Crew change and salty watermelon

Our passage from Cuttyhunk to Newport was quite smooth. Even if the forecast didn't get the wind direction, it did correctly predict the increase in wind speed over the course of the day. Initially I thought we'd be able to still under gennaker, but its top didn't unroll, so I took it down. The main plus full genoa was more than enough power for what ended up being a day upwind passage. Sasha was steering the entire time, maintaining speed of 7 to 8 knots against 10-13 knot winds. Fast and fun! The wind did indeed pick up after we dropped the anchor, so we were happy with the decision to leave early.

Power game

One of the things that we haven't been able to get quite right yet is the hydrogenerator. In essence, it's an alternator that is spun by a propeller submerged into water, so as soon as the boat is sailing at any sort of reasonable speed, the generator should produce more than enough power for our needs: refrigeration, instruments, water pressure, bilge pump. The charge controller is capable of taking solar in addition to the alternator, and that part seems to work ok. No, I've never seen more than 70W from 2 panels that are rated at 100W each, but maybe they are old, or partially damaged, or such power output can only be achieved in perfect conditions. In any case, they work.

When we tried to run the hydro together with the solar, the power output actually dropped! I reached out to Hydrovane guys to seek advice and they recommended to turn off the solar to see if it was interfering. Indeed, with the solar panels unplugged, at 7 knots the hydro was producing more or less stable 100W. At some point it must have caught weeds and became less productive. However, where are the promised 300W at 5 knots?

At least a partial answer lies in the fact that I installed the propeller that was in the box. Its diameter is 240mm. At 6.5 knots it's supposed to produce about 120W, so maybe that all checks out. I attached the 280mm propeller, so we'll test it today.

Crew off, crew on

Friday, the AAMMM crew had to leave Salty Ginger. Adults need to get back to work, Mabry needs to head back to Seattle, and Margot to her favorite Russian camp in upstate NY.

Shortly after Mark and the girls left, Martha, Paul and Peter arrived just in time for lunch.

After lunch, Sasha & Sasha left, so we collected our thoughts together, and jumped into the dinghy to go into Newport for groceries and ice cream. I have to say, the number of ice cream shops on Thames St is a bit overwhelming!

Never a dull day on the water

Laundry dropped off, food purchased, ice cream eaten we got back into the dinghy to head back. There was a lot of wind, so we weren't making rapid progress, which was ok, at least we weren't getting flooded with spray. However as we crossed the channel and were maybe 1/3 of the way to SG the boat slowed down a lot and the engine was basically keeping us in the same place. Strange. Powering up actually dropped the speed over water and we started slipping back.

We rearranged the 4 of us so that Martha and Paul were on the stern bench, Peter in the front and I started rowing. It was slow. With every pull on the oars we were maybe moving forward 10 cm fighting the wind and the waves. And the big waves would flood over the stern because now it was too heavy. We rearrange the people to put Martha on the bow, which helped to even the boat and it wasn't flooding as much.

Progress was retarded even more as the wind picked up in strength. Great... Martha and Peter take turns bailing (Peter sometimes pouring water onto my back) as we slowly but surely progress towards Salty Ginger which was already in sight.

A good Samaritan saw us fighting and offered to jump into his dinghy. He took Peter and Martha aboard and slowly (although a lot faster than rowing) pulled us towards Salty Ginger. Thank you!

We got aboard just in time: the wind strength picked up even more. Definitely at least 15 knots judging by the whitecaps. Feet and groceries were wet (salty watermelon, anyone?), my palm skin lost fingerprints in a few more places, but all were happy to be on a much more stable surface than Ginger Snap! 

I knew exactly what was happening: the pin that goes into the propeller shaft and turns the prop must have been broken. I started thinking what is it that I must have hit to break it, but couldn't think of anything. The answer is much simpler: corrosion.

