October 18 Cambridge to Solomons Island 34 miles

Underway from 8:45 to 3:15 today.   Would have left a bit earlier but I left my cell phone at Johns house and he had to deliver it to us.  Thanks again John!

After motoring out of the inner harbor the still was supplanted by breeze which built during our passage. It soon became apparent that single reefed main and small jib were enough. The Choptank River has several ninety degree bends which permitted us to beat our way out of the river, but slowly. Once out in the Bay we turned increasingly to port, onto more southerly courses which put the wind closer to the beam and eventually, slightly aft of the beam. With those two small sails we hit speeds of 8 knots and averaged about 7.5  for several hours until we had to turn increasingly to the west again, to enter the Patuxent River, which features Solomons Island (no longer an island due to landfill at the upstream end) close to its mouth, on its northern shore.

We put in here twice before -- in 2006 and 2012. The first time we stayed at a marina and explored the town and its restaurants, supermarket, and museum. Solomons is very popular with boaters and has more than ten Marinas on Back Creek (it  runs in BACK of the town?). This time we motored about a mile up Mill Creek, slightly to the east. which is one of the several creeks that branch out from the harbor. We anchored in Old House Cove, off of Mill Creek, in 9 feet of water with 40 feet of snubbed chain out. NOAA predicted a continuation of todays NW winds at 15 knots tonight so we anchored in the lee of relatively high ground. Our newly found friend, Active Captain, sort of like a "Yelp" for boaters, reports this is a nice sheltered place with good holding and we agree. It is inaccessible to the hotels, restaurants, shops and other tourist attractions of this area but that is alright by us. We did not even lower the dink. We have each other, food, books and work to do. We were about 50 yards closer to the boathouse on our bow, this view upstream in the cove. No company tonight.

The Cove is bucolic; foliage just starting to turn here

Looking out from the Cove to the Mill River. Lots of room here.

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March 27 29 Final Lay Day in Stuart Passage to Fort Pierce and Three Lay Days There 26 2 Miles

Lene had business to transact by phone so I dinked in alone and took the free shuttle to Westmarine to get a new dinghy painter and a new anchor snubber -- and got neither.
As to the painter, we do not tow the dink so a sturdier painter that floats (so as to not get into the boats propeller when we are in reverse) is not needed; we can simply use the one that came with the dink.
The need for a new snubber line arose because the old one was getting shorter and thinner. After being anchored for a long time during strong winds, it takes either patience with the marlinspike or just cutting off the last nine inches to undo the snubber where it is clove hitched to the anchor chain. This has happened several times and the line was getting progressively shorter. Also it was getting thinner, because of severe chafing. So time for a new one. You want this line to stretch so most of the lines we have aboard are not good for this purpose because they were made for other purposes, where you want the lines to NOT stretch. So Im looking at Westmarines selection of lines and -- wait a minute! I have an old soft stretchy nylon anchor rode. If I cut off a 25 foot length, this will work quite well with lots of line left for cutting off nine inches at a time over the next several years. But, I spent $100 on a good hardened stainless lock to prevent theft of the outboard from the dink.
Back at the dock, I installed the lock and hacked off another half foot of the tiller extender because it extended too far. The marinas bike took me the five minute ride to the local, less upscale Publix for two items Lene wanted.
Heading out back to ILENE, a terrible thing happened. In driving the dink at the dock, I bounced it off another dink into one of the concrete pilings, from which clam shells extended out like razors. WHOOSH! was the sound of the air escaping from a 1.5 inch gash, below the waterline in the port aft tube. Our almost brand new dink, wounded already! Are we destined to be cursed with dinghy problems? The dink can stay afloat with only one of its three tubes inflated, so is in no danger of sinking, but this was a most revolting development.
I hauled the dink up onto the Martinas dinghy dock and water that had entered the tube, which was quite flabby, poured out. The marina gave me a ride back to ILENE for the repair kit, sandpaper, and a pair of scissors to shape the patch into a diamond shape with rounded corners. You have to sandpaper both surfaces and mix a two part glue and apply it to the dink and the patch. I needed help in the form of tools from the marina office to open the two glue bottles. You have to use a metal or glass container to mix the two parts of the glue, hopefully in the correct nine to one proportions. the bottom of a beer can from a trash bin was the metal surface and its tab was the stirrer. I let the glue get tacky but not as long as the instructions called for, and slapped it into place as the first few drops of torrential rain hit. I let it cure for over two hours while reading in the Marinas clubhouse -- free popcorn!  Then I drove the dink back to the boat, without inflating the tube in question to full pressure. The instructions say to not pressure test the patch for 24 hours.  Well the patch did not fall off, but it has a fast "slow leak" requiring it to be pumped up each 24 hours. So we will try to have the job done by a professional in St. Augustine in a few days. My not so handy work:

