BONUS DAYS OF FALL

Had some bonus days in November with the temperatures reaching into the mid 70 degree Fahrenheit range. Took advantage of the warm days to take off the sail and lower the boom. Now it's up to the boatyard as to when to unstep the mast and pull the boat for the winter. Once that is done I'll winterize the water systems and then get into a winter mode of occasional boat checks until spring.

TIME OF THE SEASON: Still enjoying a little taste of Summer

I enjoyed taking BIANKA last weekend to Port Jefferson to enjoy the summer like weather. But, I did notice that some of the trees along shore began to have a little tinge of colors that signal that it is now officially Fall.

Fast forward to this past Wednesday. Temperature rose to near 90 degrees Fahrenheit. I decided it might be best to spend the day on the boat and at least enjoy a cool breeze. With some trepidation I decided to take a swim and clean the bottom of the dingy. Expecting a cool shock as I jumped in I was surprised at how comfortable the temperature still was. Seems summer is still lingering just below the surface and I stayed in for over a half hour. 

LABOR DAY AND THE SWITCH

 Usually I never leave  home port mooning on a holiday weekend here in the US. This year I decided to sail the three nautical miles sell to a nearby Harbor rent a mooring and just stay there for four days. I left a few days early to avoid the crowds.  It was a nice 3 hour sail despite the wind on the nose one tack got me to the next harbors entrance.

I had a mooring reservation through Dockwa for Friday through Tuesday. Since this was late in the afternoon on Thursday I decided to use one of the open moorings in the north west Mooring field  which is usually only used by the owners on the weekends. There are hundreds of empty moorings available during the week. Usually I maybe only one of three or four boats in the area.  This time there were at least 15 on moorings and at anchor nearby.  Seems like many more boaters want to get their last sails in before their unofficial summer ends.

In the morning I moved BIANKA to the mooring I rented for the weekend at the Yacht Club.

I enjoyed my stay on the Yacht Club mooring watching the other boats come and go. Listening to the VHF which had it's share of drama to report. An unfortunate fellow had a heart attack. But, there were medical personal including a Doctor and Nurse on other boats that helped render assistance. A Bayliner started taking on water outside the harbor and the six people on board had to be rescued. A disabled boat with no radio sent up a red flare in the harbor which caused quite a stir with the authorities. Then on Monday most of the boats started to leave by Monday night things
were very quiet.

I left on Tuesday morning and it was like a switch had been turned off. I passed no other boats leaving the harbor and only one or two on my journey back to BIANKA's home port. For many summer has ended but, it is still summer. Though the early sunsets and the chill in the evening are signs that Fall is knocking.

A LATE WINTER CHECKUP

It has not been a snowy winter but it has been a cold one.  Which is why I've not been down to the boatyard to check on BIANKA in over a month. I was away for most of January. February has been a cold  and raw month. So when a sunny day came where the temperature approached 50 degrees Fahrenheit. It was time to make a visit to the boatyard to check on the boat. Many of the boats are still nestled under their shrink wrap covers. From the cockpit they looked like snow drifts.

 I didn't stay long just long enough to charge the batteries via the Dual Pro 4 charger which only took about an hour since the batteries were pretty much being kept topped up by the solar panels over the winter.

While the charger was going through its  charge cycle I drained the small amount of water that had accumulated in the bilge  since the last time I visited over a month ago. After that was done I splashed a little bit of the leftover antifreeze into the bilge to prevent any further water from freezing hopefully for the last time.

I picked up the homemade boarding  ladder extension which I had stored in the cabin for the winter.  A few years ago another boat had smashed into it and broken the strut that help keep it straight.  It was still usable for boarding but tended to slide underneath the boat when climbing up it. I'm taking it back to the house to to replace the damaged strut for the upcoming season.

I also spent a little time sitting in the cockpit staring out at the empty Harbor.

How different it looks without any moorings or boats on it’s waters. In another month or two the moorings will start appearing like returning birds after a long winter. A sign that the sailing season is about to begin.

FINISHING UP!

It was an unusually warm Autumn day.  So I thought it was about time to finishing up getting BIANKA ready for the winter. I stopped at the nearby beach parking lot with my coffee to see what was happening on Long Island Sound. I wasn't the only one getting things ready for winter.

