Surprise's Log Day Sailer 11750

August Series 1

The winds were a little light yesterday, around 8- 10kts. Kathy crewed for me since my regular crew Joe is off working the Space Shuttle mission. We continued to focus on keeping the boat flat on beats, I had Kathy go up on deck and look at the jib stay sag and slot between the jib and main. I am going to need her to start learning to drive so I can give her the helm to allow me to go up on the foredeck to look. The boat felt good overall but Kathy reported that it appeared the slot between the main and jib was not even. When I tried to adjust it using the barber hauler, the boat slowed down, so I went back to what we had before. I need to check this out some more and make sure I understand.

Last Saturday, Jim W. brought his Day Sailer over and we tuned it up using the methods I learned in California. Today was the chance to try it all out. He was faster, as were we. The two tracks are shown here:

We finished 1:18 ahead of Jim, which is closer than it has been in the past. So I'm thinking this margin will decrease more.

Here's an analysis I did of the first beat.

1st beat:
1 18:25:57: 3426 tacks, 11750 tacks 3 seconds later
2 18:26:42: 11750 tacks
3. 18:28:12: 11750 tacks
4. 18:30:24: 3426 tacks
5. 18:31:30: 11750 tacks
6. 18:32:25: 11750 tacks
7. 18:33:36: 11750 tacks
8. 18:34:03: 3426 tacks
9. 18:35:30: 11750 rounds weather mark
10. 18:35:38: 3426 tacks
11. 18:36:10: 3426 rounds weather mark. (+ 40 seconds)

It wasn't exactly easy to do this, so I didn’t bother for the other legs.

The mean VMG for the boat was:
11750: 3.27kts,
3426: 3.07kts.

Mean speeds for the boats:
11750: 4.77 kts.
3226: 4.50 kts.

July Series 4

I had really hoped to be able to sail after getting back from the NAC regatta, but I was to be disappointed. As we rigged up, I was full of enthusiasm, telling Joe, my Wednesday night crew about what I had learned. We launched the boat and when I tried to hoist the main, it would not go up. The first foot or so was easy, but then, the force required on the halyard that would get increasingly high. My mind went back to the new masthead sheave that that Proctor had installed for me when I was there the previous Friday. I had not verified its operation. Quickly we pulled the boat out of the water and took the mast down. The new Stainless steel sheave was frozen at the top. After some work we freed it, but realized that it had been forced into the masthead and didn't turn freely. I was annoyed ay my leaving the old sheave on my bedside table that morning instead of bringing it with me, but there was nothing for it. We scrambled for other options but came up with nothing. So, we called it a day and went to get some pizza and beer to soothe the feeling of anticlimax... Mmmmm....carbs.

Jim Wells gave me his GPS track from that race and here's the image:

Home from the NACR, Days 4 and 5

Not much to report about the trip from Las Cruces, to Kerrville and then from Kerrville, home. The only thing was that in Fort Stockton, the "Service Engine Light Soon" came on, and after consulting my truck owner's manual I decided that it might be a bad tank of gasoline. In any event the indicator was not flashing so I didn't need to take it in immediately. I proceeded on, across the boring miles of West texas, listening with varied degrees of success to the books on CD that we had brought. The CD player was skipping a lot and I'm thinking that Delco is not very good at making electronics that last a long time.
I got into Kerrville, ate dinner, watched some TV and went to sleep.

I left Kerrville 5:30am and drove until I made it home just after 11:00 am.
It was good to be home, and it was also a little sad that a great vacation was over, but then again all good things must come to an end, so that other good things can take their place. Hello humidity!!

Home from the NACR, Day 3

I took K. to Sky Harbor airport this morning so that she can be back at work tomorrow. It wasn’t exactly a fun thing. I missed her the moment I dropped her off. I returned to my brother's place and had breakfast with my sister -in-law. I left around 8 am, and after some trouble finding a decent gas station. I had decided that I wanted to see the part of Arizona north east of Phoenix. So went up towards Lake Roosevelt and saw Canyon Lake, which is relatively close to the metro area. There are lots of Jet skis, stupid cigarette boats and water-skiers.

I'm not sure what the winds would be like. It was fairly calm when I stopped there at 11:30 am. Then, I proceeded towards Lake Roosevelt on AZ route 88 and a few miles down the road form Canyon Lake found that the paved road ended and would not resume until I arrived at Lake Roosevelt. I continued, but doubted my sanity. This road, the Apache trail, was a single lane dirt road. Cars would come along in the other direction and I had a couple of close calls. The road was winding, treacherous, and narrow. Apparently it was originally built to get the supplies up to build Roosevelt dam in the 1920’s.

I arrived at Roosevelt dam, and talked briefly to the ranger on duty. I learned that there are a few sailboats there, and that the winds can be strong – over 20 knots, and that they are erratic. The Ranger mentioned that fishing is the biggest sport. I hate fishing, but listened politely anyway. Who really knows what the winds are like here? I did see a few sailboats, mostly big ones.

Having had enough of towing my poor Surprise along rough winding dirt roads, I proceeded on through Miami, Globe, and Safford, AZ and over the border into New Mexico. That part of Arizona, the Apache reservation, is depressing. There were several signs advising people against suicide, and the small towns and houses along the road were deserted or had the look of extreme depression.

I finally made to Las Cruces, NM, and decided to call it a day. After checking into a hotel, I went in search of New Mexican style food and found it. A little restaurant called Andale' in Old Mesilla south of Las Cruces. They had some of the best salsa. I'm sorry to have to admit it, but it beats the pants off of any Tex-Mex style salsa I've had to date.
Tomorrow is another and hopefully my last full day of travel. I miss K., and want to get home.

Home from the NACR, Day 2

We left Corona early, expecting light traffic and that's what we got. I rarely have travelled I-10 west of Phoenix, so when we saw these windmills
it was something interesting.

Other than tnhat oit was a rather boring trip. We got into Arizona and bumped the speed up form the pokey 55 allowed in California to the 70 allowed in AZ. We stopped at an IN-N-OUT burger in Avondale, Not bad fast food.

We spent the night at my brother's house, and had a great time visiting my sister-in-law.

Home from the NACR, Day 1

We left Huntington Lake early and headed to Los Angeles. The traffic there is really awful. It took us a long time to get to Costa Mesa, but we managed to get there by 2pm.

Proctor is an interesting place. They make good spars, but they are not very communicative. When we arrived, I found that the booms were not done and the reason was that the only extrusions they had were damaged. The damage was only cosmetic, so I had one boom made at a 10% discount. The mast butt on one mast was not available, so they will need to send that to me. The boom I’m bringing home will be used by Jim W. if he so chooses. If he wants, we will trade him. The damage is cosmetic, so I doubt it will be a problem. We finally got out of there around 5pm, two hours later than we had hoped. We made it to Kathy’s brother’s house in Corona. The problem with California is that you have to pay to use a toll road that is like a non toll road during rush hour in Houston. We moved so slowly, it took us an hour to go 10 miles. We finally got to their house and had a nice visit.

Our speed through LA traffic is apparent from this:

NACR, Day 3

I don't remember much from the next to last race except we had good pointing, good speed and kept up our successes from the previous day, adding another B fleet 1st to our score.

The start we had on the last race was one of our best ever, and we lucked into it. We were on port tack coming down the line with less than a minute to go. We tacked around to starboard and tried to find a spot on the pin end of the line. I found myself in the second row between Dean I. and Dave K. Knowing that this wouldn't do, I bore off and went around Dean and amazed to see... no one. We were the about 30- 50 yards from the pin with 18 seconds to go. I was certain we would over run the mark and I started trying to see that didn’t happen. K. was encouraging me to get the speed up, and I felt like I was being torn in two. On one hand I didn’t want to be over early, that would be the worst thing, to have such a good position and foul it up by crossing the line early. On the other hand, I didn't want to be there with no speed and get rolled immediately to windward. We closed the pin with astonishing rapidity and I was sure we would be over early when I heard the starting horn. K. said "We're not over early and I believed her. It didn't matter. If we were, that was fine, and I forgot about it. We got the boat flat and did out best for speed and pointing. Dean was above us and had speed on us. Before I could figure out if there was a way to keep pace, it was too late. We were in his bad air. We tacked and ducked Dave who was yelling, “Go! Go!, Go!!”. Beyond him was Phill Root, who was yelling “B fleet, go home!!” We got clear air and tacked back, but we lost more boats. We just couldn’t keep up with those guys. We tacked again and too many times and lost ground. We managed to stay in the top 10 however until the last mark rounding. We avoided clusters and pinwheels at mark roundings until the last one. We were inside, and Kevin Williams luffed us up after we rounded. Without looking over my shoulder, I decided to tack and there were two boats on port right there. I didn’t give them room and opportunity, so I luffed up hard and we missed each other since they did the same. That cost us. We were in irons and the boat had stopped dead. After what seemed an eternity, we got the boat back on port tack and made our way to the finish. We tacked, and sailed to the port lay line. A boat was under us and just as we tacked, there was Jim Fisher on starboard. There was nothing I could do but go back on the starboard; he was too close to duck. The other boat also had to tack back. We found ourselves below the halfway point of the 'A' fleet, but ahead of the next 'B' fleet boat.

I was struck at how easy it is to lose a lot of boats by making one or two small errors. It was such a tightly packed crowd. The time between the first boat and last boat in a fleet of 30 plus could not have been more than a couple of minutes.

