Here is a view, looking east toward the mooring field in Marathon from ILENE.

LOTS of masts. and more beyond them. A few of the boaters are at the marinas dock, a seawall.

And the marinas inner dinghy dock with lots of room. They have as much room again at the outer dinghy docks to the right at the rear end of the photo.  And they have "project rooms" where you can sew sails, varnish your oars, etc.

We had a very pleasant day with Bev, who was introduced to us by my friend, Hugh. She picked us up in her truck and drove us back to her beautiful home on Duck Key, about twelve nautical miles back east from here. Bev served us a lunch, let us do laundry and take showers, took me to Home Depot and Lene to Publix and then we had happy hour and dinner with her at the Sunset Grill, at the western end of Marathon, with great sunsets, before driving us back to our dink. It was a very full afternoon, on a day when the wind had moderated somewhat so we were not afraid to leave ILENE unattended. Bev lost her husband, suddenly, less than two years ago. They were boaters so she knows how to treat cruisers. She has five lovely grandkids in MA and in MO, where she will be moving back to soon. Bev is a pretty woman but sadly declined the offer to appear in this blog. Duck Key is an upscale residential community on an island south of Route 1, with mostly waterfront homes on the canals that run through the island. Shopping is a ten mile drive to Marathon. Sadly, we may never see you again Bev, but if you ever come to NYC and we are home, there is a berth for you.

These manatees come to the dock where there is a fresh water hose. But we are not supposed to feed them water because it encourages them to come in too close where they get hurt by propeller blades. You can see a white scar on mommas back (upper left). She is ten feet long! They are vegetarians and will not intentionally harm a human. Sort of a weird cross between a walrus head, a whales body and a beavers tail.

While at Home Depot, with a lot of help from a very knowledegable staffer, I bought all of the parts (except nuts, bolts, washers and sealant -- which I had) to install the aft, 360 degree white running light atop a length of PVC pipe.

The problem was that the base of the light had only a threaded hole for a six mm bolt. I needed to create a stub to stick into the PVC. About two hours of work the next morning in the wind sheltered inner dinghy dock area, and it is done. Until now we had to hold the white light on the top of one of our heads, which gets tiring on the arms after a while. And while I was at it, after looking at MANY other dinks at the dock, I tied a thin short line around the base of the dinks red and green bow light, with the other end secured in the boat. So when, the section cup fails, as it will, the $35 light will fall into the boat rather than into the sea.

Then we met Alex, proprietor of SeaTek. He had come recommended by John and Marcia of s/v Remora. A very pleasant and efficient young man with a beard who lives aboard his boat, anchored here. He advised us to visit Marquesas Key on our way to the Tortugas, and stay in an unmarked place where the water is deep enough. He is also an intelligent and inexpensive marine electrician. He came to our boat, fixed a lot of things electrical and ordered the "combiner" we need to solve our battery charging problem which he will install when we stop here on our way north. I had caused one problem when I installed the batteries: I crossed two black cables causing the Link interface to confuse the two batteries. Another problem was a fuse that took ten seconds to replace. He pointed out a poor crimp which I fixed after he left. I took the aft part of the boat apart before he got here to save time and was very pleased with how much he got accomplished in one $70 hour.

An afternoon of shuffleboard followed by Lene watching her TV shows on the Marinas wifi while I visited the Marathon YC, where, as Harlem members we are welcome to dine. They have 300 members, mostly power boats, and only 20 slips -- no moorings. Most of the members keep their boats at back yard docks in the canals. A rather unforgettable, except for presentation, dinner at Marathon Steak and Lobster rounded out our visit here.

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I am happy to announce I will presenting with some great names in the marine industry and cruisers at this years Trawler Fest in Anacortes, WA. If your in the area stop in and say HI.

Here are the presentations I will presenting in, and they are many more available, so please check them out here:
 http://www.passagemaker.com/events/trawlerfest-anacortes-2015

BOAT BUYER’S SURVIVAL GUIDE

THE ART OF BUYING A METAL BOAT

CRUISER PERSPECTIVES-AUDIENCE Q&A?

