Wednesday, October 31, 2007

s/v whitecloud

My buddy Fisher sealed the deal on his 1973 Yankee 30 a few weeks back and then promptly flew off to New Orleans. On his return this weekend, JohnL and I hauled a "shetland" pony keg of some bad beer into the cockpit and drank to the future s/v Whitecloud and her proud new owner. We followed our onboard celebration with a debaucherous evening at The Sloop (are there any other kinds of evenings at that bar?) capped off by some horrific pool playing and a disappearing act by Fisher. He must've been offended at my pool playing.

The next day, we took Patriot II - her current name - and her monster genoa out for a spin around the Puget Sound and cleared out the previous evening's cobwebs.

Mr. Fisher - here's to you and s/v Whitecloud. Congratulations! When are we going sailing again?

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

tangential

In 2005, three guys from Seattle piled on to a 44' cutter named s/v SohCahToa (the name s/v Never Seen A Girl Naked must have already been taken) and sailed it around the world. As they hopped from ridiculous tropical paradise to ridiculous tropical paradise, they were so kind as to post frequent and hilarious updates to their website. I lost several hours this last weekend reading from start to finish, only to find out that they just triumphantly returned a few days back.

These guys are all sorts of bad ass. Here's to ya, fellas. Welcome back.

http://www.svsohcahtoa.com/

Friday, October 26, 2007

rabbit hole

I know fuckall about boats.

That's the point that I'm starting from in this little venture. I don't know how to maintain them, fix them, keep them running in the face of insurmountable odds. Oh, I'm sure I'll learn. I'm also sure these lessons will be hard fought and caked with layers of oily bilgewater and cuss words.

Because of that, I've been eyeballing the new-ish end of the used boats spectrum. I don't want to inherit someone else's high blood pressure, mine'll do nicely thanks. In the new-ish end of the used boats spectrum, my budget lands me in the middle of cheap production boat territory. I've been wading through listings of Beneteaus, Jeanneaus, Hunters, and Catalinas trying to distinguish what level of quality I can expect from these boats.

There seems to be alot of poo-pooing out there amongst the saltier crowd about these production boats but I can't ever seem to get an unbiased opinion why. Too slow, not well built, cheap interiors, too slow. After I hear this, nobody follows that up with something that tells me what that means, almost like they're just repeating what they've been told when they bought a boat. I can't figure out how to get an unbiased factual understanding of the sort of differences in quality between these low end production boats and the likes of say Tartan, C&C, Sabre, HR, etc.

I'm starting to broaden my boat searches into boats of finer pedigree but slightly older. I'm finding some beautiful boats (who am I kidding, they all look great to me) but I'm not quite sure how to evaluate an older boat. What does 16 years of saltwater do to a sailboat? What does it do to an engine? Was it maintained? And how in the world do I know if it's been maintained?

I'm crawling down a rabbit hole here. Every piece of information raises more questions than it answers. Anybody have any great advice, drop it in the comments.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

one for you, nineteen for me

Now.

Immediately. Post haste. Yesterday. That's when I want my boat. I'm not a patient guy and when I want something, it's usually right bloody now that I'd like it please and thanks. I've found umpteen boats on yachtworld that I must have, can't miss out, need to buy! However, there's this whole capital gains thing that's in my way. I bought my house in May 2006. If you sell a house less than two years after moving into it, you owe the gub'ment taxes on the profit you made. After two years? Free and clear. Before two years? Cornhole'd. So here I sit, waiting until May 13th, 2008 before I can sell my house whilst all these beautiful boats sail past my office window whispering "take me home!".

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

sailing lake washington

Christy and I went sailing with the Puget Sound Sailing Group out of the Island Sailing Club in Kirkland this weekend. After a game of musical outboards, we took out one of their Capri 22's, skippered by the ever-capable Mat (with one T, not two).

Much to Christy's disappointment, we had no spinnaker to fly and go zipping by everyone on the lake. However, we had lots of decent wind to sail in and kept the rails of the boat in the water enough that everyone went home happy.


Ken helping out with swapping out the outboards on one of the Capri's. This would have been a great pic if they had actually dropped the motor in the water. However, this was an entirely uneventful exchange. Sad.