We pulled the boat out of the water and derigged her for the trip home. I was pleased, but I felt detached as well. Most of the reason we did so well was because some great folks in the class association were kind enough to share their knowledge and help this guy out. The success we had is as much due to them as it was to Kathy's work as crew and lastly mine as the guy who just pays the bills and tries to figure it out by following advice and trying things.

I wish I could have been more articulate when we received our trophies.
I owe a debt of gratitude to Kevin Williams for showing me how to tune the rig, to Phill Root for coaching me on boat handling and commenting on the rigging setup, to Dean Iwahashi for his suggestion to cross the barberhaulers, and to Kathy for putting up with me during the tough times and doing such great work handling the sails.

We were fortunate to have been given accommodations by Michael and Brooks Measures and I appreciate them putting us up and putting up with us. It helps when you have a decent place to sleep instead of a deflated air mattress between you and a cold rocky piece of the Sierra national forest, no matter how beautiful it is.

All of the folks who showed up gained something by being here. If not something about how to make their boat handling better then just be being able to meet with a great group of people and making or renewing friendships in one of the best sailing venues this country has to offer.

After the awards, we made our goodbyes, which is always a difficult thing to do and returned to the condo, to spend some nice quiet time with the Measures.

Brooks, Michael and all the Morro Bay folks were wonderful as were the folks from the Fresno fleet. These are some great people who put on an excellent regatta! One of the best so far, and that's saying a lot because all the regattas I’ve been to have been great.

Here are photos of the top ten:

316, Vieja, Dave Keran and Janette Zeman, 1st place, NA champions

2543 G.S. Lollipop, Phill and Brian Root, 2nd place

11023 Long Gone, Dean Iwahashi and Jeri Gildersleeve, 3rd place

156, Pilikia, Len Fiock and Matt Peterson, 4th place

152, Titanic, Tom and John Haines, 5th place

2970, Passin' wind, Bill and Chris Fiock, 6th place

13162, Vagabundo, Eduardo and Lucy Grisetti, 7th place

3018, Protest! Kevin Williams and Gail Condon, 8th place

3440, Lemon Head John Neiswanger and Kenton Hendricks, 9th place

10761, Richard and Karen Clay, 10th place

NACR, Day 2

Today we focused on keeping the boat flat, played the jib on reaches in the same way we play the spinnaker on runs. We listened to the water (meaning that we tried to keep the noise volume from the bow and stern about even in volume. We kept ourselves out of clusters, pinwheels and bad air. We kept repeating the mantra "Never give up, never surrender." - We ended up with two first places in our fleet!

Thanks for the advice, guys.

more photos:

Kevin and Gail (3018) Dean and Jeri (11023)

7172: Michael Measures and Joss Giddings
1594: ? Dana and Teresa McClish ( spin number doesn't match the main?)
1336: Mark Schroeder and Terry Reidy
178: Sheldon Onstead and Rob Fiock
2983: Tom Murphy and Christine Pattison
14012: Lex and Lolo Budge

Foreground to background:
1164: Fabian and Emma Pease
7172: Michael Measures and Joss Giddings
2983: Tom Murphy and Christine Pattison
11020: Peter and Anita Rothenbuecher
11750(Blue and Green Spinnaker): Bob and Kathy Hunkins
White spin-?
3440: John Neiswanger and Kenton Hendricks

NACR Day 1

The tuning seems to be working. Before the race we reduced the mast bend by one peg and got ready to sail. Had a good first beat in the first race. Our start was decent and for a short, glorious moment we were for a short time in the top 10. I had this odd feeling, like when you first learn to ride a bicycle. you're going along and you realize you're riding the bike with no help, no training wheels, and you get so excited that you wipe out. That's sort of what happened this time. I felt like the boat was going great and then I thought about it too much and Blooey!! Things went from bad to worse, and we ended up near last, and were 5th of 6th in our fleet. We found ourselves being blanketed, caught on the outside of pinwheels at roundings. You name it, we made the mistake. One thing we were told was that we needed to keep the boat flatter. Really flat. Zero degrees flat. Pancake flat.

"But the helm feels awful when we do that!" I protested.
"It's supposed to." came the reply. That nice tug on the helm feels good, but it's not as fast as that sick, dead feeling in your hand. "If you let go of the helm, the boat - should - very - very - slowly - move - up - in - to - the - wind - over - a - long - long - time." (20 - 30 seconds or so)

A light came on in my head.

The second race was worse, however. We were possibly over early. I don’t know if we really were, but I decided we were and no one was going to change my mind, not even my wife. That ruined our race. We ended up near last again. But somehow had a 4th in our fleet. I was a bit bummed sailing that race and had mentally thrown in the towel. Another mistake.

So, here are the lesson I've (Re)-learned today:

1. If I think I'm over early, keep going. We're not really here to win anything, and it's better to compete with the fleet than to be the last straggler, sailing alone. We can sail alone any time.