And of course the pin is solidly stuck inside the shaft, so now we're up for a fun task of hammering it out before inserting a new pin (I eventually found the 3 replacement pins). We'll try to get the penetrating oil to do work while we are having breakfast...

King Neptune's jokes

 The forecast winds for Wednesday were north in the very early morning, shifting to NE, and thento easterly in the afternoon. Since we wanted to get to Cuttyhunk island we thought that departing early would be best to have the most time with more favorable winds. Teenagers were still asleep when we raised anchor and left Block island.

Outside the channel we were greeted with a stiff but manageable wind that got us to the northern side of the island where we could tack and head pretty much east. Quickly the wind strengthened, so first the genoa, and then the mainsail were partly furled. Salty Ginger became as responsive as a sailing dinghy as she fought the waves making 5-6 knots. The seasickness of the crew was minor, but sent Sasha and Sasha napping. The good thing was we were heading straight towards Cuttyhunk!

After a couple of hours the wind subsided quite a bit, both sails were fully unrolled, everyone came up on the deck. Mark and the girls played a game, we cooked some pasta. Although a bit salty because I didn't add enough fresh water to the sea water, the late lunch brightened the mood.

However once we were done eating, King Neptune decided to take a nap so we had to turn on the engine. It wasn't that bumpy, but there was not much to do.

Later in the afternoon northeasterly wind came up. We tried to unroll the gennaker (dubbed mini-spinnie), but the top didn't want to unroll evenly. We brought it down, raised it unrolled, but we couldn't make progress towards our destination, so it was doused and we motored straight into the wind to get to Cuttyhunk.

The island has a dredged pond in the middle with evenly spaced moorings for about 70 boats. We saw the harbormaster as we entered and he said that he has exactly one spot left and we can take it. Yay!

We got to the island 20 minutes before the lobster shack and the pizza place were scheduled to close. After a long day on the water it was nice not to have to cook!

Birthday pizza!

Back on Salty Ginger we sang Mabry happy birthday and relaxed.

The forecast for today calls for southerly winds that are supposed to steadily get stronger over the course of the day. So, we left early (teenagers still sleeping) to try to avoid a very bumpy ride to Newport. And no, the winds are more SSW, so we are on a close reach as opposed to beam reach. At least the sea is rather calm! Thanks, King Neptune!

Relaxing day on the water

We took it easy on Tuesday. There were 2 must-do things: free the mainsail out of the jam and ensure that Sasha can tune into the Zoom meeting for his student's thesis defense.

Turns out, unjamming the mainsail when the boat is not rolling on the waves is much easier! Sasha winched me up and within 5 minutes the sail was free. We rolled it in tightly, so it was ready for use in the afternoon.

Late morning was spent swimming, jumping off the boat and simply relaxing. We tried to inflate the kayak, but it has a hole on the seam. Maybe we'll try to repair it. But if that doesn't work, the 8-year old toy will have to be thrown away.

While Sasha's student was defending, we played the board game Crew. For whatever reason, nobody was eager to go ashore. Makes it easier: no need to unfold the dingy which would require folding it before we take off for whatever today's destination will be.

The southern wind in the afternoon was nice. Not too stiff, and more than enough to sail. We cleaned up the boat and went out to get some practice sailing not too far from the salt pond entrance. Unlike Monday, the waves were minimal, so nobody was getting seasick!

The fun of the program was pull an inflatable behind the boat. At 6-7 knots the feeling of the inflatable jumping is quite exhilarating. Mabry went first. All was going well until she scared us a bit. The leading edge of the inflatable dug into the water with Mabry hanging on to it. It only lasted a few seconds before she let go, but the immediate reaction was to heave to and slow the boat down. Later Mabry said: "All I saw was a lot of bubbles in the water, and I thought that Salty Ginger can move fast!" The incident did not deter her from continuing. We let out more line which makes it a lot easier to catch the person while doing a circle around the person and 15-20 minutes later we heaved to in order to collect her. It was a good time to do so: she said her hands were clenched and she couldn't let go. Her major complaint: it was lonely. Luckily the board supports 2 people, so maybe the girls could do it together today.

