We’ve jibed over are heading east towards Tenacatita It’s rough and instruments are glaring out the story: we are still seeing over 27 knots of wind out of the north and 7.6 knots of boat speed. We are sailing with just a reefed main and no headsail and the windvane is steering, as it has been all night. Renee has been on deck as I worked on the broken bilge pumps but I finally finished , went on deck, and took over the watch. Renee is getting some rest. It’s about time.
Frankly, we’ve overstood and that’s on me. We should have jibed two hours ago.
Why is it that it aways seems to be stormy and problems happen when we start out on a passage? I can’t tell you how many times on the first night out of port I’ve been head down in the engine compartment trying to get something fixed or something sorted out while outside the wind is howling. Right now it is as dark as the inside of a cow and Wings is sailing fast through the black night. It is pretty scary for the crews I’d guess, they are often new to sailing, especially sailing at night, but they have always turn out to be tough. Renee is.
We don’t plan it that way. Usually we leave port during the day, often by lunch time, but even then things happen.
This time when it got rough we found water in the bilge and the pumps decided not to work. In the end the boat was not found to be leaking, it was just left over water I missed, and after I got the pumps all running we were fine.
We made it to Tenacatia at sunrise.
Tenacatia Bay is beautiful. We had a day of rest and then while Renee did her workout routine and went for a swim I went about lining up some crew for the race.
I keyed the mic on my VHF, “Hi, this is Fred on Wings, may I speak to Dave?”
“Speaking”
“You interested in racing?”
“Yeah, I think so, I’ll let you know.”
Bingo! I got the best guy in the bay. Others good sailors soon followed. By race day I had a full crew and a great one at that. Renee was navigator and everyone else just sort of fell into place. We practiced; it went well. We were ready.
Speeding across the bay in the dingy on race day with the flags for the Race Committee Renee and I must have been a spectacle. Anyhow the pre-race excitement around the fleet was tangible as crews were being ferried to the race boats and those already aboard were busy rigging.
In this race trash talk is encouraged and the teen and pre-teen girls were already into it.
“Hey you guys over there with Jim, look out, we are going to leave you in our wake”
“You just think so, beware we have secret weapons.” Then the water ballons broke out.
But we had none of that, we were serious (in a fun sort of way) and it paid off. While the kids played around with the radio and threw water ballons we sailed with intensity . Renee called the start perfectly, Dave called trim (he was the star) and we all worked as a team. We knew the weather leg in this bay, with its persistent right shift, was similar to the pattern we knew well from Banderas Bay, and it was the key to this race. We played it exactly the same as going to Punta Mita, rounded the top mark first and led the rest of the way around. A great day for Wings.
Next stop Barra. We weren’t so lucky. The race there, the Flamingo Cup, is a very well attended charity event and we were keen for a repeat but we missed the entry deadline and were not allowed to race. Dang!
But Renee and I were invited to sail on John and Donna’s Carmanah, a great custom C&C race boat from the late 70’s with an excellent record. John wanted to work the foredeck so he turned the helm over to me. We sailed hard and finished second, missing a possible first when the spinnaker tack line failed on the final leg. Congratulations to Baja Fog.
After the race we volunteered to pick up some of the inflatable marks. Renee had to fight to get them fully deflated for the ride back to the marina.
I may have cut it a bit fine at the start however and we may have been a second early. I didn’t think so and we were not called by the RC but anyhow a competitor notified the race committee after the race. He was sure we were that we were over early, and he complained, “They should be thrown out.”
The RC asked me, “Fred, were you guys over early?.”
“Could be, it was close”
“Did you go back”
“No, we didn’t hear any radio hail or see any recall flag., so we figured we were good”
That was true, but how could we have heard? The radio was filled with a shouting race announcer and the trash talk was in full force, and there were no flags. We heard nothing so we went on, and I acknowledged that.
It was a deciding moment. We could have been disqualified. But the complaining skipper allowed us to exonerate ourselves by buying him a drink at the bar, Whew!
So that was Tenacatita and Barra this year. All that was left was the sail home to La Cruz.
Renee and I had a good sail then, all night again, with the wind on the nose (wouldn’t you know it?) and a bit more breeze than we wanted but not too bad, and the rounding of Cabo Corrientes in the morning with flat water and a nice brisk cool wind, was glorious.
The forecast was good for an afternoon thermal and when we came out of the marina we saw ripples on the bay that looked promising so we put the small jib on deck and set first the mainsail and then the jib.
The thermal never came in and the wind stayed light but we were sailing and we enjoyed a slow and pleasant sail to the west, tacking along the rocky coast in the warm sunshine. Some other boats were out and not doing much either and even with our small jib we soon put them behind us except one which we decided was Southern Cross, the Westsail 42 owned by our friend Steve. He and Janet had a huge genoa out and a full main and they were making surprisingly good time up the coast in the light air but they were sailing outside, away from the coastline. We preferred to sail inside, close to the shore, which usually gives good results against boats outside.
Each tack we made I thought would put us ahead of Southern Cross as there was a right hand shift and current too which was against them but their wind was a little stronger and they kept their distance ahead. Finally I told Judy we had to tack out and catch the breeze even though the best strategy here is normally to stay in. We’ve won a lot of races by staying in close along this coast but today it looked like going out would pay and so we tacked onto starboard and held on until we passed behind Southern Cross. When we felt the wind increase we tacked back.
Soon, however, the thermal came as forecast. It was late, but it came and we then had a nice, building, west wind. Soon it was 20knots. With our small jib and everything tight we started to climb out to weather of Southern Cross. Meanwhile with their big genoa they were soon over powered. As we made distance to weather on them we also benefitted from the right hand shift which occurs along this shore.
Southern Cross was far to leeward when we finally tacked into the bay at Punta Mita. I think they might have beaten us if they had sailed closer inshore. Anyhow, it was a good sail for all.
Going up the coast here, from La Cruz to Punta Mita, is one of my favorite sails. We race this route several times each year, sometimes to one of the Beer Can marks which can be placed along the way, sometimes all the way to Mita and we quite often beat other boats who are sailing against us. By now we know each rocky outcrop and each cove and bay and where the wind always shifts and where the current runs. We know the best strategy for sailing it and I never tire of it, and still after five years here doing this, almost every time we learn another subtlety or little trick. It’s really fun.
Let me tell you how it works:
In this chart image I have made notes about what works best.
First of all the route is about 9 miles and the wind almost always is westerly when we first sail out of La Cruz, or Southwesterly to be more accurate. Going to Punta Mita, therefore, is a beat. There is always a choice one can make on this beat. You can sail long tacks far out into the bay or you can short tack the beach. Because the wind, which starts out southwesterly, consistently shifts to the north the farther along you go, which presents as a right shift, it pays to stay to the right. You can see our track (in yellow) on this chart. I’ve put the starboard tack headings on each tack. You can see we start out sailing 198, then 220, then 254, and on the final starboard tack we get a huge lift from 254 up to 284. (I didn’t show the headings after point “E” because there we were taking down the sails as we approached the anchorage.) This is a 90 degree shift and occurs on any day when there is a thermal wind. If you are racing, staying to the right side is essential. Boats that go outside sail a much further distance. Even on the track we took there were places we could have saved more distance and time. Note the blue lines, one set at point “B” and the other set at point “C”. If we had tacked back in at both of those places, following the blue lines, we’d have cut significant distance off the course. The extra tack from point “C” to “D” and then to “E” would have saved nearly ½ of a mile alone. Since we were not racing that day we just took it easy and didn’t do all the tacks we could have.
How far in do we go and how soon should we tack back when going out? Mike Danielson knows this strategy too and he just likes to stay on the “shelf” which extends out to about the 70’ depth line so he tacks back when he reaches that depth. We prefer staying in closer than that. Going out we always tack back towards the shore as soon as we have a good line to clear the next rocky point. There are several of these points and they have off lying rocks lurking under water as extensions of what you can see. We tack in when we know that we can clear the next point and sail into the cove beyond it. You should stay away from the points but you can sail quite far into the bays and we often go into 20 feet of water there, which seems very close but there are no dangers. The water is clear enough and you can see the color change as you approach the shallow areas.
Also, going out puts you into the current. There is a clockwise flowing current in Banderas Bay which seems to be present regardless of the state of the tide. On this beat from La Cruz to Punta Mita you are sailing against that current. The current is less close to shore and at some places there are back eddies which actually help you go against the prevailing flow.
When we race here there are almost always some boats which try to go outside. It’s understandable because often the wind is stronger outside and when they hit that wind the boat speed goes up and they heel over and it feels really great. But when it’s time to tack back in they see that they will come in behind the boats which didn’t go out.
Finally, the best part of this wind shift is the final leg to Punta Mita when your starboard tack is one long lift which can actually carry you right up into the anchorage. You must be in close to get the most out of this lift. On the shore just west of where I have marked “56 Beer Can X” there is a square white house right on the bluff behind the beach. You must be in close at that house. Be careful to stay out of the surf line but go in close on port tack at this point and then when you go onto starboard you will have the best of all worlds: Nice lifting breeze and a flat water.
Next time we will discuss the spinnaker run back.
Enjoy.
Click here for more photos (and a repeat of the sailing strategy.
Then I ordered a new faucet which arrived in La Cruz a few days later, and we picked it up when we went down there for a couple of nights. That was a week ago. We’re still using the temporary one.
On the first race there was a moment, sudden realization, on the first part of the first beat, when I felt joy and satisfaction; when I realized we were fast. Definitely fast.
We had climbed out from underneath the Express 37 even before they were called back for being OCS and we had clear air and a lane. We had already started to put our bow out in front of the other boats and I felt it was time to make a move. The right looked to pay so I said, ‘I want to go to the right.’
Richard answered, ‘OK, we can tack when you want.’
‘I’m going…ready about.’
‘Ready.’
The crew scrambled and we tacked, and one by one the other boats followed.
The moment came after we tacked:
As we settled in on the long port tack, I got into a rhythm with the boat and the waves. I felt myself begin to rock back and forth with the motion of the boat as I worked the tiller. I glued my eyes to the tell-tales and I spoke to the crew,
‘Hike the boat.’
Twelve people moved farther out. The speedo showed 7 knots.
The water streamed past the hull and the wind was blowing through the rig, otherwise there was no sound. In the flawless blue sky the sunlight glared with a brilliance and the tell-tales on the jib danced, and the boat speed climbed to 7.47 knots. Very good.
Richard looked around.
‘We’ve got wheels on Bright Star.’ he said. The white boat was nearest and we all measured our speed against them. I took a glance. They were jogging along on our hip but I could see they were sagging down to our line and we were definitely faster. And Bright Star was faster than everyone else.
A year’s preparation had paid off. All the work and the pain, the successes along the way and the defeats, the setbacks…they were all worth it to feel the way I felt at that moment as we worked our way out in front. This was a good feeling, a very good feeling.
So Banderas Bay Regatta was underway and we were doing well.
Of course the faster boats eventually broke free but we held on and stayed close and finished close enough to win, a convincing win; minutes, not seconds.
I informed the crew. There was jubilation. Judy broke out champagne. A bit early I thought, after all it was only the first race, but it was OK. I let the crew enjoy the win.
I felt some confidence about the regatta; this was not a close race. If we could do this our prospects were good for the next two races.
Day two was tougher. Not the competition, the conditions. It blew like stink.
The course took us over to La Cruz, our old stomping ground, and the breeze was up: over 20 knots. We had the big carbon genoa on for the reach across and we stayed with it for the beat. Maybe the J-4 would have been better but the beat was short and we were ahead so I kept up the 1 not wanting to risk a change. The boat was on edge however, maybe over the edge. We were carrying too much sail. The main was flat and waving uselessly and still I needed it eased further to relieve the pressure on the helm. I called, ‘Traveler down’ and Richard pushed it down with his foot. The helm eased but the main flogged worse.
I told Richard, ‘Crank a little more runner on.’
It was already past the mark but he brought it in another inch and the main took on some shape and settled down. That was better.
The next leg was a tight, windy, reach back to Nuevo Vallarta and we set the A1 kite, like the boats ahead. The wind was too much and everyone was rounding up. The powerful sail we set began to round us up too, then it collapsed and refilled with a shocking bang. A few more times this happened then it blew with a bang louder than the rest and the boat suddenly stood up. I looked and the spinnaker was high in the sky off the side of the boat with no tack on it. That part was hanging in shreds on the bow.
‘Get the jib back up.’ It went up immediately as the blown kite was gathered in. We lost a little time, but not much.
After that we had a good run and a clean finish. We checked the times: it was closer, it had to be, but we had another win and we drank champagne again. We knew we were in good shape to win the regatta, we just had to hang in there.
The third race was more of the same. Lots of sun and wind. This time we only got a fair start, behind Bright Star but still ahead of the others, and good enough. We got clear of Bright Star who went left but as we felt the wind would go right we tacked and it paid off and we rounded the top mark first for the third time in a row.
The A1 had been hurriedly repaired overnight and we put it up. It blew again almost immediately.
Now we felt it was time to be conservative. With two wins we could ease off a bit. We had another kite but we held off and didn’t use it. We watched to see if Bright Star would make a move from behind but they didn’t threaten.
On the final run the Class A boats ahead had troubles with their spinnakers and we held off on ours. Maybe we were gun shy; maybe we just knew it didn’t matter.
This time Sirocco was ahead by enough time to beat us, though by only six seconds, but enough. So we were at least second. We watched Bright Star and all the others come in behind us, watching our clocks. We had our time on all of them so we had second place and that was enough to win the regatta.
It was a happy crew on board Wings as we sailed back to our marina.
So that was it. The race was in the bag. We’d won. We worked hard for this win, a year hard. There was money spent, plenty of it, and some long hours in boat prep, and, to be honest, maybe some hard feelings done, particularly about the ratings and class breaks on which I’d had more than a few blunt words with the race organizers and our competitors. And in crew selection. I’d made some changes, brought in some new people, changed some roles. But it all worked. And in the end, I have to say, it was worth it. Just that feeling on the first beat when I realized how fast we were made it all worth it.
I don’t know about next year, maybe we’ll never achieve this level again. I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, but this year, we did it.
Great Crew:
Paul Bailey and Carol Dabub, fordeck, steady, competent, always ready.
Kelly Mantis, Mast man, a tower of strength.
Carol (Bling) Dand and Robin Hirsh, Halyards, and all those ropes in the pit all got let in and out as they were needed. Great job.
Rod Dand, Dennis Mazzie, and Jimmy Roser, sail trim and grinding. These guys were awesome, grinding in the huge carbon genoa over and over and they managed the spinnakers and the lines like pros. Jimmy did his job and somehow managed to be instantly on top of every problem in time to keep it from being a problem.
Richard Hodge, Main and tactics, and runners and hydraulics, quiet and solid and called the start and every layline.
John Ryan, Navigator, coped with an extraordinarily difficult tactical computer and managed to keep it all together, called the lines, timed the starts, knew the rules and this year we never went to a wrong mark. Thanks John.
Judy and Lynne Britton, Runners, but more than that, watched the whole boat like a pair of hawks and prevented countless errors. Lynne joined Robin and repacked the kites.
A special word to John Ryan for tireless fight with the navigation computer, for his contribution, the MVP award.
And to Jimmy, for being everywhere when we needed him.
Most of all Judy, our foundation, our watchdog, our mom.
I love all of you.
On Sunday we set sail on our 2017 cruise, two weeks to the day after we finished racing.
That was two weeks of shifting sails and loading the dingy, anchors, life raft, installing cruising equipment and doing provisioning. I thought we could get ready faster than that but the time flew by. As it was, in our haste to get away, we neglected some preparations and would have to make them up underway or when anchored somewhere south. Those included checking the water maker and the batteries, and both were to later give us problems, but we were in a hurry.
We departed fully loaded, ready for three months away from La Cruz, at 11:00 with the first hint of the afternoon thermal and the breeze built and we crossed Banderas Bay close hauled on starboard tack under a glorious blue sky. It was a good start to the trip and we and made excellent time, rounding Cabo Corientes in the afternoon.
And it got better.
By nightfall the wind filled from the north and by 9:00 PM we had a 20 knots behind us and it was pure sailing joy, sliding down swell after swell with the water rushing by the side of the boat and the white caps barely visible in the darkness as we swept them behind. The Southern Cross appeared in the sky ahead of us and that warmed our hearts as we thought of the passages we’d made in the southern oceans when that constellation was our constant companion. We clicked off the miles hitting high 7’s and low 8’s, and seeing occasional 9’s; the sails were filled and the sheets taut and untouched as the wind vane steered us arrow straight. It was joyous and very easy sailing. We had nothing to do on our watches but peer at speedometer and contemplate the fine life of a sailor.
On Monday we sailed into Tenacatita Bay on Mexico’s Gold Coast. It was a landfall which we last made in 1998 and it was then and still is stunningly gorgeous. But after 19 years things looked slightly different than what we held in our memories. We looked for familiar landmarks and saw only a few. Then we rounded Punta Hermanos and Punta Chubasco and arrived in the Bahia Tenacatita anchorage and it looked just like we remembered it. We jibed around Roca Centro and dropped the jib then glided under main alone to a quiet spot to drop the anchor. When Wings settled to the hook in Tenacatita it all came back and it seemed like we were just here last year.
This year the racing ended Saturday with the Banderas Bay Regatta. Banderas Bay Regatta is the big race of the year. It is intense with more competitors, more boats on the start line, and more PR. Several teams added professional sailors to their crews.
Maybe we were ready for the season to be over. After three months of weekly, sometime daily racing and many days of special preparation for this event, maybe we were a little burned out. We sailed hard for those final three days and we partied hard every night culminating with the big party Saturday night. We had fun but we didn’t do very well. After winning almost everything during the season we ended up only 5th in the Banderas Bay Regatta.
It was great sailing, glorious conditions, but we made mistakes. They say that in sailboat racing he who makes the least mistakes wins. So that explains it. We had problems every day. We made mistakes, so we didn’t deserve to win. Still, that’s racing. It gives us something to shoot for next year.
On day one, after a fantastic start and leading around the first mark, we headed off in the wrong direction to the second mark. We went .3 miles out of our way and that cost us 160 seconds (navigation error). Then on the last mark rounding we had a problem with the luff of our jib and could not set it for the short beat to the finish which cost us another 40 seconds (equipment failure). There were no miracles with wind shifts that we could play to get it back. We lost the race by less than 200 seconds, so our mistakes and problems took us from first to fourth.
On day two we had a less than stellar start and got caught in a situation with Olas Lindas which caused us both to go slow, probably lost a minute there. Next we had a bad spinnaker set and while that sail was flogging the sheets shook off and it took two attempts to reattach them. I’d guess that cost us 1:30 minutes, so again we had over two minutes to make up. The race was basically a parade and we had no chances to regain the lost time. Instead of second we corrected out to 4th place.
On day three we had another sloppy start, behind Bright Star and we couldn’t get our air clear until after the weather mark, and then it was a parade. We wound up 5th.
Yes, we can gripe about the courses which didn’t favor our boat, but the bottom line was, we screwed up and so we ended up in 5th place in the regatta, and we deserved that.
But the sailing was glorious; beautiful blue sky, flat water, and nice breezes. We worked well as a team and we’ll be back next year. Other than my bad starts, for which I have no good solution, I have fixes in mind for all the other issues. I’m working on them already.
Meanwhile, Sunday morning we were well into the switch-over from race boat to cruising boat. The racing sails come off and after multiple trips to the storage locker the dacron sails on, solar panels, wind vane, dodger, awning, dingy, outboard motor, spare parts. Not a moment to be lost. Maybe once we get everything ready and untie the dock lines we’ll be able to relax. Right now we’re still running hard. It’s what we’ve been doing since December. It must be habit.
February is the middle of winter in Puerto Vallarta. The picture above even looks cold but actually the weather is great in February; we get cool nights and warm days. Rain is rare this time of year and fog is rarer still. Mostly the days are great.
During January we were racing at least twice a week, but in February it slows to once a week and that leaves time for other activities. One of those activities is whale watching. This year, after some reduction in recent years, the whales are back in numbers. Maybe it is the cold water; this year the bay is cooler than it has been. Everybody is seeing whales. We’ve taken friends out a few times to watch them, but whale watching is tricky; when you are trying to find whales they seem to keep their distance. On two trips we only got brief sightings; that was enough to call the day a success but not enough to give us the spectacular photo ops we were looking for. So we had nice days on the water with good friends but they were not much for whale watching.
On the other hand when we go out for a race the whales seem to frolic around us.
Mike Danielson organized a “Shake it Out” day on the water where anybody could go out sailing and Mike would give them trimming and tuning tips from his Cal 20. I had to pick up Phyllis at the airport so we didn’t take Wings, but Judy went aboard Nakamal. That day the whales put on a display that none of the “Shake it Out” participants will soon forget. The whales were everywhere and they were close.
There were plenty of back and tail displays but also several breaches, one just yards away from Nakamal. Moments later a whale surfaced just feet from away. Judy, from her perch on the stern of Nakamal, thought she could have touched the whale. Elinore was steering and was a bit nervous about these large creatures swimming right alongside her boat but they didn’t really cause anyone much alarm and Judy was just totally excited. They were all still talking about it when the boats got back to the dock.
Of course the crews were busy sailing their boats and nobody had a camera ready. Can you believe it, no photos!
I watched from the beach and I had my camera and a long lens but I was looking the other way and missed the best shots, and besides the distance was too great.
We have also had some cloudy days and some with stronger winds. Three times during the Wednesday Night Beer Can races we’ve been tested by bigger winds than are usual in Banderas Bay. We’ve had 25 knots across the deck which is perfect Wings sailing weather but it gives the crew some new challenges. One of those challenges is spinnaker work. We’re pretty good in the normal 10-15 knots we get on most days but I can tell you that when we were beating to weather with the boat heeled over, in bigger waves, and with the spray flying, the forward hands were nervous as they rigged the 1.5 oz. kite. I could see some anxiety in their eyes. Nobody would have complained if I had decided against the set. But we needed to get some more practice in these breezes and when we turned down wind I immediately called for the hoist. I won’t say it all went completely smoothly the first time but we got through it, and now, as Paul, the bowman put it, “We’ve looked death in the eye and we survived.” Well that may be a bit dramatic but jibing a full size symmetrical spinnaker in 25 knots of wind is a bit scary. And the next time we were better.
Now I know, we all know, that we can do it, and if we get heavy air in the next races we’ll be better prepared and confident.
Some of our competitors have been skipping these Weds races. But we treat these races as practices and these practices may help us in the future, and that’s the idea behind practicing, isn’t it?
We’re feeling good about the remaining races of the season, which is over in early March.
So February passes along, we are sailing a lot, our lives are full and everything is pretty good.
We hope you are enjoying the snow where you are, we haven’t seen any.
We were over early at the start and had to go back. That cost us two minutes and every other boat got away clean and they were gone. So much for a safe race, I thought.
We restarted and settled in on what seemed like it would be a slow slog back through the fleet.
Judy spotted the shift first. “The wind is now, 190” she said. She’d felt the lift and she looked at the numbers. It had been 228, now it was 190, a huge shift to the left; unexpected. It was only momentary but it was a harbinger of things to come. It swung right back to 220, but then returned to 208 and stayed.
“Then I’m staying to the left of the fleet”, I spoke to nobody in particular, “we need to protect the left side.” I looked over my shoulder to the right to see if anyone was coming our way. They weren’t.
When we tacked back to port the whole fleet was down to leeward. We were lifted up over everyone.
I felt some returning hope. After being over early at the start and losing that 2 minutes to every other boat this is what we needed to get back in the game.
As we went further up the beat I saw that Olas Lindas was still ahead but closer, and Bright Star was also nearby but the others were behind, well behind. I watched Bright Star as they came in on starboard and I saw we probably would cross them. We’ll be second to round I thought, that is great. Beautiful come back.
Olas rounded ahead of us by 2:35, still leading by a safe margin, and Bright Star was right behind us and they dogged us all the way through the jibe and down to the leeward mark. When we got there Olas was still only 2:30 ahead, so they hadn’t gained. Good. We needed a clean rounding inside of Bright Star, who was still right on our tail, and got it. We dumped bad air on them and they tacked away to the left, which was fortunate for us, it turned out.
Again Judy saw the shift. At the top mark the wind showed a big oscillation the other way. It touched 250 degrees. She mentioned it. That shift was more expected; it was what we thought would would happen as the afternoon went on. It would be permanent, and persistent.
“So this time we protect the right” and after re rounded the bottom mark we stayed on port until Olas Lindas and everyone else behind us tacked, and a little longer.
We sailed into the knock and when we tacked to starboard we were again lifted and everyone else was again to leeward of us, only on the opposite side. Sweet.
We were now into the race over an hour and the wind was building. It got to 17 true, or more, on that second beat. We had 24 knots over the deck and we plunged into the waves. The forward hands were doused as they hooked up the spinnaker. I wished I’d called for the heavy kite but there was no time now, just a few minutes to the mark. I prayed that the ¾ oz kite would take it.
“OK folks,” I called out, “we’ll go deep as soon as we round and we need to jibe ASAP, so get the jib down and prepare for the jibe.” I knew Olas Lindas would be reaching off to the right and I wanted to cut the corner on them.
“2:30” called Dick as he timed Olas’ lead. Oh, that’s great, I thought, we have a chance in this race.“They will owe us about 5 minutes at the finish, we can win this.”
The set went well and the jibe did too until the pole seemed to fail: Paul couldn’t get the jaws to work. Shit. Strong winds and the pole wasn’t on. The boat was rolling and the spinnaker was swinging around uncontrolled and everyone’s eyes were on Paul standing at the bow struggling with the afterguy. But he somehow got the pole to work and the guy in and the jibe was completed. I looked at Olas Lindas, they were barely ahead of us.
Now just hang on to the finish I kept thinking.
That last leg seemed to take forever as I watched Olas’s transom and tried to guess how much time separated us from them.
They finished and we came through 1:48 behind. No one else was close. We surely had the race and that meant we had the whole regatta. Fantastic!
So the Vallarta Cup was over and we had it. Four races, 58 miles total. We had three first places and a second place. But the racing was closer than it sounds. We traded the lead back and forth with Olas Lindas and at the end of the regatta our total corrected time difference with them, over all four races, was just one minute and seven seconds after eleven hours of racing. That is .17%. Less than a quarter of one percent of the total time.
Now we have a breather, just some Wednesday races, before Banderas Bay Regatta in late February.
Sometimes I leave a story up on this blog even when I have a new one ready to post just because I like looking at the lead photo in the old one. The last story, about the new generation of sails, is one of those. When I connect to the internet that photo of the new mainsail pops up on my home screen and I love looking at it.
But we've now got a back-log of stories so it's time to move on.
Last week we finished one of the nastier jobs which are periodically required to be done on this boat: painting the interior. I hate that job, it has to be done about every eight years, and we just finished it for about the fourth time since we've had this boat. Well, we painted the main cabin. The forward cabin, head, and aft cabin were left to later, but the main cabin is what we see, and what visitors see, and it had gradually gotten really dingy. The white was almost yellow. The overhead was downright ugly.
So we ripped into it in late July. We started with sanding and filling, then cleaning and masking, finally, in a big push, we rolled on new paint everywhere in the main cabin in one frantic day. We moved off the boat that night and again the next night during which the paint fumes were intolerable, and while we touched up and put on a second coat in some areas that needed it.
So it's done now. It's not the best we could have done at it; we could have sanded more and used more of a premium paint, but that version of this project would have doubled or tripled the duration and the cost. Life is a series of compromises. We did the 80/20 job. That's OK. The boat looks very good now, and the last time we did the premium job it didn't last any longer anyhow.
Even though I don't have the photo of the beautiful new mainsail at the top of my blog to see every day, when I lie back on my settee I can look at a bright, clean, overhead and that's nice too.
I had a good crossing from Victoria to Port Angeles that morning in 1985 sailing my Mega 30, Song of the Siren. At first it was a beam reach in a gentle northerly with the spinnaker up, riding the swell, and then a nice beat up inside the spit with salt spray in my face as the westerly filled, but now, as I folded my sails at the transit dock, the afternoon grew more blustery and I was glad to be in the harbor. Port Angeles can be a bit raw when the wind blows in off the strait. The smoke streams horizontally from the stacks of the pulp mills, the sea gulls wheel, the air smells of salt and fish and fresh cut fir logs, and the gusts of cold pacific wind blow directly into Yacht Haven. Sailors out in the Straits are happy to find shelter in places like Port Angeles but those seeking shelter there have one last test: landing in that small and gusty harbor.
I saw the first wind-blown boat coming in, a thirty something sloop with two sailors in foulies, salt tangles in their hair, flushed from the wind and then as they turned toward the long pier the wind caught their boat. I saw a crash on the way unless I did something and I ran to catch a line and got it on a cleat which snubbed their bow and they swung in alongside, safe.
The next one was close behind and this time there was some shouting on board as the skipper, just at the worst time, saw that his control was gone. Again I caught a bow line and another man hurried over to get the stern line and we got them safe alongside as well. There were more boats blown in from the Straits that afternoon, large and small, but the scene was always the same: the landings at Yacht Haven were near disasters but that guy and I worked all afternoon and into the evening without saying much to each other and we made the day turn out a lot better for quite a few boaters.
In the midst of all of this activity of rescuing boats I saw a sight which intrigued me: in this rather rough harbor, on a definitely wild day, there appeared on the docks a rather glamorous, and tall, young woman, dressed to the nines, who came down the pier, slipped off her high heels, and boarded one of the boats in the back of the marina. “Wow”, I thought. As she disappeared down the hatch I turned back to the business at hand with quite an image in my mind.
We caught a few more boats, that guy and I, and we enjoyed it, but the day was getting long and the harbor was filling up.
Finally things quieted down and I was standing there next to him and I stuck out my hand, “I’m Fred”.
He had a friendly smile, “I’m Jim.”
I guess Jim knew who belonged there and who didn’t. He asked, “You come in on a boat?”
“Yeah, that blue sloop down there. I guess I was lucky enough to get in without your help earlier.”
He laughed and he invited me to his boat for a drink, motioning towards a Choy Lee cutter in one of the permanent slips, the same boat I’d noticed that well dressed blonde woman boarding earlier.
I didn’t hesitate. “Sounds good.”
That blonde was Judy and striking up a friendship with Jim Jones, while working the docks of Yacht Haven Marina in Port Angeles, was how I came to meet her that night on board that Choy Lee sailboat.
Judy had come straight from the office to help Jim and his wife Jean plan a summer cruise and she might have been in a business suit then but she was a sailor and pretty comfortable in jeans and boat shoes too. We hit it off right at the start and we talked boats and racing for a few hours and then she accepted my invitation to see my boat. I told her that, by most accounts, it was an ugly boat, which she found incomprehensible, so maybe there was some curiosity on her part, but after seeing it she said she liked it. By that time I think I was already hooked.
She asked me if I liked Hurricane Ridge and I told her I’d never been there. She said we could drive up there the next day but I said I was leaving in the morning. She gave me her number and said if I stayed another day, I should call her.
I stayed and called Judy the next day and she drove us up to Hurricane Ridge and while we walked on the trails and enjoyed the view we talked about our dreams and aspirations. She said she wanted to own her own boat some day. I didn’t know any other women who said they wanted that. We had quite a few dreams in common too, including the dream of living on a boat and going cruising. She also told me she was moving to Seattle soon and I know we were both thinking that we might see more of each other then.
I did sail away from Port Angeles the day after that, but I came back before my trip was over and I saw her again and we made plans to see each other when she came to Seattle, which we did.
In 1993 I bought a sewing machine. I fixed Judy's shorts and then I made a mainsail. My sailor friends, looking up at that main, said, "That took some balls", but it worked.
Then I made a dodger. That was a bit harder. Professionally built dodgers were running three thousand dollars back then. The good canvas people get paid well for their skills. The dodger I made cost me about $200 in materials and four days of work and it wasn't pretty. However it did the job.
The sewing machine is now over twenty years old but it still works and I'm still making dodgers; I just finished the forth one for Wings. Also we have a lot of the supplies which I bought with the machine. Supplies like thread and tapes and spare bits of sailcloth and especially canvas snaps and fasteners. I've done a lot of projects over the years besides those dodgers and it's amazing that the cache has lasted this long. And the cost to make a dodger is still under $200.
But, even after twenty some years to practice, I'm still making dodgers for Wings which aren't pretty. I guess they work. I have to say, though, I am disappointed in the latest dodger. Geez, I thought I'd get it right sooner or later. But this fourth one isn't much better than the first one. A sail maker once told me that if we screw up on a sail or a piece of canvas we'll have to look at it for years. How true.
Maybe there is an convergence happening here. As years go by I learn more about what needs to be done so the graph of that knowledge slopes upward. At the same time I get older and my capabilities decline. Where the declining line crosses the upward line is where things start getting worse. Maybe that has already happened.
Well, I finished the dodger and we'll use it and it will be fine. I hope I never have to make another one, but I could if I had to. It would remain to be seen if it would actually be better.
There was one nice little miracle which occurred during this project. Right in the middle of it the sewing machine broke. Not a little failure, a total failure; the rotary hook assembly broke. We weren't doing another stitch. I started to think about how to get another rotary hook assembly down here from Sailrite. Wouldn't be fast, that's for sure, and there would be expense out of proportion to the size of this little, but critical, part.
Then a light bulb went off somewhere in the dark folds: I remembered a bag of parts which I've been hoarding for twenty years. What's the chance of one of these assemblies being in that bag?
I dug it out and held the plastic up to the light. Nope. None of the parts inside were anything close to a rotary hook assembly. Then I saw a little white cardboard box sealed with packing tape. Bingo!
So I had one and in a few minutes I'd replaced the broken one and was back in business.
That made my day. It even made up for the somewhat crummy finished product I rolled out two days later.
La Cruz is a popular departure point for the "Puddle Jump", the Pacific Crossing, and there has been a bit of radio chatter lately from boats announcing their departure and from well wishers giving one last wave goodbye over the radio. The community of boats here preparing to cross the Pacific is small and many of the crews have drawn close. Now they must set out alone, or watch their friends do the same.
Other boats are heading north, to La Paz and Mazatlan, and others, a few, are heading south to the Panama Canal. The marina is clearing out. Every day people are waving goodbye.
Some of these partings are sad and all are filled with emotion, as ship's departures always have been; you can hear it in the voices on the radio and see it in the last hugs on the dock.
I would be lying if I said that I am not yearning to join them. There is excitement in joining the others, in setting out across the unknown. For this year's puddle jump crowd it is the culmination of all their dreams and preparations and they have the anticipation and, I am sure, the fears, that come with this undertaking. For those setting out this year I have a warm feeling and I wish them well.
I know this trip will be a major life event for them.
As it was for us in 1998.
But this year Wings sits still in her berth.
My yearning to join them doesn't last long. We had a good crossing back in 1998 and many adventures and breathtaking landfalls in the Pacific that year. We remember them all fondly. But I know the reality of a Pacific passage and a Pacific cruise; it is a long haul and a lot of work. Of course you have to do it once, and it was wonderful when we did it all those years ago, but once is enough and we have no real desire to sail across that ocean again.
We are happy to remain behind, but still... a little sad.
We made it out of the slip and there was some extra vibration but when we tried to motor up the coast to find some breeze everything got smooth and the boat just wouldn't go.
Like the wheels were slipping on ice.
I dove in and looked for the ice. No ice but also no propeller.
It seems that the propeller blades took off on their own. They left without us.
Well it was race day and who needs a propeller in a sailboat race so we went sailing without it and won the race.
Then we sailed all the way into the slip which got the marina all a twitter (sorry, not really, but they sure noticed it when we sailed in.)
Our other propeller went to the shop the next morning for some quick refurbishment and a few days later we hauled out to put it on. (Ray and his brother towed us there with his dingy, Barry helped me install it.)
Now we're all better except we have no spare propeller and this one, like the one which just broke, is about 27 years old. Guess we should buy another new prop.
Antigua Sailing Week is over. We had some good sailing, our crew was wonderful, but a couple of disasters occurred which put us last in our class, plus my sister was here and, while ashore, got hurt.
Last in class? How did that happen? First of all our sails self-destructed. These kevlar sails, which worked so well for us in Thailand, and have hardly been used since we won King’s Cup with them, started coming apart on seams. We’d be sailing along and, without warning, the sails simply spit apart. The jib broke at the top and the main broke twice, once at the top and once in the lower middle. This is obviously a defect in the sail construction. The seams where they split are glued seams, not sewed. Well, they are sewed now. We did one repair on the boat and on the day off we took them to North Sails and had all the seams sewed with big reinforcement patches. After that they held, but the damage to our race score was already done.
We also tore the #4, our Dacron working jib and that is serious because it means the cloth is getting old. We may need to replace this sail soon.
The other problem is that we were slow. Even when the sails held together we could hardly get out of our own way. I accept responsibility for this. Gambling on the weather I had the boat rated for non-overlapping sails. So, for the whole regatta, we couldn’t use the genoa. But the wind went light and with just the #3 jib we were desperately short on power. This affected our starts and the beats. Downwind we were fast. Of course on the days when the wind blew we were fast enough all the way around the course, but then we had the sail problems.
So we finished the races in the bottom third, and with the retirements, ended up in last place.
Analyzing the results data I found that if we’d have had only 1/3 of a knot of more speed we’d have been very competitive. The genoa would have delivered that so going without it was a major mistake. Of course if the wind had come in as forecast, 13-18 knots, we’d have been fine and would have enjoyed a very low rating. You make the call and take the chances. This time I lost.
It does leave me feeling like I have unfinished business. I’d really like another shot at this regatta but that is probably not in the cards. This time next year we’ll be in Cartagena, Columbia and are not likely to make the trek back here to Antigua. Oh well, maybe there will be other races in other places.
Not to make this report even bleaker, there were personnel injuries. Not among the racing crew, but among the shore crew. My sister Jan and her husband Howard were here for a holiday and to act as shore crew for us. On the night before the regatta Jan fell while dancing at one of the parties and shattered her shoulder. She has been undergoing medical treatment here in Antigua and trying, unsuccessfully, to get earlier flights home to get it looked at by her doctor in California. This was really a disaster for Jan and Howard and basically ruined Sailing Week for them. We are very sympathetic but there was nothing we could do, but being there for her as much as we could, and going through it with her and Howard, brought us closer together.
And Sue, from the yacht Piano, who took over line handling ashore for us, as well as making our lunches every day, fell boarding her dingy and sprained, or broke, her wrist, so she too became one of the walking wounded.
Yes, by all means. Our crew crew was superb. The whole week they remained positive and performed brilliantly. Whatever I, as captain, asked for, they delivered. And we had fun every day, even the days when we broke down. And there was some great sailing with blue waters, sunny skies, and pleasant, if light, winds (dang!). Though I didn’t get enough of it, I had some real duels with other boats on some occasions, and that was great.
The camaraderie of our group, including Jan and Howard and Sue, was terrific. So our 2013 Antigua Sailing Week crew have joined the Wings’ family and will remain always in our hearts.
We went into the marina on Monday to unload some gear for racing, mostly heavy stuff, and get measured, and before the day was over there was about 1500lbs of sails, spare parts, books, etc, sitting on the dock. Later a truck came and hauled it away, to where I’m not sure, but I am confident we’ll get it back when we want it after Sailing Week is over. There is more to go, we'll drop another 500-600 lbs before race day, but we need some things between now and then, like the chain rode and the solar panels.
This is the fifth time since we left Seattle that we’ve unloaded the boat; three times for regattas, twice for refit periods. It’s a lot of work, and taking it off is only half of it; we still have to put it back on. A local boat worker named Elroy came over and did all the heavy lifting for me. I’ll need him to come back when we put this stuff back on in May. I don’t know how much good this weight removal will do for the racing, it should help, but at least it is a psychological advantage for the crew. They know we are doing everything possible to win. However, from inside the boat it doesn’t look much different. The measurer still gave us credit for having a “medium weight” fit out.
That was Tony Maidment, the local CSA measurer. He spent about two hours with a tape measure and a clip board. Later it all goes into a computer. It will be the 4th measurement rating we will have received since we've owned Wings: IOR, IMS, IRC, and now CSA, not to mention PRHF and a few dozen made up TCF ratings we've had here and there. I watched him like a hawk and questioned everything I dared, but he seemed implacable; the boat will get the rating it deserves despite my pleading that we are just an old IOR liveaboard. “Yeah”, he said, “but you still have kevlar sails, a tiller, eight-foot draft, three spreader mast, and running backstays.”