2. Repeat to yourself: "Never give up, never surrender". (Makesure you say it like the alien in the movie "Galaxy Quest" to help lighten up the mood a bit.)

3. Keep the boat flat, look for that awful feeling in the helm.

4. Remember it's supposed to be fun and the main thing is to learn!

The players seen here form left to right:
1076: Deryck and David Clay
14007: Greg Adams and Peter Reynaud
2967: Jim fisher and Gary Ogden
1256: Chuck and Rick Wilson
? Red sail numbers
(white hull boat)?: Dean Iwahashi and Jeri Gildersleeve
11750: Bob and Kathy Hunkins
black sail numbers: ?
3440: John Neiswanger and Kenton Hendricks
152: Tom and John Haines
Yellow hull(156) Len Fiock and Matt Petersen
2970(black numbers) Bill and Chris Fiock
2543: Phill and Brian Root
(black letters) 13162: Eduardo and Lucy Grisetti
316: Dave Keran and Janette Zeman

If you didn't go, this is what you missed. I pity you. :-)

(click for a LARGER image (900 kb))
From left to right:
1076: Deryck and David Clay
316: Dave Kerna and Janette Zeman
Starboard tack; blue deck, white hull : Jim Fisher and Gary Ogden (2967)
3440: John Neiswanger and Kenton Hendricks
14051: Jim and Pat Skeen
Starboard Tack; green deck, white hull: Dana and Teresa McClish (1525)
4000: Dan McDonald & Jennifer Leupo
2543: Phill and Brian Root
Starboard tack, just behind 2543, yellow hull : 156: Len Fiock and Matt Petersen
Red boat on starboard behind 2970: 178, Shel Onstead and Rob Fiock
2970: Bill Fiock and Chris Fiock

I only post this one because we're in it and there's so few. :-)

The players in the background are:
13162: The Grisetti's
10761: Richard and Karen Clay
3018: Kevin Williams and Gail Condon
2967: Jim Fisher and Gary Ogden
1076: Deryck and David Clay
11750: Bob and Kathy Hunkins
152: Tom and John Haines

Finally this picture, which says it all:

* * *

We had the annual meeting tonight and I am now the Past President. Its was a good experience, and I hope that Michael M. will have as positive experience as I did. I recommend it for anyone who wants to get to know people in the Association, and to try to make a difference or help out. Its a great excuse to use when planning your vacations... "I have to go to the North Americans, I'm the class association President. Other fun things happen too, like people put crowns on your head and address you by such ephitaphs as "A wheel", "The Big Cheese" or as "His Pubescence"... I'm still trying to figure that last one out.

'05 NACR minus 1

This morning, I put the barrel screw adjusters back on the spreaders. Taking them off just didn't seem to help.

We decided to play around with the rig today and Kevin W. helped us with setting the boat up. We have a different procedure now.

We set the mast rake with no shroud tension so that the distance from the masthead to the center of the transom is 23’ 5”. We set the shrouds to be even length. We measure from the masthead to the middle of the pins on either side and make sure the length is even. This is to make sure the mast bend is even going side to side. Then, we use the spinnaker halyard, secure it to the thwart, and attach the other end to the trailer winch with a bowline tied in it to spare the shackle and tighten until a loose gauge placed on the shrouds reads about 32. We connect the forestay to hold a little less than that and loosen the trailer winch. The loose gauge when placed on the forestay shows about 17.

We didn't run it as high as some of the other folks, but I recall Dave K. using 300 lbs on the shrouds. The conversion scale is on the gauge, and I don’t have it handy, but I think we run about 280 on the shrouds and something less - 190(?) on the forestay. It’s far tighter than we were running in the past.

Dean I. mentioned we could improve our pointing by rigging the inhaulers (barber haulers) at 12" off of the centerline and also running them across the cuddy top so that the barber hauler coming from the port side hole would be used on the starboard jib sheet and vice versa. I had changed this set up a while back and went from using lance cleats on the top of the cuddy to a system where I go through the cuddy deck to cam cleats on the underside of the cuddy lip. When I had the old set up, I had crossed the lines, and never thought about it when I changed. Doh!