Mabry a hundred feet behind the boat hanging on.

Mark on the wheel while Mabry is bouncing off the waves.

Mark followed Mabry to jump on the waves. He bounced for a while, and then got back aboard once the tube took a dive and he let go.

While we were bouncing people on the waves Margot started doing prep for dinner. She cut up onions and tomatoes all while the boat was heeling going upwind. I guess she is ready to be a cook!

When I was sailing with the Hudson River Community Sailing one of my friends said that it's never boring to sail with me: spinnaker up, spinnaker down, never an idle moment. Why should it be different on Salty Ginger?

I am clearly a bit rusty with sail handling. Yes we got the spinnaker up, but I swapped the clew and tack and didn't pay attention to how the halyard was running so it was wrapped around the forestay. Luckily there wasn't much wind, so fixing the minor issues was not too hard. Just some running on the deck. I continue to be amazed how easy it is to handle the spinnaker with the sock. The sail area is over 100 meters squared and yet we can fly it with inexperienced crew!

As we tried to jibe, we shot way past the pond entrance so my plan of beam reaching with the spinnaker had to be changed to close-hauled sail. The wind died down a bit so we weren't healing that much, making it easy for Mark, Mabry and Margot

to finish cooking dinner. Vegetarian soup which looks a bit like chili. Once the anchor was dropped, we set the table and had a lovely dinner followed by singing songs till 11.

One of the things that I like about anchoring at Block Island is on the water services. Coffee boat in the morning, kids picking up garbage for $1/bag. There used to be a catch of the day boat too, but either we missed it yesterday or maybe there was no catch of the day. In any case, it gives a special fun atmosphere without having to disembark.

Off to having coffee with pastries...

Getting to Block island

 Chores and projects

It's wonderful to work as a team! Everything just moves a lot faster!

Tightening stanchions

A few of them are a bit loose, including the gate that we use for boarding the dinghy. Before one gets to the stanchion bolts, one has to completely remove a panel that covers them. Neither the screws nor the stanchion bolts are easy to get. So, it sounds simple: just tighten 4 bolts after adding sealant under the stanchion base, but it took close to an hour before everything was buttoned up again. Thanks to Mark this was much faster!

Tightening the engine belt

This is one of the things I didn't do before departing for Newport, and luckily I knew the warning sign: lots of soot-looking crap inside the engine compartment. Belt is now tight, so we should be good for the rest of the trip. Nevertheless, a reminder to look into the engine compartment on a regular basis. Again, thanks to Mark for expediting this job!

Charging cable for the outboard engine battery

The extension cord was getting hot at the connection, and the battery seems to be charging a lot slower than I remember. I removed the 12V receptacle and crimped in the cable. After an OMG-moment when the voltage was 0 instead of 12, I found that the fuse is resettable, so battery can now be charged without the extra heat losses. 

Per my recollection, the battery used to charge quicker. We went through the estimate with Sasha, and it seems that things do add up. Per spec, the battery is 915 Wh. Charging it with 3.5A at 12 V means adding 42 Wh/hour, so the full charge cycle should take more than 20 hours. Yesterday the battery was down to about 30% of the capacity and after 16 hours it's up to 99%. Given the temperature fluctuation over the past 3 years while the battery has been sitting idle, I'm happily impressed that the battery is still functional.

Dinghy oars

One of the pins in the oarlock was broken again. This has happened before, but this time rather than taping the remainder of the pin with duct tape, Sasha drilled a hole through and fixed the oar with a bolt. She also attached the oar locks, so now we are all set to get places with hand power should the engine get unhappy.

Tie off for the gennaker furler

The furler is meant to be used only for the code-0 and when it's idle, it shouldn't bang around and should be tied off. 3 years ago we would take off the entire furler, but that takes a lot of time because the infinite furling loop line also has to be taken off. Sasha was doubting my proposal of sewing a loop out of a rubber cord, but equipped with a sail maker palm thimble she got that done!