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We left at 10 as planned, but I screwed up reading the tide table so the tide was against us on the way out of Charleston, though weakly. We put up the main in the inner harbor and jibed it several times on the way out, past Fort Sumter where our Civil War began. Actually it began in SC, earlier, with the thinking of Calhoun, on the theory of states rights to "nullify" federal authority, a doctrine now becoming popular again among the lunatic right in this country.

We turned left as soon as we reached the first buoy after the end of the seawall and put up the genoa as well. This was before noon but the wind was too weak and too far behind us, to move the boat with  any speed, so we motor sailed, mostly motored, until about 1:30. I even had taken down the mainsail. I had not realized how much of the first 109 mile long part of this passage, was more easterly than northerly and so the projected five to ten knots of west wind was behind us. Then came wind, much stronger than projected and a gift to us. I was able to get up half the mainsail, with double reef in it, and continued with the genoa. The wind built behind us and we were screaming along at seven to eight knots with peaks at 8.9. And with the wind about 120 to 150 degrees from our bow, we rolled a lot from side to side, most unpleasant. Lene felt a bit nauseous though she did not lose her food. We had a delicious cold dinner -- no cooking with the rolling. It was warm and sunny by day and reasonably warm at night, with no rain. But during the night we got some slow speeds, less than four knots and even though I did not put up the genoa again until near daybreak, it was this night part, as well as the first few hours, where we lost time

After dinner, at 7:30, we replaced the genoa with the small jib, a safety measure for nightime sailing in big waves, and were still making over seven knots with just the small headsail and double reefed main. We had put on the preventer to prevent accidental jibe of the mainsail, and with the small jib sliding back and forth we took it in and sailed under just double reefed main. The preventer was a good thing because the wind had shifted from off our starboard quarter, to off the port quarter during Lenes watch. We were sailing "by the lee" -- the way you get that accidental jibe. When I got up at one (Lene let me sleep late) we jibed the main and continued on toward the turning point - off the tip of Frying Pan Shoals, which extend many miles out into the Atlantic from the Cape Fear River. We saw very little traffic: Two big freighters passed us at quite respectable distances -- closest point of approach being miles away -- and one sailboat overtook us, headed for Beaufort. I saw his lights and estimate he was 200 yards off our starboard side, moving a fraction of a knot faster than ILENE. Prior to the close passage I had a radio conversation with him to confirm what each of us was going to do.

Once around Frying Pan, at about 4 to 5 am, we turned north to Wrightsville (The Masonboro Inlet) and the wind came up from our port quarter to its beam and even forward of that. This second leg was only 32 miles and wind speed varied considerably during the leg, as, consequently, did boat speed.
It is hard to get good pictures of a night passage so at least I have the long awaited dawn.

Masonboro Inlet is easy, wide, well marked and flanked with seawalls. Once in, it is easy to get to the anchorage area and we dropped at 1:30, only 90 minutes "late" compared to our projected schedule that would have averaged 6.5 knots. Nice homes line the bay side of the barrier island.

We put out a lot of chain because there is lots of room and 20 knots were predicted for this evening. But by 4 pm it was howling at up to 40. We visited Wrightsville and made the reciprocal of this same ocean passage, to Charleston on our way south last fall and hence felt no need to lower and raise the dink to stretch our legs in Wrightsville. Tomorrow: Beaufort NC, about 80 miles and if the forecast comes true, a beam reach  or close reach from the port side, with five to fifteen knots.
I  tried to take a photo of the pod of dolphins playing under and around our bow, taking the Ipad up there, but they are way faster than ILENE at eight knots. I took maybe 50 shots and only one, a video of less than one second, caught a dolphin. These were not the slow graceful swimmers in the ICW but racers amidst the big ocean waves. I couldnt get the video into this post but it is on Facebook. I did manage to neither fall off the boat nor drop the camera.
Ilene is a true member of this crew and a solid citizen on overnight passages. She grumbles a bit and still relies on me, and I have to admit I like the  second part of that. She is even taking an interest in the charts, tides and weather. I couldnt make this trip without her, physically, mentally or emotionally. We have some chores that each of us do most of, but both of us do many of the chores. She said she liked our 25.5 hours together.
On our honeymoon on the old ILENE, in August 2002, we spent a pretty terrible 36 hours in a noreaster off the coast of Maine  The boat got beat up (torn sail, water inside through the dorades, compass light out) and we got beat up too. After a good nights sleep Lene asked, "Where do we go next?"  I replied "God, I married the right woman!"  And that has become truer with each passing year.

