing along when a stinkboat decides to run right behind us. It drag and clicker start flying, rosa's holding the rod, I grab the pliers and snip the line. I then give a little courtesy call out to 'the motorboat that ran over my line, you might want to stop now before you do some damage.' Motorboats are exempt from the USCG requirement to listen to 16 on the VHF I think, so he kept trucking for about a mile. Well he took about 300 yards of my 50lb test line, and that eventually boogered him up. Yup, he was dead in the water in not too good a sea state for a 21'. I guess he didn't have a radio because I never heard the call for seatow. Anyway Rosa was excited to catch her biggest fish ever, but alas that one got away.
Anyway we had a spirited sail on into Destin. We anchored up, and fired up the generator to get aircon! While I have a job, I guess I'll pay for gas for the aircon.
Tomorrow we're planning on trying to wake early to go buy some more lures (clark spoons 2.5-3" in case anybody wants to give Rosa a gift, they're expensive!). Then we'll go offshore motor trolling to try for redfish, spanish and kings. After that we'll try to be back before the wind pipes up too hard and we can go swimming on crab island and walk in harbourwalk.
Dad, why don't you get a HAM HF adio so you can talk to us when we go out to sea? You can also talk and listen to lots of other people. I know it's a hobby you can afford, and I think it would be good for you to be able to talk to anonymous old guys all over the US and other countries. Also, I bet you could set up a killer antenna in your yard.
Last thing, I told rosa of an idea I have to sail down to the keys over the xmas holidays. We'll have to get this boat a tad more ready, but I really want to do a trip, and if I buy another boat who knows how long it will be until I trust it. Right now I trust this boat a good bit
Anyway, nobody ever replies to me! Email back guys, just please be sure to remove all unnecessary text like signatures and the copy of this message. As is, this might take 10 minutes to send.
Anyway love you all
Mike and Rosa aboard Battleship Nadesico
73's
KK4BSX
Today Rosa and I took our sweet time waking up, then lunch, 2 movies, trips around town, and finally we're ready to leave the dock by 3pm. The weather here is great, lots of wind from the hurricane, and clear skies making it 100F. Anyway we get out into the bay and I'm determined that we're going to sail to Destin. We've been motor boating so long because there just isn't any wind in the summer, so anyway we take off with full sail.
Let me relate to yuall some mistakes. First is having the dinghy in my poor excuse for davits. Immediately it's grabbing water. So I try to lower it into the water but the aft section fills with water. So it's low in the water, the motor is still on it, and it's getting more water. Great, so I furl the head'sl , hop in the dinghy and get the life jackets, fuel can, then the motor into the big boat. Note that the seas and wind make this interesting, but Rosa was an awesome help. So I'm tired after that so wonderful Rosa hops in the dinghy and bails the water out. Go Rosa!! Ok so I get her back onboard, let out the jib and keep trucking.
I pull out my Kestrel anemometer, and it's blowing 16-20kts. I'm reading about these cruising boats not having to reef until 25kts. Not so for Nadesico! We're getting knocked down every little puff, so I reef the main, and that's not good enough so I bring in the jib a bit too. Anyway after that Nadesico is happy. Man it's been a long time since we've sailed in a fresh breeze!
Last fun thing is Rosa caught a big one, almost 21' long! That's right, here we are sailing along when a stinkboat decides to run right behind us. It drag and clicker start flying, rosa's holding the rod, I grab the pliers and snip the line. I then give a little courtesy call out to 'the motorboat that ran over my line, you might want to stop now before you do some damage.' Motorboats are exempt from the USCG requirement to listen to 16 on the VHF I think, so he kept trucking for about a mile. Well he took about 300 yards of my 50lb test line, and that eventually boogered him up. Yup, he was dead in the water in not too good a sea state for a 21'. I guess he didn't have a radio because I never heard the call for seatow. Anyway Rosa was excited to catch her biggest fish ever, but alas that one got away.
Anyway we had a spirited sail on into Destin. We anchored up, and fired up the generator to get aircon! While I have a job, I guess I'll pay for gas for the aircon.
Tomorrow we're planning on trying to wake early to go buy some more lures (clark spoons 2.5-3" in case anybody wants to give Rosa a gift, they're expensive!). Then we'll go offshore motor trolling to try for redfish, spanish and kings. After that we'll try to be back before the wind pipes up too hard and we can go swimming on crab island and walk in harbourwalk.
