Surprise's Log Day Sailer 11750

Redfish Island

Left April Fool Point at 1205 hours, course 018. Winds 123° at 12-15kts. Approached the PORTS Eagle point weather station at 29° 28.8'N, 94° 55.1'W.
Assumed course 030 to Redfish Island, Eagle Point abeam at 1238.
Altered course to 048 at 1240, and again to 339 at 1252.

Entered Redfish Island anchorage at 1254.
Came to anchor at a crushed shell shell beach, located at 29º 30.0'"N,
094º 53.3'W at 1305. Observed shipping. Noted three small craft at anchor, two power boats, one ketch.
1403 - made sail and proceeded on course 296. Spoke Ketch.

Northern point of Redfish island abeam at 1408. Hauled wind and proceeded along eastern shore of Redfish Island, course 075.

1412 Tacked, course 170.
1413 Tacked, course 69
1416 Tacked, course 171.
1420 - centerboard aground, altered course to 207.
1429 - centerboard and rudder aground. course 223
1433 - restored rudder to correct position., course 212
Visually confirmed existance of wreakage at 29° 30.1'N, 094° 53.7'W.

1452 April Fool Point abeam, course 270.
1500 Altered course to 264.

Sighted new man-made island, in 29° 28.1'N, 094°56.7'W to be called mud island. Island is hook shaped, with base of hook at southeastern end of island, and shank on southern side near dickinson channel.

1506 Came to anchor on leeward side of island.

Tow vessel Jennifer Ann arrived weather side of mud island with barge laden with soil for island construction. Spoke same. Tow left without barge approximately 30 minutes after arriving.

Left mud island at 1640 after GPS survey conducted. Proceeded to port, course 060.
1650 - Tacked, course 152
1654 - Tacked course 047
Arrived in dock at 1659 hours.

Centerboard Handle

Some folks out there have been curious about how the Day Sailer I centerboard control works. I've taken a couple of photos which I hope will help.

The first shows the centerboard handle with the board in the "up" position. Notice the portion of the pawl which is visible at the lower right hand side of the triangular plate. The plate is held to the centerboard trunk by the three stainless steel bolts, which in turn hold the handle against the centerboard trunk. The handle has a square peg on the opposite side which passes through a hole in the centerboard trunk and fits in a square hole in the centerboard.

Hidden in this photograph are two stainless steel nuts on the opposite side of the plate. They are tightened against the plate to keep the bolts from backing out.

Also note the rubber gasket between the handle and the centerboard trunk. I applied a lubricant, in this case petroleum jelly, on both sides of the gasket. I recently wore out a gasket on Surprise and I hope the lubrication will make this gasket last longer and perhaps to provide for a better seal. It seems to have done that so far. and it also makes the board move up and down more easily.

The second photo shows the centerboard handle with the triangular plate removed. The pawl is visible and you can see how it engages the cam on the handle. Note that I have left the third stainless steel bolt in place to keep the pawl in place.

When replacing the plate, I was careful to evenly torque the three bolts, in a fashion similar to when that used when tightening down the lug nuts on the wheel of a car. This ensures the the plate is evenly pressed against the handle.