The passage to Fort Pierce was not long. But with temperatures in the low 50s, a hard, cold 30 knots of apparent wind 20 degrees off the port bow made for quite a wind chill factor. (Yes, I know, I shouldnt be complaining to northern friends who have suffered a cruel winter.) But it makes us fear that we may have started north too soon. Anyway, hats, gloves and scarves were in order. Just a slog under grey skies. Not a peak sailing experience, in fact solely a motoring experience.

The Fort Pierce Municipal Marina has been redone since our charts were printed, after a hurricane took out much of the old marina. They spent a lot of money to build a series of barrier islands to prevent such damage. The new slips are almost ready for occupancy and we went to the remaining portion of the old, via a well marked but tricky new channel that is not on the charts yet. The tricky part is the current, which runs wicked strong N-S across the E-W channel. We had to go west but headed NW to "crab" through it diagonally. They put us starboard side to, on the outside "T" dock, opposite the fuel dock, so when we leave we make a "U" turn to port and our lines are set up for fueling.

The Marina is different from others in our experience in that a number of live-aboarders have cats rather than dogs. Playmates for our dynamic duo, but they grew up playing with each other, our pair get low grades in "playing well with others."

We arrived too late for the "biggest farmers market in Florida" but wandered through a large music festival on our way to the marina office: rock, blues, country, etc. Crowds were still arriving; we were serenaded that night. Normally, readers know, we explore a town and learn of its history, etc. But here we just hung out with friends. Janet and Mike, with whom we had dined on Greek food in Boca, invited us to their home for happy hour and took us to Publix on our way home the first evening there and to their home where Kathryn and Craig had come up from Boca to visit, the next. After this second happy hour we went out to the Second Street Cafe for dinner.

                          Kathryn, Craig, Lene, Roger, Mike and Janet

We hope to meet up with Janet and Mike in Oxford Maryland on our way home. Its amazing. We last saw them in Maryland in 2012 and Kathryn and Craig at her brothers wedding maybe six years ago. But put sailors together and the old bonds are re-cemented instantly-- a lot stronger than the two part glue fixing our Hypalon patch to the dink. Mike and Janet just moved into their new, large modern apartment facing east over the water on the fourth floor.

Rear view from entrance

We are amazed at how much home one can get here for such a reasonable price. If we were in the market for another home, we would be very tempted. We missed both of the distinguished visitors who were here with us: President Obama came to play golf and Jay Leno was in town for a performance with $85 and $115 tickets.

Front view, with Atlantic past the barrier island.

View to the left, with free anchoring where we will stay next time.

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Fleet Building Mutineer Fleet in Grapevine Texas

Its no secret that the most sure-fire way to build a sailboat fleet is to have that one spark-plug; an enthusiastic go-getter who passionately believes this sailboat he/she sails is the best sailboat ever to grace the bounding main.

Here is a video of one such spark-plug, Greg Reed of Grapevine, Texas. His love and passion for the 15 Mutineer sailboat, a sailboat abandoned when Chrysler divested their marine businesss in 1980, is building an orphan fleet in Grapevine Texas. Of note in the video is how the fleet is attuned to bringing up the new racer.

(Anonymous, in the comment section, says both the Mutineer and the larger Buccaneer are still in production. "The Nickels Boat Company in Mich. is still building both boats and the Buc still has a fairly active class. In fact a Club in Alaska recently adopted the Buc as its Club fleet.")

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As a follow-on to Gregs pitch in the video for Grapevine, Texas running the 2014 Nationals...there were 19 Mutineers racing in the 2014 Nationals: Gib Charles, 1st; Ty McAden, 2nd; Uwe Hale, 3rd; and Mr. Mutineer, Greg Reed, 4th.

Grapevine Sailing Club - Mutineer Fleet 2 from russ ansley on Vimeo.

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January 30 31 Marathon to Key West And First Lay Day There 45 Miles

After fueling (33.25 gallons at 2640 engine hours) we cast off at 8:30 and were on a mooring north of Key West by 4 pm.  What a wonderful day of sailing. The wind was from the north and created a nearly beam reach over our starboard side, without big waves -- because the Keys blocked them.

