Dan Dow's Blog – April 2012 Archive (8)

The United States Coast Guard in response to the recent deaths at the Farralone Islands, have decided to suspend Offshore racing for a period of 30 days while they review the entire process of Offshore Racing from the Northern California area.

Big time offshore shakedown, 24 hour run westerly, tacking out of the gate, with an awsome headwind as usual.  Great trip, a little quezieness on board, cold and foggy throughout the night so the night watches froze.  We picked up a crab pot after firing the engine in the middle of the night, when we had zero wind, zero visibility and was time to start east.  Discovered crab pots can present and immediate emergency situation, crew performed admirably.  So far damage appears to be the…

So here we are again still moving forward to nprepare for the Pacific Cup, Sunday the 15th Cody and I attended Lee Chesneau's intense weather seminar at the Encinal Yacht Club, it was about 10 hours of very intense surface weather as well as the use of the 500Mb chart to help predict the surface weather and guess where the wind will be.  It was an amazing class and I learned an enormous amount.

Also the life raft has shipped from WQinslow in Florida and should be here in the…

Boat show yesterday, spent the day with the crew looking at goodies and talking to engineers, designers, builders, mnaufacturers and the inevitable sales people.  With the weather being so bad we are not accomplishing much right now.  I did receive the PHRF certificate for our boat (Performance Handicap Racing Fleet), our particular rating is 150, which means that we get a handicap of 150 seconds per nautical mile from here to Hawaii.  That's 2057 miles x 150 /   3600  gives us 85.71 hours…

Rigging is all down and in the shop so sailing’s out, weather sucks, so varnishing’s out.  Spent the afternoon tieing proper pulls for all the hooks, shackles and pelicans on the boat.

Old Age

The seas are quiet when the winds give o'er;

So calm are we when passions are no more.

For then we know how vain it was to boast

Of fleeting things, so certain to…

A short Mexico story

WHAT A WAY TO RESTART MY RETIREMENT

It was Thanksgiving morning, Portland was cold, 45 degrees and drizzly, grey and very chilly for your basic Southern Californian.  I suffer in the winter anyway, never quite warm enough.

The telephone rang, it was our friend Bo on the other end of the line, not much of a line today but still it was a contact.  “Hey buddy’ would you like to come to Mexico”, after a short pause and a…

So last week we decided to take our 5 year old offshore liferaft To Sal's Inflatables, to be recertified, this being a major refit of the raft we decided to stick around to watch Sal open the case and inflate the raft with dry air.  When the raft case was opened we discovered the painter was wrapped around the raft in packing and therefore this raft could never have been deployed.           …

The Sailing Ketch Morning Star with a long and illustrious career, having been built in China in 1968 by the eminent Robin Fong Boat Yard, and cruised 1½ circumnavigations of the world from 1973 through 1981, as related in the book, Voyage of Commitment Morning Star Around The World, by Raymond F. Triplett;  1983.  And subsequently having come to us after setting idly in San Francisco Bay for nearly fifteen years, this little ship was in need of a good deal of remedial…