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One of the memes of modern American culture is we have lost our DIY aptitude (a characteristic particularly attached to the millennial generation). We dont fix our cars, we dont fix our houses, we dont build things..we pay someone else to do it. I was reminded of this when reading the geeky but very informative Professional Boatbuilder magazine (by the same publisher of Woodenboat magazine).. They did an article on Chesapeake Light Craft, the plywood boat-kit builders based here in Annapolis. Chesapeake Light Craft spends an inordinate amount of time trying to make their plans and kits so comprehensive there is very little room for error. I then read the following paragraph and my jaw dropped.

Some customers are so unskilled that it would be better not to sell them a plan or a kit. "So many people these days cant read plans at all. When a part is symmetrical around an axis and the plans only show half a part, some people build half the part. Thats happened twice in the last month. One guy made half of the deck and the bottom. We were very nice. I guess if you cant laugh, you have to cry...You cant make assumptions about anybody."[Professional Boatbuilder, Number 152, pg. 26]

Hmm! maybe we are becoming a nation of hopeless klutzes.

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After letting the last coat of epoxy on the hull dry for several days I did minimal touch up sanding of high spots. As I look back I should have done a lot more from an appearance standpoint but it certainly has a passable appearance. I again wiped the hull down well after having vacuumed the garage so that I was in as dust free as possible. I then used masking tape around the gunwale line feeling that the glue would probably adhere better to the epoxy directly than to a coat of paint. I used Rustoleum Marine primer, one coat applying it with a foam roller. It was difficult paint to stir and get well mixed but it went on very well and the roller gave it a good smooth even appearance. I again let it dry well for a couple of days and then used Rusteolem Marine Topsides paint for a finish coat. It too was rolled on and was easy to use. It will take a second coat to achieve a really nice look. It should be noted that this is Topsides paint not designed as “bottom” paint so if you plan on leaving a boat in the water for any long periods of time this is not the paint to use.

One final comment on the paint. Compared to the usual marine paints Rustoleum is much cheaper but also offers a more limited choice of colors and it would appear that it is not designed to be used as a mixing base to make your own color.

I let her get good and dry and then flipped her over onto a nice soft cloth pad to protect the paint. The frames were still attached and were the way I supported the boat while painting. Now for the first time I got a good look at the inside of the boat. WOW! I had a lot of finishing to do. This included filling screw holes but mainly if was filling in and making filets were the chines, keelson etc. did not seal as tightly as I would have liked. From a functional standpoint the boat was sealed. From and esthetic one I had a lot of work ahead of me. Since the epoxy is pricey I mixed up just enough so I knew that there would be no waste. This was your peanut butter consistency and applied with a tongue depressor went on easily and gave a nice effect. I would give a piece of advice when doing this. Wipe off the excess with a vinegar soaked cloth as soon as you are finished with an area. It is a heck of a lot easier than sanding this rock hard stuff once it dries. 

I still had the frame “legs” uncut. The center ones in particular were a real nuisance to work around so I cut them off almost to where they will be finally but since I still have work to do on the sheer as far as trimming off the plywood I left a few inches that will come off later. Now I at least wasn’t catching myself on this stick that was serving no purpose. The bow and stern legs weren’t nearly the problem and I still haven’t touched them. I went off the CABBS plans for the mast step and thwart. I saw in someone’s plans that they had enclosed this part and made a buoyancy box out of it. I used ¼” maranti for the top which I fitted up tight to the underside of the inwales. Put a few cleats along the sides and fore piece to hold it tight. I then scribed a pattern on cheap plywood for the vertical piece. For this I used ½” maranti figuring that this would be extra cross bracing since I am using ½” plywood instead of the ¾” per plans. I will cut a 2 3/8” hole at the point 11” back from the bow and into this will go a piece of 2” PVC. When finished it will be sealed with epoxy.

