Christian's Sailing Blog: July 2015

Thursday, July 16, 2015

First night away from port - mooring at World's End

The moment the kids and I have been waiting for - a night out on the boat! We left around 4pm, sailed around for a bit and then headed over to World's End and moored as the sun was setting. We had a good meal on the grill and then made S'mores. The next day we hung out for a bit and did some swimming, then had a nice sail back to Thayer's Landing.

Sun setting over Hull

Very peaceful here during the mid-week

Corn on the cob on the grill - if you're not cooking it this way you're doing it wrong

Morning coffee

Dylan loves the water

Christian's favorite spot when motoring to the slip

Sunday, July 5, 2015

Upgrades, fixes and maintenance on the Hunter 28.5

I had the week off and there were some maintenance items I needed to take care of:

Anchor and steaming light aren't working
Brightwork needs brightening
Hull and deck needs a good scrubbing and waxing
Alternator belt and water pump belts need to be replaced
There were no reefing lines set up
Add a Boomkicker and boomvang so I can get rid of the topping lift

After climbing up the mast to the steaming light, I found that the bulb was fine. I assumed the same would be the case for the anchor light. I should have checked the mast step plug before going up the mast, but for whatever reason I skipped that step. A wire was pulled out of the plug, so I fixed that and now the steaming light was working. I traced the anchor light back to the the circuit panel and found that the switch was no good.

Moral of the story - start with the circuit panel and move forward instead of climbing the mast first.

Here are some pics from my progress

My anchor light isn't working, so I used my DJI drone to see what kind of light I have so I can replace the bulb with an LED version. I did not end up getting to the top of the mast and doing a replacement however.

Drone shot of O'Sea D

My first time climbing a mast. I have an ATN Mast Climber so I can do this solo. Used my rock climbing harness and the jib halyard as a backup.

Before

After prep work and a few coats of Cetol

Dylan wanted a new video game. OK, time to earn it!

O'Sea D was missing the Origo 4000 alchol stove. I found a new one on Ebay. A must for having coffee on board

Boomkicker installed

Switch replacement was simple

Friday, July 3, 2015

First time at anchor

Weymouth has fireworks off of Wessagusset beach every July 3rd. The beach area is always packed and I figured "I have a boat, why not watch it from the water"?

This was bound to be a nerve wracking experience. It was a guarantee the area would be packed with other boats at anchor. I never tried anchoring in my previous boat, Reel Fun. Well, once when I beached it to fix the outboard my first time out.

We headed out early so we could get a decent spot. I should have left earlier though. Thayer's Landing is on a river which is subject to a 10' tidal swing. It's best to leave an hour after or before dead low tide. Once you know the channel well enough, it's no problem, but as a newbie...you can get stuck. I got stuck just after my marina and I'm sure everyone at the dock had a good laugh. I was able to back up and get going again relatively quickly, so no biggie. Brenton at Black Rock Sailing told our class we would all get grounded at some point, so best to get my first one done early with no issues!

We anchored with no issues and of course I was paranoid the whole time that I was dragging. We waited about 30 minutes for a lot of the traffic to clear before heading back to our slip. It was also the first time boating in the dark, so it was interesting sweeping the river with the flashlight to locate each channel marker.

All in all it was a success and the kids and I had fun.

Right before I got stuck. You can see how narrow the river gets and I hugged it too close to the channel marker. I have successfully left at low tide by staying closer to the right hand side. Luckily we didn't get stuck for long