K. and I set up some markings on the various lines to note starting places to where we should trim.

In the afternoon, Phill R. and I took the boat out on the water.
He likes a lot of things about Surprise. He thinks the boat has a decent set up, and there is no reason she shouldn't be fast. He likes the spinnaker. Suggested that we reduce mast bend by shifting the butt of the mast forward. Keep the lengths of the shrouds and forestay the same. He showed me a lot of good tricks, mentioned keeping the boat flat. We flew the spinnaker and were able to keep it flying even when we were sailing up to about 70 degrees off the wind. That can be useful for some situations, especially at Huntington Lake where there are short tight reaches followed by runs. He suggested we change out the jam cleats used for the guys with cam cleats (He uses the Servo brand, but Harken would also work.) I will have to consider what to do about the guy hooks, I'd like to place tweakers or twingers, about the hull to deck joint is rather wide on the spindrift boats compared to the O'Days. I'm sure there is a way to do it, but it will take some consideration.
I brought my camera out on the water and am kicking myself for not taking a picture then. I just got so involved with the whole process thing that I forgot. I really appreciate Phill and Kevin taking their time to help. It's good to have some differing opinions on things, and I guess it's my job to decide which bits of advice to choose.

The junior NACs were held today and it was really great to see these kids sailing the Day Sailer with their parents or an elder as crew. All of them were great. and I envy them. Simply having the chance to do that is something so many of us never had the chance to do when we were kids. Those who did sail when they were kids are usually the best ones in the class, The guys who take home national championship trophies. I envy the kids who have this chance and hope they make the most of their experiences.

Tomorrow we begin racing!

High Sierra Regatta, Day 2

I took the barrel screws off the spreaders for the last race of the High Sierra regatta and it was a disaster. The sail was too flat, we were not able to go upwind with the others. Our down wind performance suffered as well. So I’ll put them back on and try something else. P. Root is willing to help me go out on the boat tomorrow and offer suggestions. As a result of this, I'm convinced we belong in the 'B' or Presidential fleet for the NACR. Adn that's cool. We have one start with the 'A' fleet, so it's not like I won't get to sail starts with the big guns.
We'll play with the rig tomorrow. Maybe we can get Surprise moving.

The governing board meeting went well,

M. Boone will get the Hans Gottschalk DSA Merit award, which I’m glad for. He's done a lot of great work helping the owners of the Day Sailer boat as well as the class association.

Mary Heimer will be the new executive VP. Great choice, she's got a lot of talent, and works well with people and knows how to lead. A far better choice than this individual writing, although I was glad and honored to do the job.

Bob Damon has agreed to be class measurer, and may God be with him. It's one tough job, since it deals with the issues nearest and dearest to peoples' hearts in this association. I'm confident he will do well.

High Sierra Regatta, Day 1

Well, the first day of the High Sierra regatta is done. Our performance is less than spectacular. First race we were probably 30th out of 32 boats. Maybe 29th. In short, We stank. Second race we were a little better, but I think we were probably only 28th or 27th. We were at the back of the last pack and well ahead of the stragglers. I don’t know why we were so bad, but I’m going to take the barrel screws off the spreaders tomorrow and see if that will help. It was a suggestion, to allow the mast to flex, or pump with the gusts. As it stands the spreaders are fixed in fore-and-aft swinging direction as well as in length I have nothing to lose, and this is really what I came here for anyway: to learn how to make this boat go better.

One particularly bothersome problem was that we're not pointing with those guys.When I say those guys I mean P. Root, D. Keran, D. Iwahashi, J. Fisher. For a while during the first beat, we were actually gained on L. Fiock, but he passed us at the end of the beat when I made the stupid mistake of coming across on starboard in front of a whole bunch of boats sailing downwind. to make the starboard rounding. The wind was so light and bad there at the upper end of the lake that we were becalmed.

On the other hand we managed to close with M. Schroeder on the down wind and almost got him, but it wasn’t enough. We had trouble with the chute on the second set in the down wind. K. did a good job of straightening it out, but we might have caught him if we had been able to set it right away. Oh well, &#$@ happens. As always, it's fun to see some ways that people have built their boats up. I think that replacing the jam cleats for the guy with cam cleats in there would help us some, and setting up tweakers would be a good thing.

I'm very loathe to criticize Race Committee, but I do with they could have used the standard starting sequence that has been in the racing rules of sailing for over five years now. No one else uses the old Yellow-blue-red system anymore that I've seen. But, it's their regatta, not mine, so it's not a complaint, merely an observation. They still did a good job, and I alway appreciate RC doing what they do, so long as they are conscientious about it. Thanks, Fresno Yacht Club!

At Huntington Lake, CA, Day 1

We spent some time sailing the boat around on Huntington lake. Not much to report, other than it’s a wonderful place to sail. Winds 10-15. Folks say the winds are lighter than normal because the valley is so hot right now: 105° F. I did take the GPS along and the track is here. I’m not going to use it during the High Sierra or the NACR, since its skirting too close to the rule we have about not using any electronics except time pieces and compasses. True, I’m not using it during the race, since I only look at the data afterwards, but unless I ask the class measurer for an interpretation, which I don’t want to bother with right now, I don’t feel comfortable doing it. For non-sanctioned races, there’s no problem.

