Eagles and skiffs

November 16, 2016.  A mid week sail.

Today the skiff and an eagle were both flying on the river!

Wind Surfers

Wind Surfing just north of the Tappan Zee Bridge Construction on a blustery day

Yesterday, while going out for a "sail" in my land yacht,  we stopped by the river side to look at the water, which was full of white caps with a strong north wind.  Out on the water I could see these small sails, one white, one yellow, one bright red, all vibrant in the bright but low angle autumn light.  They were zipping around like fireflies.
It was a fun sight and we sat in the van with the big door open drinking our coffee and eating our pastries, and looking thru the binoculars at the surfers.
I wonder if I am too old and to weak to be able to do such a thing anymore.  I wonder if I would enjoy it.  A board and sail rig is just about the right size for something to carry atop my under powered little vanagon.  I have been struggling for coming up with some kind of craft that sails, to carry on the van, but weight is indeed a real issue.
Maybe a wind surfer.  I'd need the wet suit to go with it........This doesn't sound inexpensive.  The truth is I prefer to be in a boat than in the water and I don't think that wind surfing is the best way to achieve this.  But it does look really, really fun.
I am really getting enthused about the sharpie hull design.  I really love the videos on YouTube from this one sailor in particular. I usually tire of these kind of videos, locked off camera, boat sailing......ya, ya ya.  It's usually boring, but these videos impress me with the ability of the boat, and it's simplicity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xA3V2fcG8

Some of the things about the sharpies that make them work, are also the things that I find challenging.  They are a bit skinny of beam, which makes for a real feeling of being cramped.  Along with this the topsides are usually not very high so any kind of cabin would seem like a coffin inside.  I am hoping to achieve a compromise of something that is just enough to make me feel good about being in a little cabin, or at least under a little cuddy.  As is often the case with compromise, it leads to a boat that does nothing well.  This, I hope to avoid.

First November sail this year

On the second day of November with temperatures in the mid sixties, we get a lovely sail.  The wind was lighter than it seemed, or something was different.  Couldn't get to windward very well with the light air in such messy, sloppy water.  I did power sail though, rowing with the rig drawing and that worked really well.
I sailed into a marina to see a fellow sailor before he leaves for warmer latitudes for the winter.  His boat looked great, and ready to go south.  While leaving the marina I was startled by what had to be a big fish, but at first thought it might be some kind of seal or something like.  The muddy brown color made me think it was a fish, but it had some girth to it when it surfaced, kind of like a seal does.  Who knows what lurks in that muddy river.
More fish were jumping during the rest of the sail too.
I had to row up the marsh to get back to the launch site and was very pleased to be reminded of how easily this boat rows.  I must remember to make rowing a priority on the next boat.

sailed into a marina and right up to a cleat in a slip while I got out and talked with a friend.

Rewind----64'f good SSW winds

The day before yesterday was snow, sleet, rain and today I'm overdressed for a nice sail in the afternoon.  64'f and a strong breeze from the south and west, with some gusts that send us planing when we are running down wind, well almost.
Today I launched from a different place.  The Haverstraw Bay park's ramp is open year round, free for kayaks, canoes and row boats, and the skiff qualifies.  It's a really easy place to launch from and really the only place that I can launch for free, no matter the state of the tide.
Today was also the first time using the new, longer push-pull tiller.  It works great!  Very comfortable to use from midships facing forward.  Mission accomplished.
We had some "rollers" today, large long waves, about 3-4 from trough to top.  It's so much fun in a boat that sits so low in the water.
We sailed from the dock on departure and back up to the dock on the return.  Wasn't sure we'd make it with out using the oars, but we did.  The oar blades stayed dry today, but the handles got a little bit damp when a wave came up over the windward side and into the boat, and on me.  The water is cool but the day was so warm that it just seemed fun.  With the tiller I am better able to steer the boat over the short chop and eliminate a good bit of the pounding that the flat hull might do otherwise.

Today while sailing I remembered something I had just read about the hard chined sharpie hull.  In shallow water the hard chine can dig in and work as a bit of a keel and allow for a bit of sailing to windward with the board up.  I think that for this kind of sailing that I want to do this makes up a lot for the tendency for the flat bottom to pound.
when I came back to the dock a guy was watching me land and haul out the boat.  He eventually came up and asked if WHISP was a homemade boat.  He said it looked it.  I don't know if that is meant to be a criticism but I don't take it to be because as I was sailing today I sailed close to a 30 something foot long boat with the big dark sails, mylar or carbon fiber, or something.  We were sailing in the same water.  I'm sure I was having just as much fun as they were on that big boat but I'd wager that the sails on that boat alone cost more than all of the boats I own, or ever have, and yet there they were sailing in the same water using the same wind, but my home built boat cost less than the sailing jacket any one of the crew was wearing!  In my mind, I win.
Today was a bonus day for my micro season this 2016, but I think I've sailed more days than many who had their boats in the water since early Spring.  Again, I win.
I look forward to next months anomaly day and hope that the wind and tide and fortune will let me back out on the water.

Micro Season Apex!! 80'f in October !!!

Hi temp today 81'f!!!!!!!  No shoes, no socks, no shirt sailing.  Strong north wind, Force 4 with higher gusts.  Today shipped the rudder and steering stick.  It's good to know that it retains it's bite even when healed over, which happened a bit and to a greater degree today as I tried to find out how well the little skiff could stand up the wind. 
At times the wind died down to an easy breeze, and that made for amazing lazy sailing while laid out on the cockpit sole soaking up the heat of the sun, like charging my batteries before the cold sets in.

