Back from the boat yard
23 September 2015
It's been a while so here's a brief update.
We sailed a lot on Tom Brown's F-31UC Wind Trekker and got in a fair bit of TriFoiling before coming home.
Dream Chaser wasn't ready when I got home and when she was "ready" I had to take her back for more repairs.
She was finally sea worthy in time for a quick sail to Port Browning for a BCMS get together. Then it was off to the Swiftsure International Yacht Race to get a qualifier under the keel before the Van Isle 360. It was the first time Peter, Nigel, Ian and I had sailed together and things went well. Despite having the wind die for about 3 hours we still finished about fifteen minutes after midnight for a 7th out of 13. Not bad for the first time in the race for us.
A couple of weeks later it was off to Nanaimo for the start of the Van Isle 360. www.vanisle360.com . We got a lousy start but we were picking our way through the fleet when the port side shroud lashing let go and the mast came down.
We got the mast on board and motored slowly back to Nanaimo. We put some new lashings on and step the mast while fixing little things as we went. All told it was 7 hours from the mast falling to restarting the race after motoring back out.
Conditions were great and we were on track to finish when the wind died around 11:30. We tied up to a dock on Hornby Island and sailed into Comox to rejoin the fleet the next morning. It was a lay day and we got everything ready to go for the next leg to Campbell River.
An early alarm had us motoring toward Seymor Narrows by 3am. We got to the start line to find no other boats and thought we had missed a postponement. Soon others started to show up and the race started with 25 to 30 knots on the nose and it built from there.
After being late for the start we sailed well in the worst conditions that anyone can remember in Johnstone Strait. I think we came in about 9th overall out of 51 boats.
The next leg we started with a reef in the main which we shook out and then decided to put back in. Multiple communication break downs and my bad skippering put us on the rocks.
We got off fairly easily and sailed to Sayward to assess the damage. We were ready to carry on after some emergency repairs when I noticed the daggerboard was broken which made trying to continue sailing into the wind foolhardy.
We withdrew from the race and went out for burgers and beer.
Two days of beautiful downwind sailing had us back on Salt Spring Island and onto the trailer in no time.
Once on the trailer it was obvious the accident was to become an insurance claim and back to the boat yard she went.
I finally got her back Friday and she won't be going in the water Mexico. Oh well, it's time to put that all behind me and get ready for a great winter of sailing in Mexico!
Pictures to follow.....