New Alacrity blog

Here is a new blog about another Alacrity being restored. This one is particularly interesting as the owner is planning to change the rigging to a junk rig. Read about the progress here.

Back for a sail

Actually went back to Sweden for a couple of days last week and got the boat into the water. It wasn't in too bad a shape considering a winter of sitting abandoned and not much maintenance having been done in the spring. So some varnish, a little wash and we were off for a sail last Thursday.

Also the decision is made to try and keep the boat in Sweden and go back next summer to hopefully sail a little more.

New Alacrity Blog: "My Girl"

Randy Rain's blog about the restauration of his Alacrity "My Girl" is the latest addition to the list of Alacrity blogs. Randy's boat does look like it needs quite some work and we wish him all the best with his project!

Sad news -- perhaps

I am currently contemplating putting my boat up for sale. It won't be before the end of next season, hopefully giving me the chance to do some more sailing in Sweden first, but as I cannot see any way (or means) to keep my boat here in York (it's too far from the sea, the marinas on the river are too expensive and there isn't really a point having a sailboat on a river this small), I might have to be content with the kayak for a while.

I haven't decided anything definite yet, but if there is anyone out there who would be interested in giving Discovery a new home, I'd be open for suggestions.

French Alacrity Blog

For those of you who are fortunate enough to understand French there's a blog about an Alacrity here. I have no idea where it is, but it looks nice. ;)

Seawitch blog update

Andrew French has updated his blog about the refurbishment of Alacrity "Seawitch". Check it out here.

Well, I am still alive...

OK, I went back to Stockholm for a couple of days this week and actually got the boat out for a short sail. There wasn't much wind but the sky was blue and the water was as it used to be, too. It was nice to be back, but well, my time here is ending and I've taken the mast down for the boat to be hauled out in October.

Oh, and I also found a fellow club member with a broken down engine so did get to do some good..

Next summer, hopefully, will ensue the adventurous task of getting the boat to the UK. So stay tuned.

Season's first overnight trip

The weather has been perfect these last few days, so I finally managed my first overnight trip of the season. I went to a place where I had been before, mostly because it's sheltered and nice and I didn't expect anyone else to be there on a weekday evening. It turned out there were a few others, but no one near enough to be trouble.

The sail started with, well not sailing. There was very little wind on Wednesday, so I motored the major part of the distance. It was still nice in the sun and very few other boats out. I met one bigger thing though, which I took for a sea scout vessel, but it later turned out to be charter vessel full of high school kids. How I know that? See later.



To get to the anchorage there's a nice narrow passage to be navigated, and it's that passage which prevents bigger boats to get in here at all, so it's very much a secret small boat haven.



I had a beer and a steamy vampire book.



Ravioli for dinner.



A lamp to read by although it didn't get really dark so near midsummer.



22.30



23.15



Then I went to bed. The night was perfectly still, not a sound, no wind, nothing. In the morning the wind got up, but the anchor held. I did move to the other side of the cove for a few hours later, though in order to get a little more peace and quiet.



Then I sailed home. There was enough wind to sail all the way, too. As I closed on the city, I was buzzed first by an ambulance helicopter, then a Coastguard fast craft. Ashore were fire engines. I later found out that it was the very charter boat I encountered the day before - which had been on fire.

First daysail and geekiness

The first daysail of the season occured today. I went out to an island, anchored and had coffee. Sailed home. Made a boring video. Almost froze my hands off when I hauled up the anchor line out of that ice cold liquid I was sailing in (or on). It was quite warm and sunny, though and the wind was good.



I have also tried out the solar charger and battery combination I was experimenting with lately. It's an old alarm battery from work connected to a small solar charger. So now I've a proper 12V system and can charge anything with a usual car charger. Charges the iphone in less than three hours. Not sure how long the solar thing needs to top up the battery after that, but shouldn't be longer than the iphone takes to run flat again.



Oh, and here's the video.

Launched!

Hooray! I got an unexpected phone call today at lunchtime from the club's crane guy. He had found time to launch me ahead of the rest again this year. So I'm in. The engine took some extra pulls this time, but then the winter had been exceptionally cold. At last it started! Very very pleased!

As you can see, the rubrail is now white. It will probably not stay that way, but it looks very nice right now.

More winter impressions

I got this request for some pictures of the boatyard and my boat in its sorry winter state. Unfortunately, on the way there I decided to make a video instead, being, as alway, terribly inspired by Dylan Winter. However, I did not know that the camera's lense makes you look quite like a rabbit if you put it too near. That never happend to Dylan. Anyway, it's too late now and I will have to go through with this.

