Century Club: Rebekah Bromwell

Outstanding weather. Every day that is cooler seems like the greatest sailing weather so far. I don't know if I'm going to put up with the misery of 100+ deg sailing days next summer... Met up with Rober at 4 and got out well past ft McHenry before too late, though wind died down a lot close to inner harbor so just docked as sun set. Did a heave to in turning basin on the way back and also tried a little experiment to see how steering with the sails would work. It actually does! Not super responsive but you do get noticeable direction by applying weather helm/lee helm forces basically. (By letting out the opposing sheet you can use the main if you want to head down, jib to head up.)

Wind was supposed to be 6-13 knots but it was practically STILL out there. James and Melanie spent the whole time valiantly leaning over the rail trying to help us out but it was all for nothing. Some people seem to have retired without announcing it, the rest of us couldn't even make it to the red-green bouey and turned at the blue crane before it. Totally gave up and just had an pleasant float back chatting. Came in second to last of those who at least finished. Bleh.

Weather was nice at least.

Mark very kindly took out Akimbo for member sail so I could do more docking and general motoring around practice. Did a few upwind dockings on the t-head, picked up a late arriving crew, did a couple downwind docks on the t-head, practiced motoring backwards in a straight line, then got the sails out for the last half hour and did a couple of heave to's, and then I docked it (perfectly *grin*) in the slip. 
 

Wind was very light but weather was absolutely beautiful and not too warm.

Oh, and just as I was finishing all the docking procedures and tightening lines up, a reporter from the banner came over to ask about Akimbo so was able to share my enthusiasm and all the info I have collected about it. (Bristols in general, this decimal series in particular.)

Began Sunday morning with an inauspicious start (literally) but after some nifty engine repair maintenance education we salvaged the weekend and had an absolutely lovely overnight at Bodkin creek. 
 

Engine began steaming through the companionway by the time we were passing underarmour so quickly shut it off and drifted while Albert took out the stairs to figure out what was wrong. James B2 came alongside on Sun and tethered/rafted us so he could drag us over to oasis marina where we drifted in to the dock smoothly (really glad there was a kind guy there to take the lines though) and we started figuring out what happened. Apparently Albert was working down there and accidentally left the seacock closed so when we turned on the engine and checked for raw water from the exhaust there really wasn't any. I checked and thought it did look awfully skimpy but couldn't really see and am not used to checking sweet dreams so wasn't confident making a big deal about it. Luckily we caught it practically immediately so the impeller was just beginning to melt and after the engine cooled off a bit we took it out and tried to put on the spare. This began the several hour saga of discovery that this engine comes with multiple impeller pumps and the replacement we had was completely wrong. We did have an imperfect spare but were hesitant to try it, so sent James B1 back to DSC on Sun with James B2 & crew so he could get the car and drive to west marine in Dundalk to get the correct part. (Which ended up being a challenge in and of itself, but they eventually found 1 of the 2 they had in stock.) In the meantime Albert and I tried getting the imperfect replacement back on, but had accidentally taken the shaft off with the impeller and couldn't get it back in. So we dug out all the old manuals and binders looking for instructions, which we found (and I photographed for future reference). Josh came to tow us back to DSC so we did another drift/docking on the t-head and tried putting it back together properly this time with the new part from James. Of COURSE, it didn't actually work because in spite of fitting perfectly and appearing otherwise correct, it wasn't shaped to sit snugly on the asymmetric shaft, and was intended to use with set screws. So we repackaged it and compressed the imperfect part in such a way that when installed it wouldn't deform in such a way as to fail soonest. (Small crack on one side of one fin, so we set it to turn the other way.) By the time we finished all that and checked that it was working, it was too late to be sure we could make it all the way to Fairlee and also anchor elsewhere afterwards, so we decided to head to Bodkin and it was a really beautiful evening. We swam, had camp dinners and relaxed in the cool evening. I learned how to set up a hammock between the mast and forestay (definitely need one now). Slept well in spite of me not knowing how to use my new anchor alarm and freaking out at 4:30am and waking poor Albert up to come check. (We were fine, and now I think I know better how to set it.) After coffee and some breakfast we motored out of the creek and got the sail out right away to help against the current in the channel. Had AMAZING upwind sailing the whole way back. Also was able to set up my phone with navionics plugged in at the helm so I could see what I was doing the whole time. AND I learned to use the track function! Sailed all the way into the inner harbor almost to the rusty scupper before Turing the motor back on furling everything, did a pump out and filled up water and fuel. Were docked and cleaning up/unpacking by 4:30. Excellent trip.