Trip to the NACR, Day 6-7

We made it to Tulare, CA yesterday and stayed at the Days Inn. I was appalled at how expensive Gasoline was on crossing the CA/AZ border. In Needles, CA the price was $3.09! We’ve found gas to be $2.45-$2.47 elsewhere. One of the thing I realized on arriving in California was that they limit the speed of trucks and autos with trailers to 55 mph, while everyone else can go 60-70. It makes little sense to me to have those other vehicles scream along while we have to be obstacles. Here's a self-photo:

Here's another one which is only remarkable for the billboard on the right. Seems apropos:

Today, we went grocery shopping. We bought an Albertson’s card and if we had not, the cost would have been much higher than we paid. Seems a lot of things are expensive here, or we just don’t know the cheap places to shop, being foreigners, as it were. We arrived in Huntington in the early afternoon, and I got to sail with M. Measures in his boat, Luscious Pig. We had a problem, however; The main halyard came undone at the masthead and we limped to the dock. I had hoped to try going close-hauled to see how she felt. I helped Dana and Teresa launch their boat, which is a spit of Endeavour back home into the water. They are keeping the boat on a mooring and it's interesting to see how it is done. There is a sort of long bungee cord used as an anchor rode and the can pull the boat to shore with a stern line, get on board, and ease the stern line. Then the can raise the sails and sail off the mooring. Not of much use for where I live, but interesting nonetheless.

We’re staying at a condo here and it’s a good place. It is slightly rustic but with all the comforts of home.

Trip to the NACR, Day 5

We got up early and headed towards the Grand Canyon. It’s the first time I’ve been back there since I left Arizona over 16 years ago, and of course the place has changed. I don't mean the Canyon itself. That won’t change while any of us are around. The management of the park has changed. In the old days you could drive to any of the lookout points. Nowadays, you park and get ferried around on shuttle buses. I guess they have to do that since there are so many more people visiting but it makes me sad. It’s a loss of freedom; I get a feeling that the place is less everyones’ and now more no ones’. The Canyon itself however is still beautiful, still majestic, still ageless.
I’ve found myself missing Arizona more and more, bit perhaps it's really the Arizona of the 1980’s I miss. The air is still fresh and dry, the pines still pervade the air with their perfume, and I don’t sweat buckets. I’m find I'm really getting tired of that in Texas. Here, I almost have nosebleeds because the air is so dry and the altitude is high, but I wonder if that isn’t a better thing. I don't really consider myself a Texan, even though I’ve lived there longer than I lived in Arizona, or anywhere else for that matter. I just don’t have the Texas attitude. There’s a lot about Houston that I dislike. It’s a fairly ugly city, after all. Black mold on the buildings, billboards everywhere with garish, obnoxious advertising, often for disreputable businesses (read strip clubs), obnoxious business people, stupid TV reporting (the death count from overnight crime followed by the Hollywood gossip occupys most of the local half hour news.), Did I mention the humidity? Plus, the music radio is the worse I've ever encountered. In fact all the radio in Houston is poor. This wasdriven home to me when I tuned into the local classic rock station out of Flagstaff and I never hear a song I hated in the two hours I listened, and the ads were not obnoxious. Whereas, in Houston, The music radio has a bunch of annoying DJ’s, and the local talk radio is enough to make one hang oneself out of desperation.

Where did this entry get to? I started writing about AZ and now I’m ragging on Houston.

We passed through the east side of Flagstaff, and took US 89 towards Cameron, AZ. I saw only a little bit of Flagstaff, which I regret. But, I know I’d go down memory lane if saw more and I’d annoy K. too much. I had to spare her that. As we were driving up 89 north of Flagstaff, we stopped near Sunset crater for a rest stop. The air was so dry and cool. The pines were so nice. It was really nice to be there for a little while. I picked up a little bit of volcanic cinders and put them in a cup to bring home, to remind me of that place. Miserable sentimentality.

So we saw a lot of the Canyon. Took pictures, bought trinkets, walked along the rim for several miles.

I was not much interested in hiking when I was younger but part of me was thinking it might be fun to do a hike into the canyon, after taking the proper equipment and precautions of course. Maybe someday. I saw a poster detailing how someone, a fairly athletic young woman (her picture was on the sign) had died in the Canyon last year. She had run the Boston Marathon; was was fit. But her pack had only an apple, an energy bar and 1 quart of water in it. The Canyon is pretty, but it ain't worth dying in.

We're staying in Williams, which has expensive hotels. But we found a cute place on the west end of town called what else - The Canyon Motel. I know I saw it back in the old days but never paid it much mind. Except for the fact that the walls are thin and I we had to listen to our neighbor's TV (which was on ever since we arrived) it was okay.

There's a steam train that runs from Williams to the G. Canyon. As we arrived at out motel, I could hear it chugging along. Amazing things, steam engines. Obsolete, but oh so nostalgic, even for folks like me who weren't around to see them in their heyday. It would be fun to ride that train someday.