What I haven’t got straight (so to speak) yet is the rake of the mast and exactly how the step will be angled. The mast will be reinforced 1 ½” PVC. From what I can tell, and Kyle Leonard has said, the mast should be perpendicular to the sheer line That is what I finally did. I took a piece of 1x4 sprude, used a 2 3/8’ hole saw an cut completely though it and attached it to the keelson in just the right position so that the 2” pPVC would be perpendicular to the sheer line. Not as difficult as it may sound. Used epoxy to fasten it. I put in a 4” water tight inspection port in the vertical piece a little off center so that the area may be used to store a towel etc. I will have pictures of all this. The port cover is frm West Marine and cost less than $10. Really happy with it. As looked at the inside of the bow transom it just looked unfinished so I took a piece of 1x4 spruce, as clear as I could find, and scribed a piece to fit on the inside of the bow on top of the mast thwart. I think it looks pretty good. I am doing the same on the stern with the exception that there will be a perpendicular piece running down to the keelson. Since the gugeons will attach here the added strength makes sense. BUT all this trim work adds weight to the boat so for those wanting the lightest craft possible all this is not for you.

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It took only three hours with a fifteen minute delay at a bridge near our destination that opens only every twenty minutes. Cold but clear with more wind than yesterday so we used only the small jib. We passed the Ponce de Leon Inlet with its distinctive lighthouse by the sea.

There were alternate buoyed routes at two points in this short passage and we took the one officially marked as the "ICW route" which was inland from the light. The last time I was here was crewing on a northbound 74 foot motor yacht, m/v "Sea Leaf," in 2012. Then we stopped at a marina by the light before jumping out into the Atlantic for a romp up to Beaufort NC.
Today we could have gone another 32 miles to Titusville, but we broke the trip there from Daytona into two parts by stopping here because Lene heard or read that New Smyrna is a nice town.  This has emerged as our plan for the winter: We are going south in Florida slowly. We are already in Florida but have several hundred miles to get to the Dry Tortugas, which is as far as one can go in the U.S.  This involves a lot of the ICW because many of the ports are not easily accessible from the sea. The two hops from Lake Worth to Fort Lauderdale and from there to Miami Beach, will be out in the Atlantic, during good weather, because of bridges. There are so many bridges that you have to wait for in the first such hop and a fixed 56 foot bridge in the second that we just can not ever get under. And the trip in the Keys is planned as a mix of inside and outside jumps. Having stopped almost everywhere in Florida on our way south, we plan to skip a lot of these same stops on the way north by going outside. A plan that has sort of come to us and like all plans is waiting to be changed.
Anyway New Smyrna is a very nice cozy well run, friendly municipal marina with good showers but mediocre wifi.

We are at the furthest out slip, which, given how small this place is, was not a disadvantage. In fact it was an advantage because we had a clear unobstructed view of the Christmas Parade of lighted boats on Saturday night from our cockpit. About 20 boats, both power and sail, decked out in vastly colorful lights came up the ICW right past our cockpit. The photos do not do the spectacle justice.
They have a decent history museum here run by the historical society with interesting local artifacts such as the equipment used to cut "cats faces" (shallow "V" shaped slashes) on pine trees to collect the sap to make turpentine. The town got its name from the home town of the founders wife in Greece. The Marina is in the background, two blocks from the museum and between them is a 20 foot high plateau

on which is the ruins of the foundation of either the home that was shelled and burned in a naval bombardment from two US gunboats during the Civil War or a fort. The signage was more directed against vandalism than providing information. The museum has a copy (or original of an affidavit signed by a survivor, after the war, in support of a claim for reparations, asserting that no member of the family lifted arms in support of the Confederacy. I was interested in how the legal form of the affidavit has been relatively unchanged from then to today.
One thing I forgot to report from the museums in St. Augustine is that during the civil war, excluding the native Americans, the total population of Florida was less than 10,000, more than half of them slaves. But you cant believe all you learn in museums: In Fernandina I was told that the original native Americans here were a peaceable and matriarchal society; in St Augustine the story was about the chiefs and the wars between them. Because we can not talk to them directly anymore, each historian draws his or her own conclusions.
The main drag on this half of town, west of the ICW, is called Canal Street,

