Port Townsend Bay,
Saturday, January 12th, 2013

Captain Kirk Gresham

Kirk Gresham (Captain Kirk), broadcast on our local pocket yachters list that he was itching to go out on the water and his boat is packed up for the winter... And it was another rare sunny day in the high 30's F...  So, I called him to crew on Yasmin.  I was also itching to get some feedback from an experienced sailer on how my outhaul control was dealing with the lee helm problem.

He experienced the lee helm as we hoisted the sail, and she wanted to take off toward Indian Island (downwind).  The 'test outhaul' doesn't  kick in until the sail is at it's full height. As soon as the sail was fully up, the outhaul yanked the luff end of the bottom batten back toward the mast and Yasmin started to behave and was almost balanced.  So, I will install the full outhaul control lines and Kirk also suggest maybe moving the halyard forward on the yard maybe a foot.

It was cold, with variable 5 to 11 knot winds, with wind chill factor making it feel like 31 degrees, so we didn't stay out too long, one run up to Point Hudson and back.

Thank you, Kirk, for getting out on such a beautiful day.  I hope to be fully rigged for this years Shipwrights' (Regatta) Race on February 23rd.

Heading toward the paper mill

Another perfect day for sailing!

New Years Day 2013, out on Port Townsend Bay

New Years Day 2013, snowy Cascades in the east, Tabitha's hood as she helmed the CS17 for her dad,  to take this shot with his phone.  (by Edward Gossett)

Just had to get on the water and it turned out to be one of the rare sunny days this season.  The Cascade Mountains were dusted with snow on the Eastern horizon and Mount Baker was solid white and massive in the Northeast.

About 13:30 we found +Edward Gossett out in the middle of Port Townsend bay, testing an additional sail between the two mainsails  while is adroit 4 year old 'manned' the helm of their core-sound-17.

Later, again with Tabitha at the helm, Edward took two pictures of Yasmin... I hope to figure out my phone camera and promise to return the favor on future messabouts.

Edward has his own blog where he describes their frequent family adventures from each family member's perspective, such refreshing and cool way to tell the story and highlight learnings. http://foggysailing.com

Happy New year, I'm feeling that this will be the luckiest year yet 2013!

New years day 2013, with Port Townsend Waterfront by Edward Gossett

Sails that Goblin and I admire.

These are the inspiration for Goblin's new junk rig sail.  Hope you enjoy them as much as we do. These are from Rob Parish's vast collection.

Goblin's trek to her new home.

I finally found an Alacrity 19', near enough and within my budget on Craigslist.org. A wonderful couple from California brought her with them when they moved from the San Francisco bay to a river east of Salem, Oregon. My partner insisted that I see it before buying and it took about 3 weeks to arrange the trip with a borrowed Ford F150. It was love at first sight and I paid only $50 less than their original asking price.

After their wonderful hospitality and coffee around the wood fire I strapped everything down with much redundancy and hooked it up to the truck. I had decided to take the boat and trailer straight to a local garage to check the axle and tires, but only made it three miles when the port side trailer fender slipped down and ripped a hole in the trailer tire. The garage instead sent someone to meet me with a two new tires and said the bearings were fine for the 250 mile trip. It ended up being a long road at 40 - 50 mph, the best the F150 could do without overheating.

I hope to document her fix up and launch in the spring of 2009.

For now I'm just extremely happy to see her backed into the yard and the whole family just loves the look and will be pitching in to get her ready for the water.