New Site.... New Boat

Since there is a new boat there is a new site for the Hans Christian for those wanting to follow-on.  The new blog-spot is svcarolmarie.blogspot.com.

see you there.... Sla'n

Terry

NISE is up for sale....

I am excited and nervous because we just bought a Hans Christian 38 MKII, and we are selling the NiSe

http://www.yachtworld.com/boats/1985/Catalina-30-2503371/Portland/OR/United-States

We will be sad to see her go.  Her new rudder gives over 0.5 knots of extra speed.

Back in the water!!!

On last Thursday I received a call from Schooner Creek Boatworks, "Terry, your new rudder just walked in."  

I immediately replied, "Wow you guys are good, you can put legs on a rudder and have it walk around."

"No," they replied, "a guy in a brown suit was carrying it."

Eric over at Schooner creek assured me that I would be in the water by Friday afternoon.   He kept his promise, and the whole thing was under budget too.

I managed to get there in time to see her being test fitted and splashing into the water.

Here's the rudder being test fitted

Once the test fitting was done the rudder was hung and bolted on.  Here's a side and rear view of the rudder while still on the jacks.

Rear view of the rudder

Side view of the rudder

With the rudder hung, the tractor lift moved in and dropped her back into the river.

S/V NiSe making her splash back into the river

Hanging on with the new rudder

One last step was to mount the new flag halyard, which was done by a fellow Irish American....

New flag halyard installation

On Saturday we took her out under spinnaker, with about 6 knots of wind. The winds were out of the northwest, with a westerly current of 1.5 knots.  After the spinnaker when up my wife when down to take a nap in the cabin.  The new rudder was perfectly balanced.  Running against the current with a wind 15 degrees off to the starboard side of the transom, I lifted my hands off the wheel, and she sailed perfectly straight for 35 minutes before I had to jibe, running out of river on the Washington side of the Columbia.  No weather helm whatsoever.  

I noticed too the boat turned much easier than before so coming into the slip was so much easier.   Of all the things I have replaced on the boat, the new rudder by Rudder Craft certainly made the biggest performance improvement.

While waiting for the rudder....

It seems like the boat has been in the yard forever.  The skeg has now been repaired, see the photos below.

And of course the new rub rail installed......

The grey looks nice with the black color scheme and the red trim lines.  But we've gotten bored so we decided to take to the water in smaller craft.  We loaded our paddle boards on the roof and went out last night going about 1/2 a mile around the marina.

 Charing took off, standing and moving fast.  I was too scared of falling off into the Columbia's murky water so stayed on my knees the entire time.

Here she is standing running around the marina.

But her smile is what gets me every time....

So while we wait, we've been paddling around leaving behind nothing but wake (albeit really small).

Showing off the updates over the last year...

Over the last year I have made a lot of updates to the boat.   We purchased her a year ago this week, and I wanted to show off the progress over the year.

Here's the picture of her on the first day we got her.

One of the first things we did was clean out the hull, and all the garbage. We pulled two large garbage bags of trash from the port-side lazerette and another three from the cabin.  Beer cans, old rope, old canvas, molded life jackets, papers, and general trash were found all over. We cleaned the cushions and scrubbed the interior.

Hung a picture from Hawaii (my wife's homeland), and mounted the flat panel TV on a rotating arm.

Then we updated her interior lights. Every light inside the boat was replaced with the new teak rimmed interior lights.

Replaced the cubby rings in the cockpit....

Next we updated her speakers and stereo for tunes....

next we changed out all the running rigging (yes all of it), new dodger, cockpit cover, life-ring, docklines, fenders, cockpit table, boat pole with mount, flag pole, and did all the brightwork....

We added her name to the stern....

We also added a companion way cover...

In the same picture you can see the line holders that I made to replace to the older ones.

We fixed the Catalina smile this spring, putting in a new shaft, PSS, and self-feather prop.

we added the GPS and the navigation table light....

then we added bungees to the bookshelf to retain the books while heeling.

Of course the new mainsail and the new jib....

And finally the new life lines, hull waxed twice, and hatch cover.....

She looks completely different, faster, lively, and prettier....  That was a lot work in a year.  I didn't mention the new anchor bags, solar vents, and shore power chord.... but that's mostly all of it.  A least the boat is keeping me off the streets,

not part of NiSe but it gets me to her.... on sunny days anyway.  As the rudder is still missing, I am missing just being out there. 

Added the new rub rail....

With the boat up on jacks I am getting a few of the little things done that I have been putting off.  This week we put the new rub rail on.  The new vent covers I will tackle tonight.   Still waiting for the delivery date of the new rudder.

Meanwhile happy sailing.... at least in the day dreams....

Sometimes You Just Watch

Last weekend I took my grandson to the marina and taught him to kayak.  It was great to watch him explore the marina on his own, and it felt good to teach again.