I was impatient to put up sails, as I always am, but the Admiral wanted to put things away, have breakfast, etc. And a good thing because when we turned into the wind to put up reefed main and genoa, we were passed by s/v "Fur Ellise", a Hunter 38.

ILENE being longer, and hence faster, we made friends via VHF radio without having actually met Kevin and Mary Ellise, when we soon passed them. Under sail, our speed increased from about five knots under motor to 7.5, peaks of 8.3, under sail. Later the wind got lighter, we shook out the reef but they augmented their speed with the engine and passed us. But we caught up again when the wind picked up before we both furled sails to head north, all around the west end of Key West, to the large spacious mooring field east of Fleming Key. There we took adjacent mooring balls. During all of this passing and re-passing they took the best pictures of ILENE, underway, with full sails, she has ever had. One of these will go up on the walls at the Harlem, where, until now, we have not had a good enough photo. Which one of these two do you think is better? The first shows non-optimal sail trim, with the main not having enough "belly" in her yet.

This mooring field seems secure. We have two lines through the moorings eye, one to each side of the bow. But we are completely exposed to the northern wind which is kicking up waves around us. It is rolly.

As we approached Key West I noticed a large structure which seemed to be leaning over like the tower in Pisa, above the tree line.

When we got this close it was revealed as the stack of a cruise ship. And she came out through the channel as we came in, so we stayed out of the channel to give her room. I dont know when cruise ships started coming here but they were not here in August and September of 1965 when I was at the navy school here, learning to kill submarines.

Next day we dinked in to find the office where we paid our $18/day mooring fee and then to the dinghy dock. The office and dock are far apart and hard to find. We trekked over to the main Key West Bight where the marina in the heart of town is, to look over the slips and changed our reservation dates. There we met the folks of s/v "Into the Mystic" who we had last seen in Portsmouth VA. We also saw the schooners "Appledore" and "Hindoo", plying their excursion sail trade here. We had last seen them in 2013 in Camden, Maine and Provincetown, Mass, respectively, where they work in the summers. Lunch at Turtle Krall waterfront restaurant and a hike to the Publix preceded a taxi ride back to the dinghy dock with food. There we took wasted showers. Why wasted you might ask? Because the wind was "UP" on the way back to ILENE, kicking up waves that resulted in a pretty thorough salt water rinse.

A "discussion" took place, repeatedly, during most of the day, about whether or not to sail to the Dry Tortugas. We have given up on Cuba for this year. The new arrangement does not really relax the old rules except that the US government will not examine your paperwork very closely. In other words they invite visitors to lie. I could say that we were going for "educational" purposes, being a lifetime learner, or for "journalistic" purposes, because of the blog. But the regulations are clear that education applies to a matriculated student in an accredited school and journalism is much more formal than an amateur blog, however well written, if I do say so myself. So no Cuba this year, but what about the Tortugas?

Lene does not want to go for fear that we will face the continuation of strong wind in our face on the return passage. She also argues: "Why sail 120 miles for only a one day (two night) stay in windy conditions not ideal to the enjoyment of a tropical isle." And I have to count among my blessings the fact that my beloved is on this eight month sail with me; many wives just wont go. Dont push your luck Roger. So even though the forecast winds looked good (to me) for one day out, another day there, and the third day back, I finally figured out that Lene just didnt want to go. And a compromise miraculously appeared. Marquesa Key is only about 20 miles in the direction of the Tortugas. It is now our next destination and the furthest from home that we will go in our own boat during this trip. There is a high speed ferry which will take us to the Tortugas on a day trip. It departs at seven a.m. for the three hour trip and gets back to Key West at five p.m. Only $160 per person which includes breakfast, lunch, a guided tour of the fort and snorkeling. We are thinking to take this trip, though to me, it is just not the same as sailing there yourself. It is the same way that we visited Saba Rock in the Caribbean in 2012. So Im feeling a bit like a mountain climber who intended to scale a peak "because it was there" but has to content himself with only reaching the last camp before the dash for the summit. Life is a series of compromises and I have a lot of blessings to be thankful for. But still....

A lot has changed on Key West since 1965, with the construction of huge malls with big box stores, but some lovely older housing remains.

NOTE: We will have no internet, or phone connection during the next few days.
Here are Kevin and Mary Ellise, after our mango sweet potato pancake breakfast; sorry, I couldnt get this picture to go in at the correct space.

