Saturday, January 28, 2012

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

I'm only posting this pic because of the nuts

This picture is from the slapdash blog. They are Canadians sailing a Gemini Catamaran around the world. Someone should tell the Canadians that here in our country, we need to put oil in the gas for chainsaws!
I think these are the nuts and bolts that go to the grabrail. 3Sum has some mighty fine sh*tty screws that immediately popped out when we grabbed the rail. Lisa and I have debated about how to fix it. I want to do it right, but we probably will do it Lisa's way - that is, no holes in the boat! My Mighty Putty patchwork from this summer didn't work so hot. The latenight infomercial convinced me that it was a good product and would do a great job in holding the screws in place. 

Note the Canadian drill that I'm sure doesn't need oil in the gas. This offhanded, non boat-related rant started with me lending  my good Stihl chainsaw to a passing Canadian a couple years ago. He thought it was a Canadian chainsaw and they don't put oil in their gas up there, or so he told me.  My chainsaw that I was going to pass down to my heirs got shredded no thanks to Canada!

If you ever wake up one day and realize you are a Canadian and you stop by my place to borrow my chainsaw, you will get a severe and VERY stern disturbing glance tossed in your general direction and I will probably hurl a guttural racist remark like, "go back to your toquewearing, Moosehead beer drinking, back-bacon eating, chocolate milk drinking country and learn to speak English!" Come to think of, nothing ever good came out of Canada except for Rush, Martin Short, John Candy, Alex Trebek, Pamela Anderson, Canada Dry, back bacon, all Molson products, and that arm thing that was on the space shuttle. That arm thing was cool and wish they had one for home use. It would be quite practical when you are sitting on the couch wanting a beer or some backbacon from the fridge, you pic up your TV remote, hit the big "Canadian Arm Getting Device" button and the Canadian Arm Getting device would get it for you. 
Nowhere in this picture does it state the arm requires oil.


Midweek and no sailing

So, I thought I would post another pic ripped off from the Slapdash blog of them sailing a gemini somewhere in the Pacific (I guess you could call their location in the middle of the nonspacific.



Saturday, January 21, 2012

Joining the regatta. We are creeping up on them silently.


We caught this boat quite quickly. They didn't have much for sails.







Animated Logo


We've had better speed.


Another LisaVid


Kikn sum @ss


Joining the regatta with no invite


Either my droid isn't working right, or we still are out on the water


View 1/21/12 12:50 PM in a larger map

Great day on the Bay and Sailing with Real Sailors in a Regatta

We had seen there was a regatta going on in the bay and when we left the marina, we spotted them out in the distance. We sailed out to see what the hubbub was and decided it would be fitting to join them. Being the courteous sailors we are, we decided to stay clear of them as they rounded their mark and sailed about a 1/4 mile away from them. One boat on a port tack cut in front of our starboard tack and was kind enough to tell Lisa that she needs to "stay your course." We actually ducked behind the guy because I don't think he realized that we were doing about 6 knots compared to his 3 or 4 and we were close to ramming him.

He continued on his way and we did a tack after he was a good piece in front of us. We shortly passed the entire fleet as we got up around 7.5 knots in about a 12 knot wind. Not too shabby as we were at about 60 degrees to the wind and we weren't trying.

All in all, it was a successful day sailing. And then the docking. Little problem with the docking as the wind was on our aft starboard side and blew us into the boat next to ours. I managed to fend it off and Lisa was kind enough to give me some tips on what I should do next time in a similar situation. We now have a new plan involving a spring line that we will try so we don't have that happen again. 3Sum is fairly light and gets blown a bit more than a monohull in situations like that.

3Sum sails much better on Tampa Bay than it ever did on Lake Minnetonka. I don't know if it is because of the conditions or some of the work I put into her this summer.

Insane Boat Docking

Worm Boat Docking

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Pic from Slapdash blog - sailing around the world in a Gemini

I've started reading this blog after getting caught up on the Zero to Cruising blog. These guys have the catamaran made by Performance Cruising who made our Telstar. Plus, I just like pictures of fish stuck in things at weird angles.

Ice Boating on Lake Minnetonka

Looks like the Maloneys from Shorewood Yacht Club were getting their winter sailing fill in on this day. They lose the mast in the end. They are kind of like the Duke boys of Minnetonka.

Costa Concordia disaster

Animation of the sinking of the Cost Concordia
This is what happens when you don't buy your boat from the Tackle Shack! The Tackle Shack sales guy (below) probably sees this kinda thing hundreds of times a day! "We just throw them cruise liners away out back."
"You don't know a damn thing!"
Hobie sales rep telling this customer that "they don't know a damn thing!" We approached this guy earlier in the day at the St. Pete Boat Show in Nov 2010, and said we had water getting into the hull of our hobie adventure island. We figured we had a leaky seal since the water was not that bad. 

He asked where we bought it and we said we bought it used from a guy down in Ft. Myers. He was convinced that since we were so stupid and naive to not buy it from him, that it must be a lemon. He said our problem was that we put the drivetrain in wrong and punched a hole in the boat.  He said he sees this all the time and that we should just take it to the dump. Seriously! We basically wanted to spend money here, but he was so condescending and obnoxious, we left.

As a side note, we went to his store in the summer of 2011 and ran into him again. I casually mentioned about putting a screecher on the front of our hobie and again, the "hobies'll snap in half. Not designed for that. I see it all the time and we take em out back to the dump."

I really like hobies and they have a great product, but the people we have dealt with over the years have not been very good.

Monday, January 16, 2012

Very short sail

Our Very Short sail route


View 1/16/12 12:02 PM in a larger map

 Usually it is me that is screaming like a little girl, but this time it was Lisa. Note how close we got to the shore (almost a 1/2 mile!) where we would have ended up on the rocks like an Italian cruise liner. We had some waves, but nothing that serious. Lisa got nervous when we weren't moving and I noticed she had us almost in irons and no water was going over the rudder hence, no steerage. 3Sum loves playing in the bigger washer during spin cycle that Tampa Bay offers. I know Lisa is going to pay me back for these comments when I end up screaming like a little school girl.

The MLK parade was going on at the time. We need to head back out and redeem ourselves. I made Lisa buy me lunch and we went over to Frescos and I had a delicious yucatan spring roll and wifey had something else that had a cross-culturally cuisine name containing shrimp and bacon. We ate outside and looked at the two geminis for sale next to our table and noted how similar their rigging was to ours. I think we could just jump on one of those guys and take off without too much problem of fumbling any more than we already do.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Since we didn't Go Sailing today....

I thought I would post a couple videos from youtube.

2012 Good Old Boat Regatta | SPSA

2012 Good Old Boat Regatta | SPSA

Screecher appears furled backwards


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The screecher appeared to be furled backwards

Looks like an albino anaconda.

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Blowing up Sailboats

This link takes you to the Yachting World's website where they demonstrate different controlled scenarios such as dismasting, sinking, fires and "getting blowed up real good."

Blowing up Sailboats

Sunday, January 8, 2012

New Ideas on the Screecher

After doing extensive furler forensics, we believe we may have identified the problems we were having. We had a spinning shackle underneath the furler. Not sure why I attached it in the first place, but it was in the box near the furling drum and they appeared to fit neatly, hence, I assembled it that way.  We also had the screecher wrapped backwards. I think we may also have had the drum loaded in the wrong direction, but having cases of dyslexia doesn't make this any easier. "Brag a case a Lysdexia - Reeb Never tasted so good!"

Saturday, January 7, 2012


We again had issues with the screecher. I like using this sail once it is up as it really gets the boat hauling. Putting it up and especially getting it furled is a major PITA!!!
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Screecher


Here is the screacher up. Big arse sail and is a fun one to use.
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fouled furler and brow - ???



I was trying to hold on to the boat without falling off while I worked on detangling this rats nest. We also found out the port sheet is about 10 feet too short. Now I know why we haven't used this sail a good deal - it is a real PITA to hook up and use. Furling and unfurling is next to impossible. Couple things we need to look at - get the spinnaker halyard tighter and make sure bow sprit is all the way out. Also, I am not sure that the vid Will posted on youtube stating to wrap it 12-14 clockwise wraps was correct. I'm thinking it should be counterclockwise like the main furler.


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Nice day to go to the Bahamas


Looks like winds are at 5 mph from the south going up through the gulfstream.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

 


No, can't say as I miss this weather. This was taken about 3 years ago outside of Minneapolis.
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Sunday, January 1, 2012

Comments on New Years St. Pete 2012

Our sail on Saturday was good, but the wind was quite soft and we just cruised around for a bit. We came back around 5 and saw a bunch of boats getting into position for the 9 pm and midnight fireworks. We saw a Gemini catamaran called Whiskey Talk (I think) and I got out my binocs to check out his boat. I saw him looking at me with his binocs and so I waved. I don't think he waved back though.

We went to Fresco's after walking around a bit looking for a place to eat. Since I usually am not picky, we ended up going to eat appetizers at the bar and it was excellent. Gotta give it 5 stars for the coconut shrimp, garlic shrimp and the salmon pizza. We headed back to the boat and watched the 9 pm fireworks. We went to bed on 3Sum and were gently awakened to the midnight fireworks.

We have to agree that St. Pete is one of the coolest cities and has some awesome sailing potential. I wish we didn't live so far away. It would be nice to just go down to the boat and go for a quick sail instead of having to drive for a couple hours.

I have to say that waking up to a bright blue sky for new year was great. I walked to Starbucks and carried 2 large coffees 5 blocks and didn't spill much. A bit tricky, but I used to bartend, so I'm pretty good at this. We ate breakfast on 3Sum and enjoyed another boat's alarm clock going off for about an hour. We walked to the pier, checked out Southern Cross and washed the bird sh*t off 3Sum. Since there was no wind, we headed over to Bradenton to check out the marina and our potential first destination trip.

I was proud of Lisa as she actually slept on 3Sum. I can sleep pretty much anywhere, so it wasn't a big deal. Now, back to the real world. Uhh.

St. Pete New Year 2012.

First view of 2012. 
Coast Guard and 50 caliber on bow is convincing evidence to pull over.



Laminate sails.






3Sum at night.

Tiki Bar Boat


A MacGregor with a 70 hp motor. 



I'm thinking the owners must be a lot of fun.'

Fresco's near Pier was excellent!

9 pm fireworks.

Lisa making a delicious and nutritious breakfast in our spacious galley.


Fresco's

Southern Cross is for Sale at $147,000.

Hunter 23 in background ready to go out for a sailing lesson. I could use some brush up points. 


78 foot monohull folded in half.

 A fitting shirt for our former neighbor, Bob The Man  Herman. 



Whole lotta watta and notta lotta wind.


Lisa's cutesy pic. 

And, some photo pushing via piknik.

Old fart thinking he is cool.

Albert Whitted airfield. 



Me taking a picture of a guy taking a picture. 

Not sure why this is posted here. Just a boat on the water.