Dad, why don't you get a HAM HF adio so you can talk to us when we go out to sea? You can also talk and listen to lots of other people. I know it's a hobby you can afford, and I think it would be good for you to be able to talk to anonymous old guys all over the US and other countries. Also, I bet you could set up a killer antenna in your yard.
Last thing, I told rosa of an idea I have to sail down to the keys over the xmas holidays. We'll have to get this boat a tad more ready, but I really want to do a trip, and if I buy another boat who knows how long it will be until I trust it. Right now I trust this boat a good bit
Anyway, nobody ever replies to me! Email back guys, just please be sure to remove all unnecessary text like signatures and the copy of this message. As is, this might take 10 minutes to send.
Anyway love you all
Mike and Rosa aboard Battleship Nadesico
73's
KK4BSX
Columbus Day Weekend 2011
Hello all,
Again this weekend we are having a good trip far from home. Thursday after work Rosa had the boat ready to go, so we got going to Destin. We were meeting an old friend Kyuho Lee, his wife and kids at a sushi restaurant. We managed to anchor in Destin just fine, but the dinghy's motor wouldn't start, so I had to row a good long distance, and then we walked a mile or more to dinner. It was ok, we weren't too late. We had a good dinner, and I was talking while Rosa got along famously with Young and talked about cooking and other stuff. Anyway it was good to talk to them again and see that they're doing well.
After dinner we walked back to the dinghy and went back to Battleship Nadesico. We shared a shower from your 2 gallon pesticide sprayer. That thing is perfect for minimizing water consumption and still giving us a good hot shower. We should have had a clean one of these for Hurricane andrew.
Friday morning we woke up late and lazy. About midnight the wind started blowing like crazy, 15-20 with gusts to 25. It makes me happy I switched anchors from my aluminum danforth to a 22lb CQR with 40' of 3/8BBB chain and 20' 5/16 long link chain. Anyway we weighed anchor and got into the bay to head West. Why west? We wanted to go east to Port St Joe to see the parks there. However the offshort forecast was 25-30 kts with seas forecast 7-10' which is well beyond what I'm comfortable with in Battleship Nadesico. And we didn't want to motor all day through the intercoastal, so instead we headed to pensacola on the inside. The trip through the bay was rough enough, but it was fast! We were screaming at 5.5-6.5 kts. It wasn't long before we were in the narrows and still going fast.
After 2 hours of tough piloting, I was pleased when Rosa took the wheel. She did a great job for the next 2 hours while I slept, then we switched out and I piloted another 2 hours, then her, then me. Right after we passed under the Navarre bridge Rosa mentioned wanting to buff and wak the entire deck. She had already started this formidible task by hand, and I wanted to get her a buffer to make it easier. There's an advanced auto right next to the bridge, which I called with my handy dandy paper phonebook(very useful when the internet is unavailable) and asked about availability of stuff. Indeed they had a buffer and waxing stuff, so we exited the channel, dropped the hook, and I had the dink in the water and was rowing away in 5 minutes. Within 15 minutes I had my prize and was on my way back to the boat to be greeted by lunch. The wind was awesome and we made great time with poled out jib and flying main going downwind until my last shift. At this point the wind started petering out, so I pulled out the spinnaker for an hour, but when the spinnaker fell limp I motored the last 30 minutes, arriving and anchoring a full 15 minutes before sunset. By this time we were both tired of the trip, so it was margaritaville time.
The wind blew like crazy all saturday night. I was a bit more concerned anchoring here in sabine harbour at pensacola beach because the holding is soft shelly mud, and also it's only 5 boat lengths to a 2' shoal. Scary thoughts that the boat could be pushed up on a shoal by 25kt winds at night while I may be hung over. Anyway my CQR and heavy chain held. The anchor alarm didn't go off. In the morning we had plans to sail 8 miles west to fort McCree but the winds were kicking until noon. The winds were actually NE which I knew from experience would funnel the waves down the Pensacola bay until they got huge near the pass. We would have gone anyway except the winds are not expected to die down until tuesday, and I know from experience in the Catalina that it's damn uncomfortable to try and get out of there in such situations. So instead we'll stay here in pens beach.