Christy and Mat working hard.


Mat looking nautical.


Me hanging out in my bulletproof life jacket.

(I'm completely running out of clever ideas for blog post titles. This is a sad indicator of the depth of my clever reservoir. Got suggestions? Leave 'em in the comments and I'll be happy to take credit.)

Friday, October 19, 2007

kayaking lake union

(I need to come up with a different title because this won't be the last time you'll see a post like this.)

Christy and I stepped out of her living room and into kayaks. (Any way you slice it, that kicks a metric ton of ass.) We decided we'd paddle from her houseboat on Eastlake up to the north and around into the Montlake cut. Our plan was foiled by both I'm-getting-really-hungry and did-you-bring-powerbars-I-didn't so we made it up to Agua Verde, a future kayak to dinner spot to be sure, and then turned around.

It was a rigorous paddle punctuated by frequent and long breaks at just about every cool boat/houseboat we saw.


Internet, meet Christy. Christy, internet. She is *nine* kinds of cool, people.


In on our of many breaks, we watched a sea plane land right over the top of us.



Action shot!


Paddling back at dusk.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

stupid isaac newton



Dear calculus,

Please die in a fire.

Sincerely,

Jason


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Sunday, October 7, 2007

drink up me hearties, yo ho

Against his better judgement, Ken V., organizer of the Puget Sound Sailing Group, had me skipper one of the J22's for our most recent outing at the Island Sailing Club in Kirkland. Against all odds, nobody died, mutineered, or even fell out and we didn't run into a single other boat. "Set the bar too low." says you. "Wildly successful!" says I.


We had some great wind that was reasonably consistent with a gust here and there. Learning my lesson from last time in bigger winds on these boats, we just hoisted the main and left the jib in a pile on the bow. Mat and Jake crewed and did awesome. Considering the vast amounts of experience we didn't have, I think we did a bang up job. Of course, the sail tuning worked a bit better after we disconnected the boom topping lift that was hanging off the backstay. The devil's in the details, isn't it?


We spent some of the day chasing Ken, Alan and Sherri on the s/v Secret Squirrel and the rest of the time ping ponging back and forth between Kirkland and Magnuson Park with an ocassional side trip down the inlets near Carillon Point littered with trappings of the ridiculously wealthy. (Jealous? Me?) After the sail, we threw down some drinks in Anthony's and watched all the strange comings and goings at the marina. Brides. Police officers. Expensive boats. A gaggle of pimpled prom-going teenagers.



Photographic evidence of a sea-worthy boat prior to the trip in case any later court precedings required it. (pic by Sherri)


Mat manning the tiller, Jake on the main sheet.


Steely-eyed skipper Ken. (pic by Sherri)


The crew continues to evaluate the sail trim.


Catching up to s/v Secret Squirrel.


Ken, Sheri, and Alan aboard the s/v Secret Squirrel.


Sherri and Alan cleaning things up. (pic by Sherri)

Thanks, Sherri, for letting me swipe your pics off the website. Oh, and I almost forgot - would you mind if I swiped your pics off the website?

Monday, October 1, 2007

a boat like gideon brown

I went to a wedding this weekend at Rosario Resort on Orcas Island in the San Juans. One of the attendees showed up in a chartered 28' Camano trawler and spent the weekend on the boat. We had plenty of opportunities to spend time on this fun little boat and I came away super impressed. As per usual, I WANT ONE. (I swear, if they ever let me take the space shuttle for a spin*, I'd sidle up to a NASA guy afterwards and whisper "what do these things run for?")

I was always under the impression that I'm in the wrong tax bracket to afford fuel for a motorboat so I immediately discarded all non-sailboats. However, now I'm learning that the small displacement boats can cruise at a reasonable gallon-per-hour rate. Not terribly fast but likely faster than any comparable sailboat.

Of course, there's all sorts of bluster and huffing to be done on either side of the sailboat v. powerboat debate. I have no interest in this argument. I like boats. They float on water and let me go cool places in a fun way and I think living on one would be bad to the ass.

*In my universe, NASA lets me take space shuttles for test spins. If you don't like my reality, might I suggest an alternate reality?