Thankfully, no boat or trailer problems today. Both bearing buddies are still on, the tires are still inflated, the springs are still holding and the boat has not suffered much.

Tomorrow, we press on to Bakersfield, CA or perhaps Fresno. Thursday we arrive at Huntington Lake.

Trip to the NACR, Day 4

This morning I was worried about finding a dust cap for the starboard trailer hub which lost its bearing buddy somewhere on US 60 between Roswell and Socorro NM. Maybe the aliens took it. K. suggested using the cap from my shaving cream can and some duct tape. After some cleaning and taping it was good enough.

I was worried nothing would be open on July 4, but I called an auto zone who said they had the dust caps. When I showed up the guy said that they had bearing buddy type caps, and so I bought them and after some swearing and pounding with a hammer and a piece of wood the replacement was installed. I still wonder how the original one fell off.

We started out on US 60 and stopped at a place that is much more amazing than Roswell: The Very Large Array Radio telescope. This is a colossal place. Huge dish antennas the size of baseball diamonds set out in an Y-shaped array larger than the city of Washington DC.

We continued on from there and stopped at the Continental Divide where we had a slice of pie in Pie Town, NM. It was so nice to sit in the cool dry air and enjoy the place.

Onward, we continued into Springerville, AZ and then on to the Petrified Forest Park. Another ‘Land of No’ place. We did some walking, looked at petrified logs from millions of years ago and saw Indian petroglyphs from several hundred years ago. I wonder if those people understood what had happened to the logs in the Petrified Forest. They never wrote anything down in a language, so we will never know.

Then, it was on to Holbrook where we were too tired to watch the fireworks. After eating at an Italian restaurant on the main drag, K. crashed early and I’m writing this. Think I’ll go get a beer and celebrate Independence.

Trip to the NACR, Day 3

We had a good morning seeing Carlsbad Caverns.

I don’t know how to describe it other than amazing. I do find the Park Service's constant harping on peoples’ impact on things to be annoying. I don’t believe that humans are outside of nature and that our presence in caves is unnatural. We’re curious and with that of course comes some responsibility to not destroy things, but when it comes to being told that we impact the caverns simply by being there then the unsaid message is we don’t belong there. I’m waiting for the day when the Park Service bans people from entering the parks entirely because we impact it too much, merely by going there. Instead, we will pay tax dollars for the production of videos which we will then have to buy or something. In my mind, such a park in my mind is not worth having. I wish I had better photos of the cavern, but It's tough to take photos in darkness. As a soon to be former class association president I have some appreciation for this formation called "The Sword of Damocles"
See this article if you have no idea (like I did) what the sword of Damocles is
We continued on to Roswell, NM and stopped in to see what all the hoo-ha about the aliens is about. We went to a museum there and saw a poorly organized set of reproductions of news articles, affidavits, and other things including replicas of things supposedly found at the "crash site". There was an old guy there who was apparently the curator and was talking to someone about this whole thing the guy was asking critical questions and the guy was pretty much just sweeping the answers under the rug, and saying “But it happened! It happened!And there were the assorted odd balls walking around making “beep-beep” noises. Not really, but there were some odd folks hanging around. Folks who I suspect consider “The X-Files” to be a documentary TV show, not fiction.

So, having stood enough of it, we left and drove to Socorro. We drove acros some very lovely country and passed through Capitan, NM where Smokey Bear is buried. Having grown up as a forest service brat, I was constantly exposed ot Smokey Bear, and to my betterment. If I had known he was buried there at the time we would have stopped to pay our respects. Lovely country, it was.

We when we arrived at the hotel in Socorro, K. said “We have a problem, the grease cap is gone. “ I thought she meant the little plastic cap on the bearing buddy that covers the grease fitting and was about to say it was no big deal when I saw that the right hub was bare. The entire bearing buddy was gone. I was really unhappy about it, and thought that there was no way we would find replacements in Socorro, NM. My first solution was to find a regular dust cap and replace it with a bearing buddy somewhere in Arizona or California where boats seem to be more common.

Dinner was depressing. Nothing was open in Socorro on a Sunday night. We finally tried going to the Taco Bell, but there were out of – get this – Taco meat. There comes a time when I just wish people who don’t want to serve you would just come out and say it instead of quoting outrageous prices or saying “Sorry, we’re out of the one thing we use in almost all our products. We ended up going to an Arby's and taking it back to the room. Which in and of itself was pleasant enough.

Trip to the NACR, Day 2

We got up early were planning to head out across the West Texas Wasteland, which is Kerrville to the Pecos River, or even as far as El Paso.