Sailing Offatt's Bayou

Last Saturday, Dodd, one of my friends in the Galveston Boat Club invited us to go sailing at there. GBC is located on Offatts Bayou, on the north side of the Island. Saturday was one of those priceless Texas Mid October days, right after the first of the fall cool fronts has passed through, the wind is blowing gently at 10-15 from the northeast, and the sky is a brilliant clear blue. Cliff, Dodd and I took Surprise away from the dock at GBC and sailed around the bayou, getting local knowledge from Dodd. General comments, the depth of the bayou near the club is around 20 ft, but if you want to leave the bayou you must honor the channel marks. The southwestern end of the bayou is very shallow at 1-2 feet. Without much of a plan in my head, we sailed down the channel towards the Intercoastal Waterway. We left the bayou, rounded Teichman Point and followed the channel as it turned northwest. We were barely keeping in the channel, and had to tack twice to get back to the windward side of the channel. Luckily, there was little traffic that day. One of the other members of the GBC was sailing a boat out there and hailed "port" in the way of a joke to us. I never know how to make witty replies to such comments, so I just held course and remembered to smile at them. They tacked back and turned to head Southwest along the ICW. We decided to keep heading upwind, since it's more pleasant to sail downwind at the end of a sail. Since the Maritime traffic in the ICW was light, it seemed reasonable to sail under the causeway bridge and through the raised rail bridge. I was a little nervous about it, but Cliff convinced me. We had to make several tacks through the narrow chute under the bridges. We entered the chute on port tack at the left side of the channel. My gaze was constantly shifting between the creosote covered wooden wall of the chute and telltales on the jib, which were dancing more than I liked. The large wind shadow cast by thr causeway was producing eddys and turbulance, alternately luffing the jib then filling it. Something was wrong, however. Things felt wrong. What was happening? There was a different feel to the helm, and a wrong feeling to the motion of the boat. A lack of forward motion, and a strange feeling, like extreme leeway... but not quite.... Then it dawned on me. Surprise was being swept down the channel by the current. It wasn't leeway it was the opposite... Weatherway? Negative leeway? In any event it made passage easier. We tacked twice more and were out of the chute. For a moment I was concerned about being able to get back against the current. I voiced my thought, but both Cliff and Dodd thought we could get back seeing that it would be a free point of sail, and the wind wasn't predicted to get that light.

My concern stemed from a time when I tried to sail up Clear Lake channel against both wind and tide. The wind was light, and the current strong. I was glad not to have to do that today.

Since we had plenty of time so I decided to sail towards Galveston Channel with the vague notion of saluting the Ellissa, if we could get though the bridge there. It was smooth, delightful sailing, but as we approached the bridge, I could tell that we probably didn't have enough time to actually do. Also, I didn't care to hail the Bascule bridge operator on VHF and have him open the bridge for me today. I got a good look at the bridge for future reference and turned Surprise's head toward the dock. I looked at my GPS that I had set up and realized that I had forgotten to turn on the tracking function.

"Damn", I muttered, and turned it on. Cliff also turned on his GPS at this time, which was good because Murphy was now in full charge of my electronics today and decided that the batteries which were at 1/2 discharged a couple of hours ago were now low. My GPS shut down shortly afterwards. But Cliff's GPS continued to work, which is the data source for this entry's map. We paralleled the ICW, and watched two tows that were heading toward the Causeway bridge. The relative position of the tows was a concern, and we turned toward the stern of the second tow. But the tow was slowing, so we resumed our original course, thinking that we would wait outside the bridge.

Surprisingly, The two tows came to a complete stop, and we saw why - a third tow with petroleum tanks emerged from under the bridge eastbound. She passed and the two westbound continued on. We again turned and took up a safe position behind the second tow and made our way through the bridge. I could tell that the current was now against us, but gladly Surprise still made way. We reentered the Offatts Bayou channel and returned to the yacht basin. The wind direction made for an awkward landing, so we lowered the sails and returned to the dock under bare poles.

This was one of the best day sails I've had in a long time. I enjoyed it so much that I'm looking forward to the next time I can sail there. At that time, I want to take Surprise from Offatts to April Fool Point.

29 days

until Master and Commander: The Far side of the World premeres at the movie theatres. I highly recommend reading the books. As with most movies, that are based on novels, I doubt it will hold a candle to the novels, but I think it will be successful if it manages to capture the spirit and feel of the books. The buzz is it will be a good movie, perhaps an Academy Award® winner, which may or may not have anything to do with it's quality.

Sometimes its better

to watch races. Especially when you're on the water, too. Messrs. Wells and Peck were kind enough to come aboard Surprise and view the four races between the J-80, PHRF, PHRF non-Spinnaker, and J-24 champs.

It became obvious that those folks who are the one design champs are the better sailors. J-80, J-24, Laser and Sunfish are the ones that proceed to the finals. The Portsmouth, and the two PHRF champs were eliminated. This is not a new phenomenon. I recall reading in one of the early DS quarterlies that at one of the first nationals those competitors who sailed in the one design fleets as opposed to a mixed handicap fleet were the better sailors.

So, the objective ought to be to build a One-design fleet up. I've got some boats with potential in the yard. It's time to get working on them over the winter and get them into the hands of sailors who will race them.