about six blocks long. We had dinner one night at Yellow Dog Eats on that street, which specializes in variations on pulled pawk. Saturday the street was closed for an antique and classic car show. My friend Jim would have loved the car show. Meticulously maintained and highly shined cars from the 30s through the 70s simply parked on the street, with their owners in lawn chairs nearby to answer questions. Some pride themselves on all original components while others have replaced the interior mechanicals with more powerful and efficient engines.
We took the shuttle bus that picked us up at the far end of Canal Street at Dixie Highway and took us to the beach.

The fare is $0.75 one way for a senior. After a stroll on the beach, we walked the two plus miles back through the main drag of the beach side of town, Flagler Street, and across the bridge that detained us on our passage into town.

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Well the good news is that I did not screw up the screw -- i.e., the transmission still turns the propeller. But the bad news is that the rattle is still there. I guess its time to have a professional take a look. And with all the contortionism required to muscle bolts with wrenches in a terribly cramped space, I got a back pain though it was a little better the second day and gone the third. Its just that so many tasks require throwing your weight into it or reaching or bending -- everything except typing a blog -- that one notices such pains. But ibuprofen helps.

And I started the first day with a mistake, though not a harmful one. I recalled that some of the three passage days from Biscayne Bay to Key West were 20-25 mile days and others were 40-50 mile days, but I guessed wrong on the trip to Rodriguez and we lallygaged about and made a late start at 8:45 for what was a longer day, arriving after five. Some of the trip was good sailing, some motor sailing and during the last hour and a half the wind was directly in our faces and rather than tack back and forth we furled all sails and just motored slowly. We were passed by a boat. I could not read the boat name because it is in a fancy script- more later.

We anchored on the west side of Rodriguez Key; we stayed on the other side when going south;  it appeared to provide some shelter from the wind, which was quite strong.

But the oblong island is aligned from north to south and so neither side gives much protection from a wind that was mostly from the south. But we put out 110 feet of snubbed chain in ten feet of water, with plenty of room behind us. Our nearest neighbor, 100 yards away, was the unnamed boat that had passed us. I awoke from the wind at 2 a.m. and sat up worried the rest of the night in fear of dragging. The anchor alarm suggested that we had slowly dragged but in the morning light

it appears that we did not. Not a good nights sleep.

Next day after a great french toast breakfast, thanks Lene, we set off at 8 am. We gradually caught up with that boat that had passed us the day before, who had left before us. They passed us the day before because I did not want to push the engine with its rattle. But now, I saw, via the binoculars, that she was a Catalina 34 with hailing port Oriental NC. I called them on low power on channel 16, and we switched to 17 to not impede the Coast Guard: "Catalina 34 hailing from Oriental; this is the sailboat ILENE on your port quarter." I learned that their boats name was "RagTop" and they were making the same two passages as we were and planned to stay in No Name Harbor on Key Biscayne as we were. ILENE is longer and hence faster under sail. When we passed them we wished each other a good passage and said we would try to meet up in No Name. I still did not know the peoples names.

The wind was in the low 20s and on our starboard bow. It was on shore yet the waves were not large. The Keys, heading for Key Biscaye through Hawk Channel are arrayed in a curve and as we got closer we were able to gradually steer a bit more north and a bit less east so the wind came from near close hauled to near our beam. We had full main and small jib and were heeled quite a bit,

though Witty wasnt upset by it.  We were doing near seven knots on average the whole way up Hawk passage and hit eight for a few minutes. We could probably have gone faster with less heeling if we had reefed the main but the forecast called for 10 to 20, not 20 to 25.