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Feb 21 24 Miami Beach to Coconut Grove Two Lay Days There and to No Name Harbor Key Biscayne 15 miles

So that breakfast aboard was with Nick, but David couldnt make it -- bigger portions for the three of us. This time we tied Nicks dink with an extended painter and the dogs could not jump aboard ILENE from so far aft.

Heather and Christine arrived in Nicks dink and after lunch we headed back to the Coral Reef YC in Coconut Grove. There was plenty of wind but most of the nine mile passage was in constricted water though we did put up the small jib and cut the engine for about four miles of it in open water.  Arrival in our narrow slip was a problem because the dockmaster, who had promised to help catch our lines in the narrow high, non-floating, concrete slip was not in sight requiring me to back out with the wind pushing us from behind. But it got done without harm to persons or property for which Lene now considers me some sort of an expert and hero. Nice to be admired by a loved one.  

This 1970s single-owner beauty was docked two slips away. The owner says he used to enjoy the varnishing, but that joy has rubbed off (as does the varnish each year).

There was a farmers market celebrating local grown food on the Clubs grounds, complete with petting zoo, followed by a delicious locavore dinner at the club. We also dined at Montes with the girls and had a poolside lunch with them and Janet and Ed. The girls used the pool.

Lene and I watched the Oscars in the Club. Boring to me but Lene views my enduring Hollywoods self absorbed, narcissist love fest convention as an annual test of my love for her. 

Our new dink was delivered with her new four stroke Yamaha 9.9 hp engine. I rigged the lifting straps and hoisted it which shows that the straps need a bit of adjustment. Because the new dink is six inches shorter and a bit narrower too, it fits better -- without extending past the sides of the transom, which is good for avoiding the problem we experienced back in Cambridge MD. But the bad news is that it does not fit as snugly against the davit bar and transom as the old one did, which means a few more adjustments need to be made. The engine starts easily and runs quietly and its gear shift lever is on the throttle tiller, which is a nice feature.

And while in the Grove we finally got to use our stand up paddleboard, all of us mastering the ability to actually stand up on it without falling off of it.

Heather and Christine even figured out how to do a dual sit down paddleboard on it and circumnavigated the nearby island.

Heather made washing the boat much easier by manning the hose. All I had to do was keep scrubbing.

While in the Grove we took time to smell the roses -- and the coffee!

We motor-sailed tacking east across Biscayne Bay to No Name Harbor on its southern side. This is a nice little harbor though crowded with 13 boats on anchor, on a Tuesday night. On weekends it would be too dangerous with more boats. Here next morning there is plenty of room, view toward entrance, with Coconut Grove across the Bay.

Lene elected to stay aboard and prepare our delicious dinner while I explored the southern end of Key Biscayne with the young ladies. We dinked to shore and I paid the $20 anchoring and access to the Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park fee by putting the cash in a blue envelope into the locked box. It is an honor system. Then we walked the path around the south end of the Key

and saw out to the fishing shacks that are on pilings on both sides of Biscayne Channel, through which we came into Biscayne Bay. Cape Florida Light is a tall, slender, tapering, brick beauty, but decommissioned long ago.

They have tours but alas, not on Tuesdays. The beach is reputed to be one of the ten best in the USA. The girls sat and rested while I walked north along its coast past its easternmost point and saw the high rises at the south tip of South Beach, Miami. A nice enough beach, but nothing to warrant such a high rating.

The ironic thing is that during the period we were snugly secured to a dock and in No Name. the winds were quite light, with stronger winds predicted for the days ahead when we will be on anchor again.

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Re the Melges 14 Melges Perfornance Replies

When you tweak a company just a little - like I did in the post Melges 14 Vaporware?, it is only fair to allow the company to reply. So I emailed Melges Performance and Andy Burdick replied that they are indeed producing the Melges 14:

"We were early on our showcasing of the Melges 14 at the Chicago Strictly Sail Show. We have had such a response on the boat though that we felt as though we need a boat on display for people to see. The response was fantastic. After over 2 years of testing, tuning we feel like the Melges 14 is a great boat for one-design sailors but also for people that just want to go out and enjoy the sport of sailing. The Melges 14 is fast, modern, well built and has the ability to take a child or friend with you for a sail. Exposing people to the sport we love. Melges is excited about the future of the Melges 14. Excited for singlehanded one-design sailors and excited for the aspiring sailors that want to just go out and have fun.

Since January we have been building and distributing new Melges 14s. We have a container of boats headed to Europe soon, we had our first boat go to California yesterday. Boats are being sprinkled around the county with anticipation of further excitement.