12V receptacles

Temperature changes and age got to the plastic of 2 receptacles: the one in the cockpit and in the starboard cabin. The cockpit receptacle is now removed and will be used for the charging the dinghy battery. While Sasha (the husband) was dropping off the rental car, he stopped by WestMarine and picked up a few receptacle, and then replaced the one in their cabin.

Meeting online friends

Margot has made online friends with a few teenagers, including one in Massachusetts. Mabry is also in the same online discussion forum, but for her it was a total surprise to see Tanjay in Newport. Thanks to Tanjay's mother who drove 1.5 hours for a 2-hour physical reunion of the online friends, the girls were happy beyond imaginable to hang out together.

And it turns out the world is indeed small: Tanjay's uncle finished his PhD in experimental high energy physics at Harvard 2 years after I got there, so I do vaguely remember seeing him in the old building on Oxford St!

Adventurous sail

After the reunion we were running late, but the crew worked very well together to get us going ASAP. We pulled up to the fuel dock, got some diesel, replenished water, folded the dinghy, and got on our way towards Block Island.

The wind was in our face, so given the time constraints we motored out of Newport harbor. We simply didn't have enough time to tack back and forth. At the harbor exit, I thought we could sail. Even though not directly to our destination, but at least without the engine running. After going through the operation procedures for the winches, Margot proceeded to unroll the mainsail. I saw that she was having a hard time turning the winch, so I made a joke that she is out of practice. That was a mistake!

It seems that I didn't roll the sail tightly on my solo trip to Newport, so it jammed in the mast. Ok, let's sail with the genoa only and see if we can fix the main underway. Rolling it in was just as impossible as rolling it out.

Obviously, none of us have sea legs, so very quickly after exiting the harbor everyone started to feel queasy to various degree. Sashas put on a natural patch behind the ear. That seemed to help him, but she went down below to lie down. Mabry also got a patch, and standing on the wheel she was ok. Mark felt a bit tired and sleepy, and I had a strange taste in my mouth.

It seemed that fixing the main would have been nice to accomplish as soon as possible. First there was a minor snag: I couldn't find the climbing harness. After I tied a harness, there was a major snag: there was no way I could ascend with the ascenders. The amount of swing was too much. Sasha said that he could try to winch me up, so I tied into the spinnaker halyard and thanks to his idea also tied myself to the pole which is attached to the mast. That kind of worked and I was able to stuff about 1/3 of the jam back inside the mast, but then it got tougher, and we were losing time, so we made a decision to leave the main as is and resolve it in the morning.

As we approached the island, the water got a lot calmer, so everyone woke up and was ok with not just a lying-down position. There was a lot of humidity in the air and the setting sun had a distinctly red color. Very unusual and pretty. Too bad we don't have a good enough lens to capture that with a camera.

We pulled into the Great Salt Pond at dusk. Once the anchor was in the water it got completely dark. A bit of a late arrival, but everyone is safe.

I was amazed that after dinner (yummy burgers on bagels) Mark and the girls had energy to play a game!

Anchoring tickets and AAMMM crew aboard

Musical Anchoring chairs boats

Indeed, one can get fined for improper anchoring I'm Newport harbor!

Indeed, when I came back to Salty Ginger after running errands the stern was hanging over the delineated "cable area" line. Trying to be a good citizen, I pulled up the anchor and found a spot that was a bit better, but not by much and fairly close to one of the boats. The new neighbor was quite nice and asked me if I thought this was ok. I told him that I'll be on the boat, and given the forecast we should be ok. He responded "ok, no problem." I did end up moving a bit but I just couldn't see a good spot where I could anchor solo safely without running a risk of hitting another boat. The neighbor was surprised that I got a ticket "I've never heard of tickets being issued!"