We went for a walk earlier to see the waves on the beach, quite spectacular!! Rosa got a bunch of shells, and we dumped our garbage and helped ourselves to some water for the boat. Once back onboard I brought out the generator to charge the batteries and power the buffer so I could test its capability. I buffed and waxed a quarter of the port deck where it gets the most traffic. It's not new but it looks pretty good. This task will be much easier at the dock where there's a hose to wash away the compounds. Anyway Rosa and I are reading Pardey books on cruising.
Mike and Rosa
Battleship Nadesico
Again this weekend we are having a good trip far from home. Thursday after work Rosa had the boat ready to go, so we got going to Destin. We were meeting an old friend Kyuho Lee, his wife and kids at a sushi restaurant. We managed to anchor in Destin just fine, but the dinghy's motor wouldn't start, so I had to row a good long distance, and then we walked a mile or more to dinner. It was ok, we weren't too late. We had a good dinner, and I was talking while Rosa got along famously with Young and talked about cooking and other stuff. Anyway it was good to talk to them again and see that they're doing well.
After dinner we walked back to the dinghy and went back to Battleship Nadesico. We shared a shower from your 2 gallon pesticide sprayer. That thing is perfect for minimizing water consumption and still giving us a good hot shower. We should have had a clean one of these for Hurricane andrew.
Friday morning we woke up late and lazy. About midnight the wind started blowing like crazy, 15-20 with gusts to 25. It makes me happy I switched anchors from my aluminum danforth to a 22lb CQR with 40' of 3/8BBB chain and 20' 5/16 long link chain. Anyway we weighed anchor and got into the bay to head West. Why west? We wanted to go east to Port St Joe to see the parks there. However the offshort forecast was 25-30 kts with seas forecast 7-10' which is well beyond what I'm comfortable with in Battleship Nadesico. And we didn't want to motor all day through the intercoastal, so instead we headed to pensacola on the inside. The trip through the bay was rough enough, but it was fast! We were screaming at 5.5-6.5 kts. It wasn't long before we were in the narrows and still going fast.
After 2 hours of tough piloting, I was pleased when Rosa took the wheel. She did a great job for the next 2 hours while I slept, then we switched out and I piloted another 2 hours, then her, then me. Right after we passed under the Navarre bridge Rosa mentioned wanting to buff and wak the entire deck. She had already started this formidible task by hand, and I wanted to get her a buffer to make it easier. There's an advanced auto right next to the bridge, which I called with my handy dandy paper phonebook(very useful when the internet is unavailable) and asked about availability of stuff. Indeed they had a buffer and waxing stuff, so we exited the channel, dropped the hook, and I had the dink in the water and was rowing away in 5 minutes. Within 15 minutes I had my prize and was on my way back to the boat to be greeted by lunch. The wind was awesome and we made great time with poled out jib and flying main going downwind until my last shift. At this point the wind started petering out, so I pulled out the spinnaker for an hour, but when the spinnaker fell limp I motored the last 30 minutes, arriving and anchoring a full 15 minutes before sunset. By this time we were both tired of the trip, so it was margaritaville time.
The wind blew like crazy all saturday night. I was a bit more concerned anchoring here in sabine harbour at pensacola beach because the holding is soft shelly mud, and also it's only 5 boat lengths to a 2' shoal. Scary thoughts that the boat could be pushed up on a shoal by 25kt winds at night while I may be hung over. Anyway my CQR and heavy chain held. The anchor alarm didn't go off. In the morning we had plans to sail 8 miles west to fort McCree but the winds were kicking until noon. The winds were actually NE which I knew from experience would funnel the waves down the Pensacola bay until they got huge near the pass. We would have gone anyway except the winds are not expected to die down until tuesday, and I know from experience in the Catalina that it's damn uncomfortable to try and get out of there in such situations. So instead we'll stay here in pens beach.
We went for a walk earlier to see the waves on the beach, quite spectacular!! Rosa got a bunch of shells, and we dumped our garbage and helped ourselves to some water for the boat. Once back onboard I brought out the generator to charge the batteries and power the buffer so I could test its capability. I buffed and waxed a quarter of the port deck where it gets the most traffic. It's not new but it looks pretty good. This task will be much easier at the dock where there's a hose to wash away the compounds. Anyway Rosa and I are reading Pardey books on cruising.
Mike and Rosa
Battleship Nadesico
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