 We accomplished  in one day the mileage that  took us two days on the way south, going directly between Rodriquez Key and Biscayne Bay without the stop at Pumpkin Key. This was in part due to the free open speedy passage in Hawk Channel and was necessitated by the fact that we passed the entrance to Angelfish Creek way before high tide and waves were pushing on shore there. We entered through Biscayne Channel which is wide, deep and well marked.

Still with the wind and waves and tide all pushing us in, and never having been there before, and with the course involving some jibes, and channels always looking narrower on the charts than in real life, we dropped the main before entering and used the small jib, the tide and the engine at low rpms to make 5 to six knots on the way in. The channel is marked by 20 day marks and several fishing camps, houses built on stilts, on its sides. You can occasionally see shoals that line the sides, but mostly they are under water so you cant see them; it was like Boca Grande. Once through the channel into Biscayne Bay, we turned to starboard for No Name Harbor, which the book says is horribly overcrowded on weekends. This was Presidents Day and it was quite overcrowded, so we went to Hurricane Harbor, where the entrance was shallow, 62" at mid tide, but it quite deep enough at fifteen feet once inside.
And there was plenty of room for ten boats with only three present. I called RagTop and told them we were in Hurricane and they were anchoring outside of No Name due to the crowd so I suggested that they come over. There are NO waves in Huricane Harbor and precious little wind. The advantage of No Name is that though they charge you $20, they have a dinghy dock, restaurants and access to beaches etc. This harbor is completely surrounded by private homes.

and there is no shore access at their private docks, but we do not need shore access every day. In the second photo, on the right, through the harbor entrance, you can see the skyline of Coconut Grove, about four miles across Biscayne Bay.

Our neighbors here have left us alone, which is better than some of Floridas wealthy waterfront land owners have behaved. We exercise our legal right to anchor, for free, in the navigable waters of the USA and do no harm. And ILENE is a pretty boat, at least in our opinion and enhances their view. But some have tried to use legal means and sheer harassment to exclude boats from the waters near them. They dont own the water but they like to think they do. One guy moored a fleet of his own small faux miniboats in front of his house to "use up" all the available space. The idiot spoiled his own view with those ugly things.

When they had anchored we invited  Rag Top for wine and thereby finally learned their names: Don and Trish. They live four hours inland by car from Oriental, and this is their first extended cruise. They were part of a rally of new cruisers who went from Hampton VA to Florida, sort of like the Caribbean 1500, but via the ICW, so they partied most nights.  They are pretty good sailors in that they only gave a few tenths of a knot to ILENE. We enjoyed talking with them about cruising and boats in general.

The lay day was devoted to cleaning, -- the spots that we dont get to very often. Benny of s/v ""Rhianna", who we met in Beaufort SC, alerted to our nearness by Dean, of s/v Autumn Born, called and we might meet up with them soon. Three of four boats came into this harbor during the day but left within hours. We were also very close to Bob and Brenda of s/v "Pandora", which I helped sail from Essex CT to Annapolis in September. Our last night in Hurricane they were in No Name, only a mile away. Now back to Miami Beach where we have guests coming from NYC.

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One of the hidden casualties in the ongoing clash between Laser Performance Europes business strategy and the rest of the small boat sailing world has been the virtual stoppage of production of the Vanguard 15, a two-hander racing and recreational dinghy that, since the late 1990s, has sold well in the United States and still has a national presence. As with any vacuum in the market someone will step in and in this case Steve Clark, one of the original team that developed the Vanguard 15, has linked up with Zim boatbuilders to produce his higher-end version of a hiking doublehander, the Zim 15.

Zim Sailing freely admits they are targeting the post-collegiate market with the Zim 15 and it comes with a bunch of modern performance features, albeit at a higher selling price compared to the Vanguard 15. What modern features do you get?

• A hull designed for higher speeds.
• Carbon spars.
• High aspect ratio blades.
• Roachy Mylar sails.
• Gnav vang to clear up the forward end of the cockpit.
• A multi-purchase rig-tensioning system run through the forestay.
• A bow stem made of high-impact plastic.
• A dangly whisker pole.
• A flow-through double bottom cockpit with open transom.
• Enough cleats in the right positions to make adjustments easier.