Sunday morning the wind started to pick up and again my stern was hanging in the cable area. Harbormaster came by and I asked him whether I should move. He said, "yeah, it'd be a good idea. You don't want to get caught on the cable and call divers." I said, "You guys fined me yesterday, so I definitely want to avoid another one." Response was: "oh, call the Harbormaster general, and they'll take care of it."

There was a great spot but while I was making coffee it was taken by another boat. Try to drop anchor in another spot - seemed too close. Came to another spot. Stern is 10-15 meters away from the cable area. Good.

Not soo good. When the wind picked up, Salty Ginger started walking on the anchor and swinging very close to a motor boat that was rafted with another boat and then to a sail boat Aspiration. The latter gave me a look but didn't say anything, but the motor boat people weren't pleased. "Maybe you could let out more chain?" I wasn't sure that was a good idea since that would only increase the "walking" distance. Then they said "ok, fine". When they departed a couple of hours later after ~20 knot winds subsided, I apologized profusely and took their spot. Finally safe from boats and cable area. Now need to call the harbormaster to see if "they will take care of it".

Launching Ginger Snap

Irina found a perfect name for our folding Porta-Bote dinghy. It has an advantage over inflatables that it doesn't puncture as easily, but it is quite heavy. I briefly considered just rolling it over the lifelines, but then thought that'd might get too much water and she's still heavy... So I after unfolding Ginger Snap I attached her to a line lead through the spinnaker pole to swing the transom out over the water, tied the bow so it was hanging over the water as well, lowered the transom, lowered the bow.

Perhaps it didn't look elegant, but no backs were hurt in the process, just a little knuckle scratch.

I checked the outboard battery before, so I knew it was full (lesson reminder: leave the batteries fully disconnected!), but as I tried to attach the motor to the transom, I discovered that both bolts seized. Penetrating oil and a bit of muscle got the bolts unstuck after half hour or so and I was on my way to Newport.

Welcome aboard!

Saturday afternoon Galya and Mitya came for a visit from Cape Cod. When I told them that I'm vaccinated and alone, and I won't be alone for the rest of the sail trip they decided that it was sufficiently safe to come visit me. They found a parking spot on Wellington Av, we boarded the dinghy and spent the afternoon chatting and eating the food that they brought.

One difficulty with the mounted Hydrovane, and especially the hydro generator, is that the boarding SG from the dinghy has to be done amidships. I balanced the single step so that it's more or less equal distance between the deck and the dinghy, but still it presents more of a challenge than walking into the dinghy from astern.

Sunday afternoon as the state of the boat went from total mess to not-so-total-mess Alexander, Alexandra, Mabry, Margot, and Mark arrived. Turns out that cleaning up with 6 helpers goes a lot faster! Everyone was hungry, so cleaning and cooking were happening at the same time! What a difference from being solo!

Pre-departure tasks

We provisioned yesterday, so as far as food is concerned, we're ok. We're missing wine and beer since on Sundays liquor store closes at 6, but we're almost ready to go to Block Island after we do a few chores on the boat. In any case, some wind is only forecast in the afternoon, and Margot is meeting a friend from Massachusetts, so might as well spend the first half of the day in the harbor.

Finally, about anchoring. The new neighbor who arrived yesterday afternoon was and still is a bit to close to us for my taste. In fact, her anchor is currently right under SG, so that'll make for a fun departure should they try to leave before us.

Back on the water after 3 years

 Salty Ginger is afloat!

I kept meaning to write for the last 5 days, but somehow in the priority list of chores adding blog entries was not high. As I was considering starting clean up after breakfast (the cabin is still a royal mess), I realized that if I don't start writing now, I will keep pushing off the blog entries till the end of the trip and that would be a shame.

