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...

Alacrity in 20 knots

Talking about youtube-videos. Here is one I found of an Alacrity sailing in 20 knots of wind. It's quite short, but the guy seems to enjoy himself. Looks like he has full genoa and one reef in the main on.

Self-tacking jib experiment

I read this article in a boating magazine about how to rig a very simple self-tacking jib arrangement, so I just had to try it out. The system setup is like this: a long line is led through a block at the jib, then made fast at the winches. The idea is that when you tack, the jib moves to the other side of the mast and stops at about the same position on the opposite side. 

First I tried it with the big jib and it worked quite well (see video). Later, I tried it with the smaller jib. Unfortunately this one extends a little too far aft of the mast, so the block tended to stick to the wrong side of the mast. Still, the boat did sail quite well anyway, especially if I adjusted the windward part of the sheet a little. Of course this arrangement does not work with a genoa. Another downside is that you are unable to heave-to with this arrangement in place.

Making tea hove-to

I was out for a few hours today. As the wind was quite cold I hove-to after a while and put the kettle on. I just had to try another Dylan Winter-imitation video, but this wasn't very good either. Not much of what I am saying is comprehensible, I guess I need better equipment...

The conference cruise

I just returned from a somewhat unusal cruise. Normally I don't sail longer distances this early in the season (in fact I normally would have launched the boat this week-end). However these last few days good weather co-incided with a work meeting at one of my collegues summer places on the island of Ljusterö, about 18 nautical miles out into the archipelago. We were four people attending the meeting and as it was to take place Monday-Tuesday I thought I might try to sail there instead of taking the car or ferry. I then would take a day off on Wednesday to sail back home.

Of course this scheme would need some co-operation from the weather gods, but as it turned out it worked perfectly altogether. In fact I did not have to tack once either on my way there or back.

Sunday came with unusually warm weather and a brisk south-westerly wind that propelled me nicely towards my destination. There was not much traffic on the water, first when I had passed Vaxholm castle and crossed the main shipping channel there were some ships and ferries.

These bastards normally are a swell-inducing nuisance, but this early in the season they are almost welcome. Some life on the water at last.

Another one. Note the sail to the left, some kind of high tech dinghy making very good speed. Myself I was making more than five knots on average, quite good for my little tub.

Here I am entering unfamiliar waters. I have not been to Ljusterö before, but the navigation was straighforward. The very entrance to the cove where I was to moor was unmarked though, so I was grateful seeing a small motorboat leaving it just as I arrived, giving me a bearing.

My collegues had just arrived and were waiting at the dock, beer in hand.

I was allowed to use a guest berth at the dock which was very nice and secure.

Now followed two days of budget meetings and strategy talks in this beautiful place...not bad!

After finishing work on Tuesday we climbed the highest hill on the island to get a view.

Up here was an old coastal artillery gun mounting. From here the gun could cover the main shipping route towards Stockholm from the North. All the ferries towards Finland pass here.

However, the gun is gone and the place seems to be used for barbecues now.
That same evening my collegues left by car. I had the house for myself during the last night, which was very nice considering it was getting colder as the wind veered towards the North. On the other hand, that wind was exactly what I needed to get home without a hassle.

I started at ten and encountered light winds from the Northeast which gave me about three knots on average. Thus the journey home took about six hours instead of four and a half on my way out.

However there was even less traffic and the trip was nice and calm. I did use the engine to get past some windless spots but did not use more than two litres of petrol during the whole trip. No idea trying to get a refund from work!
Finally the short video clip trying to imitate Dylan Winter-like commenting and not succeeding very well...

And here is the trip on Google Earth: