Jun 06 2007
Either I was dragging an anchor in this race which no one told me about, or I officially have the slowest boat in the fleet.
Still I will take a solid dead last finish over a day of yard work anytime. I did have some slight revenge as the fleet had to circle for an extra 10+ minutes just waiting for me to finally get across the line. Continue Reading »
Apr 16 2007
My friend Nick is a great photographer who took these shots of the race on Saturday from Gas Works Park.
Apr 14 2007
Lake Union must be one of the most amazing places to hold a San Juan 21 race anywhere! It has beautiful views of the Seattle skyline, house-boats, and the Space Needle, and is particularly cool for the steady flow of floatplanes roaring through the fleet.
It also has things to teach you! Things such as:
When the student is ready, the teacher appears!
Apr 09 2007
What’s in a name? When it comes to your first boat there is a lot to the name. I was actually excited to see that #759 was nameless when I bought it… Though I suspect that a lack of name might also explain the lack of connection & general state of disrepair she was in.
I have always had very particular ideas about boat names. In my dreams my boat always has a single noun name like Endeavor, Constitution, Defiance, Enterprise, or Bounty. Unfortunately, I didn’t think a beat up 1974 San Juan 21 could pull off a name like “Victory,” or “Ideal.” I needed something a little smaller in scope.
Apr 02 2007
So I have had my San Juan 21 “Limpet” for a couple of winter months and had only sailed it once. With the cherry blossoms on the trees and the promise of summer in the air I have been jonesing to venture back to the water. So with more optimism than sense I rounded up some crew and headed for the first sailboat race of my life. I caught up with San Juan 21 Fleet 1 on Elliot bay for a day of fun framed by the Seattle skyline. My stout hearted crew with questionable decision making abilities was my good friend Ken. (Quick story on Ken… He is married to a great gal named Heidi and around my house we often refer to “Ken and Heidi.” My son, who has not picked up on the finer point of conjunctions, has taken to calling him “Kenand.”) Together Ken and I set forth some objectives for the adventure.
Other than that we figured anything else must qualify as a success.
Mar 24 2007
The worst possible nightmare for a San Juan 21 (other than sinking) is core rot. These spunky little boats have a deck constructed of two layers of fiberglass with end grained balsa sandwiched between. When holes are drilled in through the deck to hold on hardware, (rails, hatch covers, etc.) it provides the opportunity for water to get between layers and begin the cancerous process of rotting out the balsa. Once started, the enivitable end of this process is a mushy deck, unsafe for sailing, likely to cost more in blood and gold to repair than just getting a new boat.
I decided that my very first project on Limpet would be to permanently seal every single deck fitting hole such that core rot would never claim this little boat. To do this I became a master at what might essentially be considered Boat Dentistry.
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