The Harbor Master was out with his crew pulling the last remaining swim buoys from out in front of the bathing beach. I watch them finish then headed for the boatyard. The mooring fields were getting pretty empty. A few boats remained at the dock but, they will be gone in few weeks and the moorings pulled for the winter. I will still still have a pretty nice water view from BIANKA's cockpit over the winter:

Since I switched from having a diesel engine to Electric Propulsion winterizing BIANKA has been a quick procedure. Only requiring that I winterize the fresh water systems on board. Not having to change the oil and run several gallons of antifreeze through a diesel engine leaves a lot of time for staring at the harbor scene and not spending time down below hanging over the greasy diesel engine. I finished up the winterizing and headed to the car. I looked back to see BIANKA nice and snug in her winter location between the other boats in the yard waiting patiently for Spring:

SPRING TAKING OFF

Got back to BIANKA for a quick check after doing some traveling. The sailing season is getting closer from the signs in the harbor. The moorings including BIANKA's have been dropped onto the harbor bottom:

Power boats are also starting to fill up the docks:

All signs it's time to start to get a move on getting BIANKA ready for the upcoming season. I'm starting off with removing some of the items that are no longer needed to have on board. These include the snow shovel I used to clear the deck of snow and ice over the winter and also the spare anti freeze that can be put away until next fall. I'm also taking off the rigging lines that will be washed at home before being rigged  :

Small steps but, at least it's a start.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES

Another day with temperatures in the upper fifty degree Fahrenheit range. So I again went down to the boatyard to work on the boat. But, what a difference in the harbor from my Monday visit. Below a photo comparison of the view from the cockpit from Monday on the left to Wednesday on the right:

Things are definitely moving in the right direction.

AND IT SURE BEEN A COLD COLD WINTER

And it sure been a cold, cold winter

And the wind ain't been blowin' from the south

It's sure been a cold, cold winter

And a lotta love is all burned out

It sure been a hard, hard winter

My feet been draggin' 'cross the ground

And I hope it's gonna be a long hot summer

And a lotta love will be burnin' bright

Winter - Rolling Stones

Yep, that Rolling Stone song has captured this winter feeling for me. The bright spot of hope came in the mail when my mooring permit application came in for the upcoming season. Unfortunately, this required another trip to the boatyard to get some information off of the boat. I picked the warmest day when the high temperature was to be only 29 degrees F to slip slide my way to the boat. There was no wind this time which made it feel better than the visit last week. But, unlike last week I found the harbor had completely frozen over which does not happen too often:

Even the floating docks are frozen in place

The Harbor Master is not going anywhere these days:

The same for the Commercial Fishermen as the fleet is also frozen in place:

Hard to believe that spring is only a month away when I look out from the snow filled cockpit of the boat at the ice covered habor. But, I got the info I needed and put the mooring permit in the mail because the sailing season will arrive at some point. At least I hope so.

OCTOBER CHANGES: Wind and windage

October is a month of change here in the harbor on the Isle of Long. Boats start disappearing from dock slips and morrings. Sails come off of boats and on some boats the masts also come down. At least they don't fall down but, are laid on deck so the boat can be moved and stored in some inland location. Yep, lot's of changes happening around BIANKA.  The taking down of the mast on a sailboat before it's pulled can change things quite a bit especially if the boat is put back on it's mooring to await hauling out for the winter. I observed this the other day as two nearby boats had a close encounter with the change of tide. One of the boats had it's mast laid on it's deck the day before which changed the amount of windage upon it. This gave the currents flowing underneath the boat more sway in how the boat lay at the mooring. Meanwhile, the boat on the next mooring still had it's mast and was affected more by the wind. The result is when I looked up at one point the end of the mast of the demasted boat was poking into the cockpit enclosure of the fully rigged boat:

Luckily, it appeared to be just high enough to make it over the lifelines and did not appear to be hung up on anything. I kept watching hoping I did not have to make an intervention. Which would have been difficult in the conditions since I only had a dingy with oars and the wind was picking up. In a few minutes the boats had separated:

But, only for a few minutes. Soon the currents and winds resumed their battle and the boats were once again in close proximity to each other. But, not in any danger of getting hung up as before:

Eventually, things got back to normal and the collision danger passed. The next day I woke up from a nap hand found that the boat with the stepped mast had been removed from the mooring eliminating any further chance of the two boats bumping into one another. Just something to consider this time of year when the wind and windage of the boats can change and mysterious damage happens.