Getting into the yard wasn't easy as the lock had frozen. Expecting this I carried a small can of anti-freeze spray, which got me in, but did not entirely clear the lock on the inside so I wouldn't have gotten the key in if the door had slammed shut.



And here is the after-pic.



I did get out without trouble so I could take some more pics from the other side of the inlet.

Not sailing weather

I took a walk to the boatyard today. It was snowing a little and there was about half a foot of snow on the ground. It would probably have been easier if I'd had a pair of skis. After having removed about a ton of snow from the boat's cover I walked home and it started to snow really good.



After having made it to the subway station the adventure got a bit out of hand. First there was a big bang and a flash of lightning, then the train stopped in the tunnel. A voice came on the loudspeaker telling us that the train probably had lost a current collector shoe and wasn't allowed to continue until inspected. However, a few minutes later she told us she'd try to back the train to the previous station. This succeeded and I was once again out in the snow. Shortly after I was hit by a lump of snow or ice descending from a roof. It missed my head by inches and bumped off my shoulder.

It really is much safer at sea!

Ah, and don't do this to your boat.

Upcoming: 50th anniversary

Next year is the Alacrity's 50th anniversary as a class. Designed in 1960 the boat was built during many years and upgraded a few times. However, the basic lines have been the same all the way back since the first plywood version.

Now, I have been asked if I would be interested in editing an anniversary publication which would be printed and sold by a publisher in Ireland. I said, I might do it, but I would want to check with the crowd first. I don't think I will have the time or resources to write everything myself so I would want contributors. I also would want good pictures in high resolution.

While most of the basic facts, history and technical bits already are present on this site, some of it would have to be rewritten and polished up some. There are articles that could be used, but where permission would have to be obtained from the original authors. As this would be a somewhat commercial project, it would have to be done correctly.

I am not saying you'll get paid, but there is a chance of it, even if it might not be much.

So my questions simply are: 1. would you be interested in buying such a thing? 2. would you be interested in contributing to the project. Please answer in the comments below.

A new Alacrity blog: Sea Witch

Andrew French has just started a blog about his new Alacrity. I am sure he will have lots of adventures with her. Keep us posted, Andy!

Afternoon sail

The weather has been glorious here this last week and is supposed to stay that way through the week-end. Of course, I have to work the whole week-end, so there will be no sailing for me. But I did sneak out of the office at 3 pm today just to get a few hours on the boat anyway. There was not too much wind, but enough to sail around the nearest island.

I took a short video when passing through the narrow sound north of it. Someone there has bought himself an old military vessel, I'm not really sure what kind though.

New shelf

There had always been unused space where the former owner had his stereo and switchboard. As I have removed those the space had been empty. Now I have made a new shelf where the stereo once had been. I used half an old washboard I had kept as a reserve, and ten screws. Easy job...

Archive posts

Geocities, which hosts the original Alacrity site is shutting down in October. I am currently moving as much as possible of the original content here. However, I won't publish it as new posts. Instead it will all be filed under the "archive" tag as well as the relevant tag (cruise report, reader's boats and so on), in order to not clutter the blog with old content. The posts will all have a publishing date of 2007 (before this blog started).

There may be some content that is going to be lost, I am afraid. So have a last look at the original site, while you can!

Experimental Twitter-feed

I have set up an experimental twitter-feed for the tag #alacrity19. You can see it in the right column on this page. I thought it may be useful when I am on my summer cruise, as it's easy to update twitter by mobile phone.

However, if you are using twitter and want to share something, just ad #alacrity19 to your tweet and it will show up here eventually as well. Be aware though that updates are quite slow.

Deck painting

It finally stopped raining so I decided to do som deck painting. As the boat is in the water I cannot paint all of it though, so I decided to start with the coachroof and an area around the mast. I even used masking tape this time in order to get a reasonably straight edge. (Which I did not do last time I painted the coachroof a few years ago...).

Now three hours later it looked like this. Then there were some drops of rain and I went home. I only hope the paint had dried enough in case it's raining more. Oh well...

You can see some white dots on the port side in the last pic. This isn't paint but old gelcoat filler. It may very well the next area that gets painted.

Rain

It has been raining up here more or less continuously since Friday. I am sure this is because of me finally having become mentally prepared to paint at least parts of the deck. Oh well...