We have been pretty "nose down" here in our boat production due to the popularity of our other one-design classes. We build 10 one-design classes now. Thus, through the winter and spring we have been working hard at getting our boats built and complete for spring deliveries.

Once we free up the current build schedules we will be more mainstream with the pushing and marketing of the boat. This is coming soon, real soon!"

There you have it. You can order a Melges 14 at this very moment. Melges Performance will build it. For the present it looks like they are depending on those "early adopters" to market the Melges 14 with Melges putting their corporate clout into more concentrated advertising and class organization of the Melges 14 later in the year, after they get through the busy spring boat building season.

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On a slightly different note, but still involving Melges Performance, I realized two days after making this comment in my post about Retro Singlehanders:

"I must admit the North American market is an anomaly here with not a lot of singlehanded classes under the Laser - still king by a long-shot-, and the Sunfish - a solid runner-up, The other singlehanded classes in North America - like my Classic Moth - are mustering small numbers."

- that I had got it wrong. The retro MC Scow, has slowly but surely - mostly under the radar - become a national singlehander class in the U.S.. Mea Culpa. This seems as good a time as any to correct the error.

To most of the world, the MC Scow, at a length of 4.9 meters, a weight of 190 kg., and a sail area of 135 sq. ft. is a big hulking SUV of a singlehander (some may question whether we could correctly identify the MC Scow as a singlehander as you are allowed to take a hiking crew when the breeze is up). Nonetheless, it has become very popular in the U.S. with fleets springing up well outside the normal Midwest scow territory. My good friend, Bob Blomquist, is now racing one out of Sarasota, Florida. Following is another well done video promo for the Melges MC scow (looks to be done by the same guy who did the Melges 14 video).



The Melges MC from Nick Bowers on Vimeo.

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Scows at the 2015 International Moth Worlds

Seven Australian scows, a mixture of old and new, are sailing in the 2015 International Moth Worlds hosted by the Sorrento Sailing Couta Boat Club, Victoria, Australia. For news on the 2015 Moth Worlds, it is worth clicking over to the popular Sailing Anarchy blog for Mr. Clean has been omnipresent, recording races live, doing interviews and documenting the ups and downs, both on-shore and in-the-water, of the professional programs that dominate the hi-tech foiler crowd. The scows are definitely the amateur, old-fashioned, side-show in this regatta, but, to Sailing Anarchys credit, they have been devoting some of their coverage to the scow crowd.

Back in September, Aussie Mark Hughes, wrote me an email with some links to a flat-pack scow kit he had designed and, from which, one hull had been built over the 2014 Australian winter. It was a modified Ray Hilton Bunyip IX design (the plans which have been posted on this blog). It consists of pre-cut carbon/foam pieces which are assembled inside a snap-together jig, also supplied in the kit. Pretty nifty but there were some unanswered questions I had about the construction. (Such as how do you get the carbon/foam panels to bend into the jig?)

Mark has a blog on his M-Scow-03 design which offers up, for free, the plans for this scow Moth. There are 10 PDF plans as well as CAD cut files available for download.

Here is one of his PDF sheets. Very high quality CAD work here. Again to open this PDF in another tab, click on the pop-out icon (the box with the upward facing arrow, upper right corner).





Ah, it seems the blogmeister has lost his train of thought and digressed away from the scows in the 2015 Worlds...but, patience dear reader, there is a connection. It turns out the Brian Sherring, the owner and builder of the first M-Scow-03 is sailing at the Worlds and he was the subject of a Mr. Clean interview which can be seen over here on Facebook.

There are two other scow photos of interest from the 2015 Moth Worlds, both of them Im reposting from Sailing Anarchy (again a TOH to Sailing Anarchy for covering some of the scow stuff).

Father/son team, Ian (dad) and Andrew Sim (son) in front of their scows. Andrew is sailing a 1980s vintage Stunned Mullet design. The blond wood decks are lightweight hoop pine plywood, which was an Aussie-only product of the 1980s and no longer available. His dad, Ian, is sailing a more modern foam/glass scow design. (Photo from Sailing Anarchy)

Wednesdays racing for the Worlds was canceled when a vicious low decamped over Sorrento. One of the French father/son combo, either Jim or David, decided to take his scow out for a burn in the gale. (Photo from Sailing Anarchy)

Its also apropros to repost this YouTube on the Aussie Scow Moth (Ian Sim is the fellow who is last up in this video):

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