NOTES OF AN ELECTRIC SAILOR: Harbor Test 2013 Part One

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Back in early June I had just splashed BIANKA but, had to wait for the boatyard to step the mast. Since I had nothing else pressing on board I thought I would take the opportunity to do some testing of the electric propulsion system both without and with the mast installed. So that's what I did. I made several runs between two buoys in the harbor that were 450 yards apart. I did a similar test back in the fall of 2011. Though I conducted these tests with a cleaner bottom since the boat had recently been splashed.

The mast on my 30 foot Nonsuch weighs about 300 lbs which is pretty heavy compared to a lot of other boats the same size. So I was curious to see what effect the mast weight might have on the boats performance. Like the test I did in 2011 I made two passes between the buoys. One going east and then turning around and making another pass going west. They were made at various current draws from the 48 volt battery bank of 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 amps. The two passes were averaged to take into account any tidal current pluses and minus to the speed.
Here is the graph comparing the speed both with and without the mast on board:

As you can see there is a slight difference at the low end and upper end of the speed data. But, only about a  quarter of a knot or so. The sweet spot seems to be right around 3 to 4 knot range where both graphs are pretty close. Out of curosity I took the data from the Harbor Test of fall 2011 and added it to the above graph's data:

What's interesting to note is that the 2011 test data was taken at the end of the season just before I pulled the boat for the winter. The hull and prop had not been cleaned for probably a month or more:

So that growth seemed to have had some effect on that test data. 

SUNSET BLUES

I took the dingy to shore and went and picked up some mussels. Another cold front blew through yesterday and the chilly northwest wind made me want to cook up a steaming bowl of Mussels Posillipo for dinner. Though summer still has a few more days left on the calender the chilly northwest wind and the fact the sun was setting before 7 PM had made me a a little sad. I know that soon it will be time to pull the boat for the winter. But, as I tied the dingy to the stern just as the sun set I heard the unmistakable splashes of a school of Bluefish:

Ironically, the local fishermen who often patrol the harbor gazing around the mooring field looking for these powerful fish were no where to be seen. The chilly winds had seem to keep them nice and cozy on shore. Only I was there to witness their return to the harbor in such large numbers. Even in the fading light I could see the silvery flash of their sides just below the surface. I watched them for a few minutes. Which made me think about pulling  John Hersey's book on the fish Blues  from BIANKA's bookshelf. But, then the chilly wind soon had me thinking of heading to galley and start cooking those mussels. Still it's nice to see the Bluefish back in the harbor even though it is one of those signs that means the sailing season will be ending here in the northeast in another month or so.

WINTER HARBOR VIEW

I took advantage of the one day of sun and warm temperatures to go check on the boat the other day. I'm glad I did. There was not a breath of wind and the temperature was near 50 degrees F and this was the view from the cockpit:

Hard to believe in a few months the harbor will be filled with several hundred boats on the docks and moorings.
Like two weeks ago I did a quick charge of the batteries using the Dual Pro Battery Charger
. All the batteries were well balanced to each other which was good to see. I was about to lock up when I thought let me check the bilge. Two weeks ago it was bone dry so I thought it would have been OK  When I lifted the floor board I found the bilge full of water. Yikes! Looks like snow from Blizzard Nemo had somehow gotten down below and melted filling the bilge with water. I found the automatic bilge switch not working which is why the water was so high,  I was able to operate the bilge pump with in the manual switch position and drain the bilge. Looks like the first thing on the spring TODO list is to find out why the automatic bilge switch is not working.