We got up at a reasonable time this morning, packed up and headed to fuel up at the local HEB store. Kathy went inside to buy some breakfast foods – yogurt, etc…
As I was pulling up to the pump I looked back to make sure the trailer would clear the concrete island, I saw a motion in the left trailer tire which was, well wrong. A slight wobble.

As the tank was being filled @$2.05/gal, I went back and shook the wheel. It definitely wobbled. Not good. I realized then that the bearings were going, if not already gone. Thoughts ran through my head, some of recrimination for not being vigilant enough to check the stupid things before I left town, and of worry that on the Saturday of Independence Day weekend I would not be able to find a way to get this repaired. I told Kathy about the problem, we and started looking for a mechanic nearby.

The first place I found that was open could not work on bearings, but the fellow did his best to help me to find someone who would be able to help me out of this predicament. I was told that the service department at the nearby GM dealer would help. I knew then the cost would probably be high, but unfortunately, I really had no choice.

I was also very glad I noticed this problem in town as opposed to having the problem become painfully and perhaps dangerously apparent on the road, the very sparsely populated road, west of Kerrville.

So, I slowly towed Surprise on her lame trailer to the dealership, hazard lights flashing the whole way. Each time I went over a bump or turned a corner I would cringe, thinking that the axle or some other component was being damaged possibly sinking my chance of getting to Huntington.

I met the service manager, and set the boat down behind the building. He told me they would get to it as soon as possible. The time was about 10:00 am. We had already lost more than an hour on the road. We left to have a real breakfast and I hoped the work would be in train when I came back.

Unfortunately, it was not. They had not even begun then I returned at 11:00. We left again and did a little shopping a sad little mall the have in Kerrville. We did manage to find some interesting antique shops, but I was preoccupied with the outcome of this dilemma. If they could not fix it today, we would be stranded in Kerrville until Tuesday. We returned at about 1 pm, and they told me they would be starting on it shortly. Sure enough, they had the trailer on a jack by 1:30, both hubs off. At 1:45 the service manager, Ryan, said both sets of wheel bearings were shot. The parts were being retrieved from a local supplier and when they arrived it would be a short job to install them. By 2:30 the job was done. Part of the problem was that a piece of fishing line had somehow gotten into the works, and the seal had been broken. Even though I thought I was doing a good job about putting grease in the bearing buddies, I learned that I am supposed to either repack the bearings every year or two, or better yet, replace them.

They did the job by replacing the entire hub, bearings and lug nuts. Given the corroded state of the hubs and the difficulty of replacing the races in the hubs, this seemed reasonable to me. In any event, all I was concerned about was that the boat would be ready to travel before it was too late. IT was expensive, unfortunately, $300. I expect that in a different time and place the costs would have been perhaps half of that. IF I did the work myelf, probably 1/3. But this was a lesson learned. The systems in the trailer that are most important are:
1. Bearings. 2. Tires/wheels 3. Suspension, 3. Electrical... I'm sure there's others, like the systems used to secure the boat to the trailer. But I think these four are the ones that can get you into the most trouble.

We were on the road at 2:45 pm and then realized that I didn’t have the chocks I had put out when I disconnected the boat. Nor did I have the old bearings to use as a part when it comes time to replace these bearings. I turned around and returned, losing another 25 minutes. By 3:25 pm we were finally on our way.

No back roads this time. We kept on I-10 until we reached Fort Stockton at 7:09pm. We stopped for a treat and continued on US 285 north to Pecos, arriving there 8:15pm.

We will continue on to Carlsbad tomorrow, and plan to stay in Socorro tomorrow evening. We can make up the time lost with no difficulty in my opinion, assuming no more transportation problems.

Trip to the North American's, Day 1

I'm retrospectively posting my notes from my trip to the 2005 NACR. I made some of these notes during the trip, and some afterwards due to time constraints or just plain laziness. I hope who ever reads this from the Day Sailer.org site gets something out of this and will consider going to future NACRs if they have not gone before. If nothing else it's a great vacation, with lots of good times, minor adventures, and lessons learned about how to travel with a boat on a trailer. - B.H. 7/23/05
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I left home at 3:24pm CDT. I picked K. up at her work at 4:16pm, and we made reasonable time even though we immediately veered from our planned course. Instead of following I-10 to Kerrville, we took Beltway 8 around the city to the north. At the north side of the city, I got a low coolant indicator which I had seen earlier in the week, and we pulled into a parking lot and topped off the reservoir with some prestone I had bought just in case. After that no problems were noted. We took US 290 towards Austin, and made it there by dusk. We continued on to Johnson City and Fredericksburg, arriving in Kerrville at 10:45pm. Austin, johnson city and Fredericksburg are in the hill country of Texas which is very differnet from the coastal plain of Houston. It's still warm, but not as humid and there are more deer to be seen in the area.

July Series 1

Not much analysis this time; I'm off to Nationals.

I've got the two plots for Cacafuego and Surprise here: