Closing out the season

Such a delay in updating!!! I was recently thinking about the beginning of this season and how it will get here fast... which brought me back to the closing of LAST season (2009)... I wasn't there, but I've heard it was a rough one... here's a recap from Tom -

"Well, to all of you who were (un)fortunate to miss Friday’s boat trip to Crowley’s, WE ARE STILL DRYING OUT EQUIPMENT!

30mph on the nose in torrential downpour. We had to cover our faces to keep the rain from being painful. Follies’ only protected core of body. If you had any gap, like your hood or sleeves you got rain up your …

The phrase “a bad day on the water is better than a good day in the office” was severely questioned and won out because the wind was South with little wave action.

We also took a poll at Crowley’s regarding waiting to Saturday for the trip. “Is it better to get wet in 52 degrees (relative warmth) AND 30mph wind or travel on a sunny day with gale force wind and 40 degrees. After much silent thought Matt broke the ICE ( pun ) by voting for wet and warm.

Visibility was definitely limited. When helmsmen opened our eyes to look straight into the wind we only knew where we were because of the gps.

All in all a memorable day, no way any pictures. Rich Hodor picked us up at the yard and the 4 of us went out for Italian at La Luce where Matt filled in even more stories of his trip. This was a reunion of sorts of the original plank owners one year anniversary trip. OH, that explains the weather! In a lecture at strictly sail about surviving Lake Michigan bad weather the guy suggested using a scuba mask in that situation. Of course this is the same guy that suggested wearing a football helmet if the waves got too rough. So, football helmet, scuba mask, foul weather gear, so’wester hat, life jacket and tether. That alone would make one good photo."

This coming weekend we disassemble the mast rigging for storage and the antifreeze / mildew gas thing. Clean and polish hull and a few other miscellaneous items are a part of the agenda, but...Don Waller wants us to roll the sails up, not flake, and store them in the living room like he does. NOT."

The crew also got together in January at our annual After Strictly Sail dinner party where we discussed several exciting things... this comment from Tom re: the potential, I repeat POTENTIAL, yes, hold your breath...wait for it, wait for it, potential to do a cruising Mac... this is right outta Tom's email mouth -

"There was also a brief discussion held this past Saturday, at George’s PhD celebration, to race in the Queen’s cup and Michigan City race. Both are overnight, long distance races, and are very good training for any “long distant” cruises we may, and I emphasize may, decide to do in the near future. We all could use a lot more experience on deck for sailing situations that might arise in open water."

All right - that's all for now - Spring is coming!! Well...we just got 4" of snow last night, but Spring is definitely in the air... well we can hope, anyway.

September Sailing

Here it is 9-9-09... last Beer Can of the season... last Wednesday we had a bit of a tough start - got sandwiched between a couple boats and, of course, light wind made for a tough race... tonight should be better.

This past weekend was Labor Day - that meant a cruise to Holland, MI for Dark Island with Matt, Judi and Tom. Matt's sweet singing attracted a little Warbler.

I sailed in the tri-state with Maskwa - we did great the first night - 1st place!! We also had a couple flying visitors on our trip back from Michigan City... we didn't have a serenade for them, but we did have a lot of dead bugs for them to clean up!

(I had two great pics, but can't upload them... I'll try again later).

Getting Giddy...

After 6 hours crossing the lake, we started to get a little giddy... Carly, drive into the sun... "YAAAAYYY! Carly, drive away from the sun "boooooooooo."

Cruising!

We took a couple cruises this summer - this one was to New Buffalo. We were supposed to leave on Thursday night, but the weather was soooooo bad - rainy, high winds, big waves - we postponed the trip until Friday night. It turned out to be a really great postponement as we were able to cross in 20-30knots, rolling waves, clear skies (for the most part) and chilly, but tolerable temps. Carly, Keri, me, Tom & Judy headed off for the Michigan coast at about 10PM. We decided Carly, Keri and I were going to have to color code ourselves by t-shirts or something so Tom could tell us apart (we are all about the same height, brunettes, kind of look alike) HA! Just kidding. The trip was awesome - great sailing, lots and lots of laughs, saw a new town (about 2 blocks long) good food, etc! We should do this every weekend!






Pre-cruising preparation!


The pants that ate Keri! Where did those things COME FROM?! And WHO can fit in them? The Jolly Green Giant?

All Tom had to do was sit back a relax - the "girls" did all the driving!

And, finally, August

August - notice there is a "gust" in August! Finally got some wind. Took some firsts and seconds - more rum, yay! Small section - yay! We had a special visit from Katie! I think that was her first beer can! Also, Diane was able to sail a couple times since her calculus class ended!





Hi Katie and Diane!

July!

July 4th! Brrrrrrr! I remember the 4th of July being super cold and rainy... It did clear up for a sail on the night of the 4th... and the fireworks started at about 8:40pm - it was still light! come on Chicago... world class city that spends millions to light fireworks in the daylight... crazy. It was still a good sail. Throughout July, we are getting more and more comfortable and experimenting with the boat. I think we got our first first and some seconds on Wednesday night races. Yay! Rum for the islanders!

Also significant this month was Judi's "last" Mac race on Maskwa! Her 10th and "final" unless we can talk Tom into doing a cruising Mac... (Insert Tom rolling his eyes here.) It turned out to be a slow Mac.. I don't know what the problem was - Nicole and I had plenty of wind on our drive up to the island... look at all that blowing wind!!



Here is Maskwa's finish and the unveiling of Manny's "Goat" cap...

June Flew By

Well - here it is...almost the end of the season and I have been severely lacking in updates...

June was pretty quiet. A couple weeks with no wind, at all. We're really learning a lot about Dark Island - turns out, it's true, DI is not a light wind boat... we had to gracefully bow out of a race one night... it was just too much. Instead, we headed in and had some drinks and food...which ended up being a lot more fun than 0.0 knots to the finish. There was a week with bad weather where Judy sailed on Tempest and I sailed on Planxty... it was fun - spinnaker sailing for a change!

We did the lady skipper in early July - which was also a sloooooooow race. Look at the pics - see how smooth the water looks?! We had a postponement waiting for the wind that never came... well then a little came and we were able to finish. So that's June/Early July in a nutshell. "No, this is me in a nutshell... let me out, let me out!" Austin Powers for those who didn't get that reference...