HURRICANE SANDY: DAY TWO

I woke up after a restful sleep and things were pretty quiet. But, that's because of triple pane argon filled windows can insulate the sounds pretty good. not like being on the boat where your senses are well aware of what's going on with the weather.  Looking at the trees through the window I could see things were starting to blow a  harder than last night as Hurricane Sandy approaches. I went to the dentists office where of course I found out that the dentist would not be in because of the storm so I decided to drive to the harbor where BIANKA was moored. Since it was 9 AM I thought there was a pretty good chance I could get there since high tide was not until 12 noon. But, I was wrong:

There use to be a road underneath that rising water.  Notice the sign on the left. The bad news is this was taken at 9:30 am and high tide would be at 12 noon. I turned around and took another route. But, that was starting to flood too! However, I took a chance and after I got through parts that were starting to flood. I found the road to the boatyard blocked by town vehicles. I was able to park and get a glimpse of BIANKA which was still floating in the same place I left her last night despite the increase in winds. I could not stay long as the waters were rising and I had to get the car out of there before I would be trapped. Here is a little look of what it was like heading back along the harbor road. Again, this was two hours before the days high tide:


Here is some video I took of  Long Island Sound raging like an ocean. The beach was entirely covered and water was lapping at the parking lot. Again, this was two and half hours BEFORE high tide:



The bad news is this is just the start of the major part of the storm. I don't know when I'll be able to get back near BIANKA I just hope she is floating somewhere in the harbor when I do.

BLOG UPDATE MONDAY 5:45PM:
I've tried contact the boatyard several times today and there is no answer. That's not good news as they maybe busy trying to save the docks, boats etc... I was hoping they might get a visual on BIANKA and let me know if she is still where she is supposed to be. The flooding this morning was not a good sign. Then this "Special Weather Statement" came from NOAA:

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED WINDS UP TO 110 MPH
BETWEEN 1500 AND 3000 FEET. SOME OF THESE VERY STRONG...DAMAGING
WINDS WILL OCCASIONALLY REACH THE SURFACE...PRODUCING GUSTS OF
70-90 MPH ACROSS THE NEW YORK CITY METROPOLITAN AREA...LONG
ISLAND...AND SOUTHERN CONNECTICUT THROUGH 8 PM. THE GUSTS TO THESE
LEVELS WILL BE MORE FREQUENT OVER SOUTHEASTERN CONNECTICUT AND 

LONG ISLAND THAN OVER THE NEW YORK CITY METRO AREA. 

Uh oh just lost power again!  I keep thinking that BIANKA with it's wind turbine has all the power I would need. Better sign off for now and save my laptop power.

A FOGGY MORNING ON THE MOORING

BLOG UPDATE
What a Difference a Day Makes! Below is what that same view looked like today:

ANOTHER MAGICAL EVENING

 I was a little bummed as I finished cooking some Chicken Tika Marsala for which I forget to buy some cream to finish it off so I had to use non fat milk instead.  Oh well. As I sat down in the cockpit to enjoy it along with a nice glass of red wine, I heard from across the channel the channel the jolly sound of a Concertina  being played. The delightful sound of sea shanties one after another were drifting across the water in the still night air providing me with great joy as I dined. The sound was coming from a raft up of two boats where some people were enjoying themselves sans electronics. It reminded me of a recent book I had read of a journey along the New England coast in the 1840's. The author described being at anchor somewhere in New England and hearing the singing and playing of Sea Shanties coming from one of the other ships in the harbor. For me it's was one of those special evenings that elude those on land or get off their boats after a short day sail. It also made me imagine what it must have been like that evening in that harbor in New England back in the 1840'S. Just another magical evening on board the BIANKA.

BACK ON BOARD JUST IN TIME

I have been off BIANKA for a month. For three weeks I was working in the wicked city of Washington doing a free lance work gig. Following that I spent a few days on the beach in Amagansett Long Island with my girlfriend. She enjoys walking along the beach and I stare at the ocean wishing I was out there on BIANKA. With that all behind me I was glad to finally get back on board. After opening the hatches and unloading the dingy it was time for a swim, nap and drink at sunset. My pleasure was enhanced later in the evening when I glanced to the east and saw a beautiful full moon rising over the harbor:

Because I had been off the boat for the month and I had been working and staying on land I had not been paying attention to the tides or the moon. I had been working inside during the day and also spending the nights indoors too. That's why it was such a pleasant surprise to see the moon show up as it did and once again I was glad I was on board BIANKA to see it. Again, the words of  Paul Bowles come to my mind every time I see it:

“... we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.”


I am always glad to see a full moon rise when I am on board. It is such a simple thing but, I appreciate it so much. It just makes me feel good I was able to see it once again.