Looking southwest into sunny sky and cloud and shimmering water

At the auto bridge I dropped the mast and rowed under it and into the marsh.  I still had the rudder in place and with the wind behind me I decided to stand up and sail down wind using my body as the sail.  It worked! Wonderfully actually.  After sitting down all afternoon standing was nice.  The steering stick (a push pull affair) worked as if it was meant for standing and steering.  I was initially concerned about stability, the boats, mine, but it turned out to be just fine.  The floors don't extend to the edges of the boat so standing on them keeps weight inboard where it should be.  I figure that sailing this way would make reefing very easy all you have to do is sit down!
I don't know why but I find it hard to say it but I think it may be true that I am become a "small boat sailor".  I have been so certain that I am not, but my actions and delight in this boat would seem to prove otherwise.

back on the shore, a flat bottomed skiff is so easy to beach and step off dry footed.

 

Well this was my 2 days of sailing this week and they were pretty great.  I am learning more and more about this boat each time we go out.  It is great fun to be the smallest boat out on such blustery days and to be doing just fine, sailing amongst the the bigger boats with crews on them, giving way, and taking my rightful way.
I have found that the little bay here, that I hardly even referred to as a bay previously, has now become my own playground with plenty of water for a boat like this and plenty of area for my kind of sailing.  I have a beautiful prominence to the north, with rock cliffs shooting up from the water and a lovely lighthouse atop, marinas all to the west.  To the east, across the river is a beautiful shore that seems like it is far away and I need not venture that far on most outings.  Sailing out as far east as the commercial channel gives me a great view to the south, down river, tall rock cliffs on the western shore and a lovely beach and a point to the south east.  I also know that looking south, I feel the presence of the Atlantic, just 40 miles away.  All I have to do is point that way and sail.  I don't need to, and don't even want to right now, but knowing that it's that easy makes it all a bit more amazing.
If that happened to be my last real outing for the season, then I've done alright, especially considering I didn't start my season until late September.  The handy ease of this boat means that my season never really ends, I just have to be ready for those nice days each month of the year that seem to materialize just to keep me sane and on the water.  I think I will invest in a drysuit for the colder season sailing.  I've been in the cold water once before and have no real desire to experience that again, although, it wasn't something I regret having gone thru, at least now I know what it's like, Hypothermia, and accepting once death in the present moment.  After that, everything seems bonus!

Bigger water and the Clearwater

A long fetch coming straight up the river, out of the south, force 3 to force 4
                    close hauled, the flat bottomed hull wants to pound when we drop off the wave tops and land in the troughs
I try to steer us to softer landings                We tack and come off the wind sailing into the Marina basin
We ghost along UNICORN, the hands on deck wave and say hello
we come back on our course to sail under The CLEARWATER and the crew waves and admires the little red skiff
                    Back out in the river and we run back up to the next bay, our home, the rolling waves lifting the stern
the main sheet eased out            I worried about control off the wind but needn't be.  It's a fun ride back home

On the approach to the dock I decide that I'm not ready to be done for the day and veer off and sail up to the light house as the sun gets low in the sky
even in the gusts the little sail seems to pull the boat along but not over press it
            It's just the right size for this kind of sailing          We sail right up to the dock and I reach out and loop the painter around a cleat.  3or 4 hours of easy, fun, sweet sailing, running, close hauled, beam reach, spray
This boat fits kind of like a kayak fits.

DDP Clearwater

rowing boat-sail boat

Glassy river, so just a row
to the point, to the light house
and back
                    the tide is ebbing and almost slack
row up river and let the current carry me back
                                                                            Out into the channel           the seagulls dive
the surface shimmers and a breeze is on the rise
                            The current helps us home, raise a sail, raise a hope, raise my spirits
at the bow the water sings                 close hauled, ease the sheet come off the wind
make myself comfortable, no shoes, no hat the sun is warm
come about and it's one long tack,
                                    past a beach, past a marina, past a yacht club, past people I go unnoticed
I must be invisible, a ghost ship, bright red hull, big white sail, bright sunshine
no one sees me
                      I'm a ghost, ghosting by right up to the landing with full sail raised
reach out and catch the cleat with my painter. 
A nice breeze is filling in but a couple of hours is enough today, there's always tomorrow, I hope.

I forgot how well this boat rows

row or sail the little skiff is becoming more and more cherished with each outing.  I want to take care of her, get her things, new, longer oars, a tent for the cockpit, better arrangements of everything.  I want to pamper her, which is really pampering me isn't it?
The chair at my desk rises on the swell that the tug that passed me going down river hours ago, left behind.  It's a giddy kind of instability, like a shot of single malt scotch.

WhispDDP

Debauched UNICORN Triptych

I missed getting a photo of the ship today, but I snagged these older images off the internet and DDP'ed them.

Whisp, the sailing skiff!

Skiff at Dock, DDP

Tartlet, in DDP

Tartlet, DDP,  The one sheet Plywood rowing pram

QT skiff

QTx Skiff in DDP

My QTx skiff at the dock

Across and Back, every point of sail!

First real sail, across the river and back. It's soooo good to sail again
I'm calling these pictures "Debauched Digital Photographs"(DDP's)

Coincidence, universally appropriate, call it what you might but on my birthday, a sail across the river makes me feel as though I am reborn, and sailing again for the first time since "A Very Bad Day Sailing"
I believe I had truly forgotten what it felt like to feel welcomed by the water, the river that runs down to the sea and connects to all the oceans of the world.  It is good to be back.

Did I cross back over the river from the under world, The River Styx
Or was it needing to forget, The River Lethe
have I, crossing, got me over my woe, The River Acheron
have I left the shores of lamentation behind, The River of Cocytus
The fires of the river have died down and the water carries me again, The River Phlegethon

I am the ferryman, and I am the passenger
I am the boat, and I am the river
I am the sea