Saturday Feb 20th 2010.

Another sunny day, and light breeze made today another sailable day. Brigite was aprehensive after yesterday's cold, but I was able to convince her that today would feel much warmer, and it did.

On the way out we saw a blimp and 3 small "warships" rafted up on an anchor, and on the way back we saw that the ships were Canadian navy vessels!!

The boat was not winterized yesterday, so the main was still on and it was a quick departure routine. We were on the water around 1430, with a light NNW breeze powering us along with our No 1 and full main.

After about an hour out the wind abruptly turned right about 45 degrees, and lightened up even more. We were enjoying the relaxing sailing and ended up over by the Bridge Tunnel. We tacked and headed back but were only doing 2 or 3 knots.

Then a new breeze came in from the NE and went to E around 6 knots, and that brought us home nicely, just before sunset.

On Sunday I topped off the fuel tank -she took about 2.5 gallons, plus I put the boat back into winter mode, as we are going to MEXORC at the end of the week, and won't be back until early March.

Ralph Out.

Sailing again! Friday 2-19-2010.

The recent cold (and snowy) weekends are finally behind us. I think we had 3 Saturdays in a row where we had snow on the ground! But this past weekend we had nice sunny skies and temperatures in the low 50's - but much cooler on the water.

We went out on Friday in the late afternoon, and there was a fresh breeze blowing out of the NW at around 10 - 15 knots. The boat was 'winterized', and needed to be put together before our adventure.

We went out with the No 2 and full main. We reached out past the first opening, and then as the cold was starting to take grip on us we headed back and got in just before sunset (which was at 1745), and before Brigite completely froze!

It was great to get back out on the water and have a good sail with the boat powered up. Silver Fox was zipping along at 5 - 6 knots in both directions. There was quite a good ebb flowing that was bolstered by the wind driven current.

As a reference; the trip to the first gap and back is about an hour each way, and 8 nm.

The engine is running great, and I am delighted to report is completely reliable.

One administrative note; did go for a motor once for an hour under load, last week.

More Cold...

Another cold weekend in Norfolk, we got a lot of rain & wind Fri and Sat (Feb 6th & 7th) and it turned to snow on the backside; when the low moved offshore, to the East of us. Plus the N winds brought down some arctic air, and it was frozen pretty much all day Sunday.

The shore power for the boat was not working over the weekend, but today - Monday, I plugged into another spare outlet on the dock, to get the Dryer, and Lamp, warming things up below decks.

I added 2 Gals of fuel today, and she took it all. I guess since the last fill-up, we had 3 motor's in and out and 1 dock motoring session, I am guessing maybe 3+ hours total. Thus we should be pretty full again.

Ralph Out.

Its Winter Time in Norfolk!

It has been cold here in the mid-Atlantic states, and not good sailing weather at all. In fact over the last weekend in January we had a substantial snow event - the first in over 20 years (1989)! Out here at the waterfront we got about 6 inches.

Luckily Brigite & I were in Acapulco at the time, so we missed out on the misery! The week before that we were at Key West Race Week, so life is being pretty good to us.

Not much going on at Cobbs, I go down and check on the boat when I can, and run the engine for about 45 minutes (mostly under load), at least once a week. Sometimes I motor around the harbor, other times in gear at the dock. The engine is running perfectly, and is a pure joy! I did think we had a problem with the Alternator, as there was a very strong electric smell, and a steady click sound coming from down there. Further investigation showed an electric spark - not good in a gas powered boat!

But it turned out that it was only that a distributor cap had come off, and was causing the problem.

Had as low a spring tide as I have seen at Cobbs on 2/2/10, which NOAA reports at 6" below mean LWL at 1st island.

That's all for now!