It’s been a weird summer in the Lower Mainland.
But forget all that. September is smokin’.
Record high temperatures, and sun sun sun.
EB and I finally managed to get away for a few hours on the boat this afternoon. Most of the homeward bound sailboats were motoring up the Sound back to Vancouver, but we had a leisurely sail in the light southerly coming in from the Straight.
Howe Sound in all its glory.
The weather took a big turn for the better today. Madsu’s doing 5.5 knots to weather as we beat into a freshening Southerly on a sunny Saturday afternoon in Howe Sound.
I really can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing that this.
Shot with a GoPro HD video camera – this is a still from the footage.
Catalina 22′s of Madsu’s vintage had very awkwardly sighted navigation lights.
The bow light is actually behind the forestay and stem head fitting – not the best for visiblity. And if I happen to have dropped the foresail on the deck, the light would usually get covered up. (See if you can even find the bow light in this picture of Madsu at the dock)
The stern light was a bit better, though mounted on the deck port-side, and not always visible. While legal, these old lights have always made me nervous, particularly because I love night sailing.
So, before putting Madsu in the water this year I wanted to install new fore and aft nav lights, up on the pulpit/pushpit where they’d be seen.
Finding lights at Steveston Marine was easy – I got some nice Perko lights on sale – but mounting them on Madsu’s 1 inch pulpit and pushpit rails would be the challenge.
Catalina Direct sells a pulpit mount for over 30.00 dollars, and given the shipping and brokerage, it seemed like a crazy amount of money to spend. So I decided to make my own (and spend a crazy amount of time to save a few bucks).
A few years ago I had purchased some stainless rail mount brackets (for a the traveler setup), and still had a few extra.
What I needed was some sort of plate to mount the lights on. So, out came the jig saw and a piece of aluminum plate I had bought when I made the backing plates for the new winches.
I cut the plates, thinking I’d use 2 rail mounts on the bow light – but later opted to simplify with one (a good choice). A little work with a grinder, then a file, then my Dremel tool, and the plates came out looking pretty great.
Next, I tapped holes for mounting the lights, and for securing the plate to the rail mounts. I (and others) like to sit on the pulpit on a nice summer day, and with the mounting screws tapped, there’ll be no bolts protruding.
I wasn’t really up for drilling holes in the rail tubing and trying to chase the wiring through – I ran the wiring externally and secured it with self-amalgamating (rigging) tape. If it turns out to be a nuisance, I’ll chase the wires inside the tubing next year.
Now I’ve got an additional level of comfort sailing at night, knowing that Madsu’s bow and stern light are visible.
Howe Sound is a true delight at this time of year, as daytime heating affects the air flow up the narrow sound.
The pattern lately has been outflow (northerly) winds in the morning, with the wind going light near noon, then a complete reversal in the afternoon to an inflow (southerly) building through the afternoon.
Over the long weekend it was almost like clockwork – on both Friday and Saturday I managed to sail downwind for a few hours, only to turn around and sail downwind home.
I’ve been getting lots of use out of my North Sails G-3 gennaker (cruising chute). I’m getting a lot faster setting the running rigging for the sail, so I’m using it a lot more.
On Friday I spent most of the morning getting my gybes down.
I had a distinct lack of confidence with the inside gybe – that’s where the clew passes ahead of the forestay but inside the tack, rather than bringing the clew all the way forward and around the tack. I know the theory but just couldn’t seem to get the sail around cleanly – a lot of it is timing.
The G-3 is very forgiving – fortunate for me – but after 4 or 5 ‘proper’ gybes I finally got the hang of it and now feel a lot better about having to do them quickly or in heavier air. The sail is so much fun to use, partly because Madsu behaves like a completely different boat off the wind when I’m using the cruising chute.
On Sunday the whole family was on board to enjoy the sun. We broad-reached north with the gennaker, then doused the chute and hoisted the 150 genoa for a leisurely beat home.
The wind piped up to about 15 knots and we had a fabulous trip home.
On a starboard tack with no-one below us, we cruised home at a lively 5 knots without a single tack. The only time I touched the jib sheet was to douse it when we arrived at Horseshoe Bay !
View Madsu in Howe Sound on Sunday in a larger map