We also took the dinghy for a ride around the marina.  He steered the craft all over the place, and we had a ball.


We are still waiting for the boat to be repaired.

New Rudder is on Order

The boat is needing a new rudder.  The photos from the diver didn't show the true extent of the damage.

Leading Edge of the Rudder

Trailing edge on the starboard side

Trailing edge on the port side

Apart from the damage in the photos, when I went to Schooner Creek Boatworks, the shaft was bent 5 degrees off center.  The shipwright at SCBW tried to straighten but to no avail, it was a loss.

I ordered the new HDPE rudder from Rudder Craft, it's expected to be in 2-3weeks.  So much for summer sailing.

Moved the Boat to Schooner Creek Boatworks

Last night Cheryl Miller, her nieces and I moved the boat over to Schooner Creek for repair.  They pulled the boat today and said it would need a new rudder, the shaft is bent serious bad, and they can't get it off.

They will work on it more on Monday, pictures are coming.

The diver's report is in, not good

I hired captain Ron (stop laughing), a USCG Master 100T at Columbia River Marine Assistance to dive the boat today and take pictures.  The good news is the shaft and prop are fine, the bad news is the rudder isn't.  The gouge is 4 inches long and 1/2 an inch deep.  After tightening the steering cables yesterday the wheel had been rotated 10 degrees off center and the rudder shaft had a slight bend in her, not allowing the last 10 degrees of rotation of the wheel without the top of the rudder scrapping the bottom of hull.

So ends our racing season, win some, loose some and run over some buoys.  I will be calling up Schooner Creek in the morning Monday to see what the cost will be.

Some of the other damage photos.  By the way Captain Ron is very good, next time I am calling him over the race committee boat.

Third Race Results in the SYSCO Series

Yesterday was the third of the SYSCO Summer Series.  Our crew for the race was "Hit the Buoy" O'Shea, "Bossman" Aldridge, "Grinder" Miller, "Wonderboy" Reina, and "Fingers" Rhodes.  The lessons from last week in getting to the boat on time paid off, we were there in plenty of time.  The boat was rigged and we were off to the Race Committee boat to be registered.  On our first pass of the committee boat they had yet to raise the course numbers.  We were exceeding disappointed because we actually remembered the map and could wait to try our skills at once more.  After passing the committee boat we raised sails.  Scanning the horizon our two competitors "Vagrant" and "Hail Yes!" had made it to the race course and were ready.  As time passed the committee boat raised the come within hail flag and once more we passed their boat.  Although the courses for the 1-4 fleet were clearly labeled with fixed letters, the committee decided to write out the courses for the 5, and 6 fleets. Reading it was nearly impossible so we opt'ed for following the others to the first mark.

As the count down of the start approached we had set up on port tack; having once again an excellent start ahead of the majority of the fleet.  The skipper select to go the Oregon side of the river holding first tack as long as possible as others tacked off to port tack heading for the upwind mark.  As we neared the mark we crossed to the other side river, noticing that we had lost ground allowing 2/3s of the fleet to pass us, including both of the other Catalina 30s.  When the first half of the fleet rounded the mark they bunched up blocking each others wind to the downwind mark.   Seizing the opportunity we swung around buoy passing "Hail Yes!" and falling right on "Vagrant" stern (within 5 feet). 

On customary playlist of Irish Classic Songs boomed through the stereo as the crew of the "NiSe" sung along, distracting many in the fleet.  What they didn't notice was the wind was shifting from behind us to our port.  "Wonderboy" was the first to notice as the wind shift caused an accidental jibe.  In an accidental jibe the wind takes the mainsail and pushes swiftly through a 180 degree rotation.  Anyone in the path of the boom is subject to serious pain.  Needless to say "Wonderboy" was standing in front of the boom to prevent accidental jibes.  So as the boom crossed the deck, "Wonderboy" ran trying to beat get out of it's way and we nearly lost him overboard.

The wind shift put us on a reach we trimmed sails and starting moving up in the fleet.  By the time we rounded the downwind mark we were right beside "Vagrant", with our nose about 3 feet ahead of his on his windward side.  Rules of sailing dictate you must not block your competitor from rounding the mark on the inside if there is overlap which was the case. We allowed them to round first and came up on their windward side, on starboard tack (advantage to us).  Both boats traveled to the finish side by side, heeled at 20 degrees, crews eyeing each other.  Then we passed the committee boat, "Vagrant" had beat us.  I had no been watching the finish rather watching "Vagrant", otherwise I would have noticed we both crossed on the wrong side of the committee boat.  "Vagrant" was too wrapped in celebration to notice either.  I turned the boat around and headed back for the other side of the committee boat.  As I did I saw "Hail Yes" screaming for the finish, but far enough away that we could still place first.  Then tragedy struck once again this season I stuck a buoy, this time wrapping the anchor line around the rudder of the boat.