Some photos.

Here is the bow bumper which is cleverly molded in during construction so as to be an integral part of the hull.

The Zim 15 has a centerboard for easier launching but the centerboard trunk has grooves in each side so the board can be pulled up and "reefed" in a breeze, just as you would with a daggerboard.

The dangly whisker pole is not seen in the U.S much but is very popular in the U.K. non-spinnaker classes. It resides on the front of the mast when going upwind. To deploy, pull the dangly pole down with its control line. To retract. uncleat the control line and a shock cord returns it to the front of the mast. There is also the multi-purchase forestay tensioner sitting on the foredeck in front of the mast.

The flow-thru double-bottom cockpit with the nifty tilt-up rudder. The hull sports soft-chines as it was also designed for team racing.

The business end of the cockpit. We can see the Gnav vang on top of the boom, the dangly pole, recessed cleats in the wide thwart and plenty of adjustments at the base of the mast.

A computer-rendered sideview of the Zim 15 (lifted from Zim Sailings website).

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"In the name of uncomfortable fun!"

R2AK, the Race to Alaska, a 750 mile jumbo version of the Everglades Challenge, started the 2nd and final leg yesterday. The first leg, raced last Thursday, was a 40 mile sprint from Port Townshend, Washington to Victoria. The rules are simple; no engines, no outside assistance.

Unlike the Everglades Challenge, the R2AK racetrack is open water, very cold and some of the entries are sensible, full out cruising craft. I expect once the dust has settled, the racier catamarans and trimarans will fill the top spots. I dont envy those hardy kayakers in their kayak-trimaran hybrids who will spend the entire race ensconced in their dry suits.

For those who like to get their online jollies by watching the R2AK unfold, the organizers have got that covered - just click here for the race tracker.

There is at least one large open dinghy racing (editors correction: There are two - a Mirror 16 is also competing). Team Barefoot is the product of Barefoot Wooden Boats and is a Tad Roberts design, a 5.8 meter (19 foot) plywood dinghy playing in the same design space for long distance small boats as the i550 mini-sportboat. In looking at the video, the Barefoot dinghy appears to be more in the realm of a high freeboard Classic International 14 from the 1980s. Team Barefoot put this interesting video up on their dinghy and the thoughts behind designing for this race.



Team Barefoot Wooden Boats | Race to Alaska 2015 from Vancouver Maritime Museum on Vimeo.

Designer Tad Roberts has the sideview and sailplan of the Barefoot Dinghy over here.

Some photos of the Barefoot Dinghy I pulled from the InterWebs.

It turns out that Classic Mothist, Jeff Linton, is pursuing the same direction for the next Everglades Challenge. He has scrapped his modified Flying Scot (which won the monohull class in 2014) and is home-building a new 6.7 meter, O.H. Rogers designed, large dinghy for next years Challenge. Boatbuilding details with lots of photos are over at Amy Lintons blog.

1. Part 1 here
2. Part 2 here
3. Part 3 here
4. Part 4 here
5. Part 5 here

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Last year at this time I reported on a one week cruise with Bennett and our two wives aboard his 40 ketch, On Eagles Wings, in the Virgin Islands. Well a whole year has rolled around but this time the wives were not with us.  The rest of our complement, was Allie and Nick, married friends of Bennett with skills: He is a professional bartender and she a professional chef, and their friend Alex, terrifically inventive and handy, was the fifth person. These fellow crew members are in their 20s and strong, willing, fast learners and good workers.

Allie, Nick, Alex and Bennett--the first. morning

We had one lay day at Anegada, but otherwise made multiple stops, twelve in six days. (1) Marina Key for fuel. (2) The Baths for swimming and rock scrambling on the beach (you have to swim in or take a cab - no dinks allowed on the beach anymore) The next three photos show the beach we swam to at the north, rocks we scrambled under and the beach at the southern end of the scramble

(3) Spanishtown for groceries and lunch,

Roger, Nick, Bennett and Allie

where Allie was disappointed in her search for fresh fish but did persuade some big dudes with a cooler to give up one of their lobsters, for free --
our desert after the steaks;

Allie is a happy camper, but the lobster is not.

(4) the anchorage on the Southwest side of Prickly Pear Island, a new spot for me, in North Sound, Virgin Gorda, where we had lots of room between our only two neighbors -- a Dutch boat behind us and a French one in front of us.

(5) The anchorage off the beach, west of Pomato Point on the south west coast of Anegada. It is west of the harbor where I had always gone before and open without a marked channel. Here we rented small motor scooters -- top speed 35 mph.

 We visited an unnamed beach on the north side near Lob Lolly where Lene and I had gone, and next day to Cow Wreck Beach, way to the west, a new favorite. We also had a bonfire on the beach near our boat, and finally did score some almost fresh (locally recently frozen) mahi mahi.

(6) Great Harbor on Jost van Dyke for fuel and water and for a five minute tour of Foxys. (7) Diamond Key at the far eastern end of Jost, as my third new place: we dined at Foxys Tabou, a less raucus outpost of the Foxy empire and took a small hike to The Bubble Bath,

Alex and Allie

where breakers send lots of foam into a small pool formed by boulders in a gap in the cliffy face of the island (Picture to be added). (8) White Bay, also on Jost, where we patronized both the very crowded Soggy Dollar Bar and the quieter Ivans No-Stress Bar, whose tender, Cas, let Nick mix our drinks. Then, after eleven tacks from Jost (via the passage between Great Thatch Key and St. Johns) we came to (9) The Bight in Norman Island where we took our first night-mooring since our starting point in Trellis Bay and dined at the lovely, newly constructed (after the fire) restaurant there.

Alex, Roger, Bennett, Allie and Nick

Next day began with snorkeling, first at the two most popular spots in the BVIs: (10)The Caves and then, nearby (11)  The Indians. 

Our final long reaching passage brought us to (12) Village Key Marina, in Roadtown, Tortola, which is On Eagles Wings home port and from which we departed by ferry the next morning after showers, and sushi at Origins, across from the ferry dock, which was quite good.

     Bennett drove through the passage between Virgin Gorda and Mosquito Island, with a bit of six foot charted depth, which I have never done, and with ILENEs 5 8" draft, I will be unlikely to do. OEWs draft is only 49". But this was a nervous moment though it cut an hour off the trip outside Mosquito Island.
    I did a few boat improvement projects. The first was the repair of the mizzen sail, the smallest and least significant of the three sails of the ketch. It had a tear, about a foot long, parallel and near the seam at the leash (rear side) near the top. Without repair, the tear would have grown larger and larger, especially when sailing close to the wind in strong air. Sail tape alone had been tried and did not hold. I sewed back and forth through the sail tape on both sides ( to hold the two pieces next to each other and the sail itself. For this task I brought my sailors palm, (a leather strap around your hand with the business end of a thimble mounted in the palm. It is needed to apply the brute strength to force the needle through so many plies of tough material. The result does not look pretty (Frankensteins head?)

and the boats owners may elect to have the repair redone professionally with a sewing machine and laying flat rather than standing on the rocking deck and working face high through material that is hanging vertically, but it will hold.  I also placed almost 100 whippings at both ends of the many lines that OEW has. It is true that many of the ends were holding together fairly well through the fusion in high heat of the plastic fibers of which the cores of the lines are made, but whipping adds a smart nautical look and is one of the few skills that I have, so I like to use it.

     A word about our food: OEWs galley stove is an electric range, powered by her electric generator. The generator had gone bad and the owners were contemplating replacing this system with a propane stove. I suggested a much more simple solution, given the infrequency that meals are cooked aboard, consistent with the classic nature of the boat -- a modern low pressure two burner alcohol stove. In the meantime, we made coffee using the electric percolator,

Alex and Bennett making coffee

which the main engine could power.



Allie cooked  our eggs, french toast, toast, fish, veggies and steaks on the small barbecue mounted on the stern, powered by small canisters of propane used by campers. Cooking in that condition in the dark was quite a challenge to which Allie rose. Her stove in daylight:

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