My friend Frank and I came aboard Salty Ginger on Monday afternoon knowing that the amount of work that needs to be done is huge. Thanks to Mark who came out to visit SG a couple of weeks ago I knew that the house batteries died (important lesson: batteries would have survived if they were fully cut off), therefore task number 1 was to go to RI Golf Carts to pick up the batteries for which I already paid. To my surprise when I called the shop, the owner said that he already closed for the day even though it was still more than half hour before official closing time and that he wouldn't be back till Wednesday. A little bit of pleading and begging got him to accommodate us and we came back at 5. Oh yeah, it was raining while we were unloading the car and loading the dead batteries, so we were totally drenched, but there was not much time to change into dryer clothes until later. Getting 4 batteries out of the boat and then back in is quite an exercise! Exhausted with minor acid burns we found 2 sheets, 2 pillows and 2 pillow cases and went to bed.

Call me crazy, but I do have a dream to cross the Atlantic on Salty Ginger. However, as the trip to Nova Scotia showed, this requires a bit more equipment for self-sufficiency. Primary concern: we were running out of power if the fridge and the auto-pilot were running: solar and wind could not keep up with the power consumption even on sunny days. To get to a more autonomous state I got a Hydrovane (mechanical wind vane) and a hydro generator. Now not only do we have a back up rudder, we have an additional option for who gets to steer the boat. Of course, those things needed to be installed.

The previous owner of SG had a Hydrovane, so at least we were had the mounting holes that we could reuse. His only recommendation was to beef up one of the mounting places because it seemed to weak. I got half-inch G10 board with the intent to use it as backing plates to distribute the load of the bolts and to beef up the troublesome spot. What I didn't appreciate is the curvature of the hull that we had to compensate. It took all of Tuesday cutting plywood to fill up the gaps, cutting the board (it is really hard stuff). At the end of the day we had the backing plates epoxied to the hull, but being tired and hurrying too much we made a mess with the epoxy which now needs to be cleaned up.

Freshly manufactured backing plates.

3 years ago we made a rather costly mistake while filling the water tank: the activated carbon filter broke and all the little carbon pieces into the tank. All was ok until we were sailing in somewhat bumpy seas when the particles got shaken up and sucked into the water pump scratching the membrane and killing it. Luckily that happened on the last day of our Maine trip. I replaced the pump thinking that the problem would "go away", but on the day when Mark and I sailed into Newport the new pump also was destroyed while Mark was in the shower. That's when we realized that a thorough clean up is critical. Luckily, of the 2 water tanks aboard one got a lot less carbon particles and it only took a few hour to clean it out. Working in a tight place extracting particles through a hole that is a little larger than my fist left me all bruised up, but at least we had one tank and running water!

I didn't get to the second tank until Frank left on Thursday, and that was a totally different story. I sprayed water from the inside a few times, and when practically nothing was washing off I thought I was done. Wrong! As I started filling the tank I could not believe my eyes: the amount of crap that was getting washed into the tank. I had to repeat the procedure of partially filling, draining, wiping 3 times, and even then garbage is still left in the tank. I tied a piece of cloth to the water intake, counting on using up the tank and then wiping it. Just in case, I have an extra pump aboard. One never knows what may happen in places that are far away from marine stores...

Yucky pump-destroying garbage.  

Wednesday we checked the epoxied pads, they looked fine except for the largest one which flexed the hull. So, I expect micro-cracks to appear some time in the future, but as far as structural integrity I don't have concerns. By mid-afternoon we had the Hydrovane fully mounted, examined how the mechanism is supposed to work and proceeded to install the hydrogenerator. As we got pretty much everything installed, the amount of space taken up by boxes decreased drastically, so we finally could find room to install the dodger and the bimini (yay, shade in the cockpit!) and finally the sails.

It's kind of ironic that I can't quite account for where the time went. I would wake up at 5:30 or so (not too surprising coming from Europe), and would start doing something at 6:30-7 while Frank would cook breakfast. After that we would work with generally minimal interruptions till 8 or 9, sometimes skipping lunch - it was quite hot, so drinking water seemed like enough nourishment during the day. And yet, at the end of 2.5 days we "just" got two pieces of equipment installed. Of course, we fixed a bunch of little things on the way, and found some broken things. Frank kept telling me that I was too fast, and that was true, and that did lead to mistakes, but there was soooo much to do!

Daily breakfast: eggs, toast and coffee

Thursday we finally went for a test sail! We didn't have much wind, but enough to shake out the sails and get a feel for how Hydrovane works. With very little fiddling we got it to steer the boat on and off the wind and it was tracking quite well. Very nice helper to do one of the most boring jobs in the open water! The sail did not go without a little adventure.

Frank adjusting the foresail while Hydrovane does the steering.

I knew that the tide was very close to low as we were going out and noticed that the depth on the turn out of the marina is uncomfortably low: 0.1 feet below the keel. All was ok inside the channel since I was correctly favoring the deeper side, but at the turn into the marina I had to let a boat pass by and right after the turn got stuck in the sand/mud. At only 2 knots this wasn't bad, so we could back out. I called RI Mooring services and Philippe told me to go in the middle of the entrance channel. A passing by water police officer pointed us where he thought it would be best. Great! We're in! A bit of fiddling with entering the slip (must be rusty after not sailing for 3 years) and SG gets stuck in the mud as about a half of the boat lines up with the dock. The plan was for Frank to step onto the dock to tie the boat up, but instead I had to jump and get a couple of lines tied. For the next hour or so SG was sitting on her keel until the water lifted her up.

RI Mooring Services is kind of in the middle of industrial zone, so there is nothing within walking distance. After lunch Frank drove me to get the important stuff: beer, wine, food, and some linens and towels.

Friday had 2 major jobs: install the charging  controller for the hydrogenenerator and take care of the diesel engine. Snaking wires without a helper is a pain, but mostly because it requires a lot of time. The engine needed new oil and fuel filters, new impeller, new oil, just make sure that it will run smoothly over the next month. Everything was going well at the beginning until I started changing the oil in the sail drive unit. I overfilled it a little, spilling some oil, wiping it, using a ton of paper towels in the process.

Changing the fuel filter I noticed that the fuel is very clean, so I decided to pour it back in instead of throwing it away. In the hurry I forgot to close the fuel cap. I don't know how much water got in while I was washing the boat, but talk about mistakes while "moving too fast". The plan is to drain the bottom of the fuel separator on a regular basis to prevent the water from getting into the engine (bad experience with the previous boat we had).

A passing thunderstorm helped me wash the soap off the boat, so now she doesn't look quite as schmutzig. Then came the decision time: stay at RIMS one more night and sail into Newport in the morning or sail now and wake up in the morning. Somehow the latter option seemed a lot more appealing, so at practically high tide with no worries of getting stuck in the mud I departed. Lovely upwind sailing had to be switched to motoring since I was running out of day time and anchoring at night was something I wanted to avoid. Well, it was dusk when I finally dropped anchor lamenting the sorry state of the anchor chain. But it was worth it! Having a glass of wine while looking at a beautiful full moon rising is a lot more joyful than being in a little marina in the middle of nowhere!

Speaking about anchoring. 3 years ago we broke the anchor controller as the wire got stuck in the chain. The manufacturer Quick USA is not that quick as it turns out. I ordered a replacement well ahead of time, but then called them when I got to the States to find out that they will not have it until early August. Amazon would only promise delivery on Monday, so Irina ordered it through a different site paying $50 for expedited shipping. Guess what, it will arrive on Monday to RIMS, but I won't be there. Duct tape solution for the foreseeable future...

It's great that most systems on SG work. Yes it took quite a bit of elbow grease and a few bruises to get things going, but she's in the water, fridge is working (cold beer anyone?), running water is working, electronics is working. There are still quite a few projects to do, but then who would expect a sailboat without something that needs to be taken care of. 

Now I'm off to Newport which first requires unfolding the dingy and getting the Torqueedo engine. With some luck that will run smoothly...