We dropped sails, and the race committee came out to assist.  Nothing could get us off the mark, so they tried catching the buoy anchor by dragging another anchor from their boat.  Well this ended in a disastrous fashion as that anchor wrapped our rudder as well. Another racer brought out his Zodiac and was eventually able to free us (two hours later).    The driver of the Zodiac was from "Free Bowl of Soup", our own Doug Schenk's syndicate.  The damage to the boat still needs to be surveyed, so the extent is unknown.  The lesson learned is to stay far away from the buoy's.

Father's Day -The Best of Shea's little girls

I had the best Father's Day doing one of the things I love to do: work on the boat.  I finally got the courage to put the new hatch on the front of the V-Birth.

The new hatch looks very nice, but I went through every emotion in the book putting it on.  It took a good six hours to do, but looks really nice.

The other thing that was fun was watching my real little girl Katie and our dog Kona.  The two of them had a blast paddling around the marina.  That's Kona in the front of the paddle laying on Katie's lap.

It was a great Father's Day.

June 14th Second Race in the Series

June 14th Second Race in the Series

Yesterday was the second of the SYSCO Summer Series.  As always the drama leading up to the start of race was most of the excitement.  One of our crew arrived late at the meeting point for the car pool so we didn't depart the transit center until nearly 5:00PM.  I received the new jib and loaded in Kevin "fingers" Rhodes SUV, along with the sail numbers that needed to be attached.  On the drive there, I had the hair brained idea that I could actually place the sail numbers on the jib while on the way to the boat. To give you an idea of what this was like: imagine yourself in Amsterdam, in the back of cab doing 120mph through the city streets, and the cab driver is a turk having just finish a combination of crack, speed and opium smoking, and you're trying to do needle point in the backseat. Kevin is one of my best friends, and I am not saying he's a bad driver, or my safety was in question while in the car; but way in the back of the SUV buried under 85lbs of Dacron sail it sure gave me flashbacks to Amsterdam. All in all, it was a bad idea, the numbers never got on, and I just got car sick.  Thankfully Michelle and Marc were at the boat and all was ready when we arrived.  We scrambled to get the headsail on as we motored out to the course while Marc got a crash lesson in yacht racing.

As we approached the committee boat and were recorded for the race; but then it dawned on me that we left the course book back at the dock, in haste to put up the new jib. We celebrated though having known we arrived just in time to be included in the race. Winds were out of the North-NW, blowing about 10-12 knots making it a brisk sail upwind.  We set up the main, and the new jib to begin the start sequence.  For the third time in a row we had a great start as we headed for the upwind mark.  We jockeyed for position in the fleet and gained advantage from the new jib, beating our way to the mark.  

An unprecedented three tacks were required to round the mark and set up for the downwind leg.  On the down wind leg we remained near our arch rival "Vagrant", with "Hail Yes" the other Catalina 30 far behind us.  Approaching the downwind mark we rounded with about 130 yards behind "Vagrant".  As we approached the upwind mark, we saw the mark had moved down river 300 yards   We approached on a starboard tack, which slowed the boat because we needed to pinch to get through the distance between the mark and pile.  "Hail Yes" came screaming towards us on port tack (we had right of way).  To avoid collision I hove the boat to and allowed "Hail Yes" pass while shouting various profane statements at the oncoming boat. I called for the red flag (protesting the boat maneuver) which was ignored by the passing yacht.  We passed the committee boat on the next downwind leg and ensured they saw the red flag. By the time we rounded the last m

ark making way to the finish we had caught up with "Hail Yes!" finishing 1/2 a boat length behind her.  We dropped our sails and made way to the committee boat to file our protest. The crew had the traditional pint as we put the boat to bed. 

I should note that this was the first race "fingers" failed to sacrifice anything other than a spot of Guinness to the river.

Un-officially we were in 3rd (of three, sounds better than last).  The protest was emailed to the race committee at 11:48pm last night just 8 minutes to spare.  

Next Thursday we have another chance to climb back on top.  Additionally I have registered the syndicate for the SYSCO Solstice Series with special races on the 22nd and 23rd, I will make a request for special crew call next week.  The Solstice Series has only 14 boats in the race so there is a good chance for NiSe to place.

June 11th 2012

Motor mount in the upper left hand side and grill on the right hand side

Sail numbers for the Main Sail

Katie, Kona and I spent the weekend days working on the boat.  Several improvements were made including the new sail numbers on the main sail, the mounted BBQ grill and the motor mount for the dinghy's motor (see pictures).


Of course Kona and I spent as much of Sunday on the boat as we could enjoying the sun until we both passed out.

Kona (pirate named KONA the black) passed out after a hard day on the water