He wasn’t fooled by the photos of grandchildren on the walls.
While we were here we had Elroy clean the stainless and wax the boat.
I fell in love with this place the first time I saw it, coming in through the Boca on that morning in May with the soaring birds overhead and a new country on our horizon; there it was off to the left, a small bay, surrounded by mountains and green trees and shimmering blue waters and a few anchored sailboats, passing by us without fanfare, not mentioned in the guide books. But it captured me; it looked stunning on that morning back then on our arrival to Trinidad, and it still does.
So we came again to Scotland Bay now, in October, when the moon is full and the season beginning to turn and we dropped the hook and it is a magical place with mountains on three sides, four if you count the dog leg on the way in, and no houses, just birds circling and fishes surfacing with a gentle swish. It is Nature.
There are three or four boats sharing Scotland Bay with us, a German boat way back at the head of the bay, keeping to themselves, and a Santa Cruise 70 called Hotel California, anchored near us; the captain, Steve, is painting the deck. Off the point an Alajuela from Portland is swinging quietly and in the mouth there is a converted minesweeper with a Dutch family aboard.
I think for a moment that this crowd here is not your normal Caribbean anchorage crowd but maybe it is: international, varied, everyone here for their own reasons, intentionally away from the normal Caribbean social scene. Maybe those of us who cherish and seek quiet places like Scotland Bay are as much a part of the scene as the crowds in places like Chaguaramas and Prickly Bay.
Scotland Bay itself is a good anchorage, almost bullet proof, or so it seems today in a Northerly. Maybe in a hurricane wind from the south it would be untenable, I don’t know but now however, while the trade winds are blowing, it seems perfect.
We came for the clean water, to commission the water maker, and to get some peace and quiet after the hustle and bustle of Chag Bay.
Tonight we sat outside after dinner and listened to music on the outside speakers and watched the moon come up over the mountains to the east of us, Harrison Mountain the chart says.
Then came on a song from the past, from our hearts, clear and pure; Pokarekare Ana by Hayley Westerna, the Mauri song from New Zealand, and we cried. It surprised us and hit our emotions. The song matches Scotland Bay.
Life is just too good.
Fred & Judy, SV Wings, Trinidad
Click here for more photos of Judy and of Wings in Scotland Bay.
Click here for other recent photos from Chaguaramas Bay.
Here is Hayley's song:
Click here to read another story about a magical place: Tanjung Ruh
I am on deck and I stand with my back to the trade wind with my arms outstretched.
Over head is a full moon that lights our boat and the sea around us and its brilliance makes the stars harder to pick out, but still I can see the Southern Cross to my left and the Big Dipper to my right.
Plus a million more, there are no clouds.
Our sails are spread wide, like my arms. We have twenty knots blowing from directly behind pressing us forward.
We are flying.
Our speeds are sevens and eights, but below deck the GPS tells a better story; we are making tens or higher, a hundred and ninety five miles a day and more.
There is a current helping us.
But it is silent flying. There is almost no sound on this night, only the low thrush of the bow wave sounding like a mountain stream. There is very little motion other than the gentle lifting of the stern as the swell passes beneath us then an easy slide down the front of the next. Down below it feels like we are stopped. The soft trade wind flows down through the cabin where it caresses the off-watch like a lover's breath.
It is a magic night as we seem to be suspended over the sea and under the sky while they are both streaming silently past.
Two days later there is magic of another kind.
We had a day of rain with no wind. We motored, waiting all day for the wind to arrive so we could set sail. When it did, this time it came from the NE. Now, we're sailing, again with hardly a movement, just gliding along, close hauled, wind vane steering, jib pulling, under a bright moon. It is glorious. I hang my foot on the railing and watch the water flow past my toes.
I watch the wind speed; to see if it holds or drops off and we have to put the motor on again. First I see wind speeds in the lower sevens and then a six. They are dropping.
But the numbers are like the breathing of an animal, they are increasing, then decreasing, then increasing again.
A rhythm is developing. I see some low sixes, but a few sevens still.
Will it go down into the fives or up to the eights?
I see five one time, but I feel strangely confident. I think this will turn out to be a good night for sailing.
I see eight and the waves glide by, and I have no doubt, the trend is up.
Soon eights are steady. Later, a nine appears; it is magic.
If it wasn’t for the bare-chested brown skinned man on the back of the beached catamaran emphatically waving us on with grand sweeps of the arm we wouldn’t have come here; we would have turned back like we did the night before when the water depth reached nine feet. That was low tide. This morning, at high tide, with 15 feet more water, we got half a mile further, and now it was less than nine feet again.
And why we let him persuade us I’m not sure; we were about to run aground, it was close to the absolute top of the highest tide for two weeks, and we had no idea where the channel was. A hard grounding would have been a disaster, but he persuaded us and we didn’t even know him. Some kind of Lorelie I guess.
Are we fools?
Maybe, but it had become an act of faith. Two other people, knowledgeable people, said we could go into the marina at Sao Luis. They said we would be in the mud and have to dig our way in with the keel, but we could do it. They said that at low tide we would be sitting in mud up to our keel. And they said it would be nice. I wouldn’t be kidding if I said we were totally skeptical. But we could see the marina just ahead. It it didn’t look like much, but Sao Luis was supposed to be a nice town and the alternative, to leave Sao Luis and head north wasn’t at all attractive either.
Then this guy urged us on. He really urged us on.
Yeah, we must be fools.
We went. We literally ploughed ahead.
And thirty minutes later we were tied along side another deep keel cruising yacht at what must be the funkiest little marina in the world: Marina Aven, Sao Luis, Brazil
And to top it off, for six hours out of every twelve, we are totally beached. This marina is subject to 15 foot tides and the water is only eight feet at high tide. So at low tide we are seven feet higher than sea level. And, because of these tides, we can only leave at 9:00 tomorrow, plus or minus one hour, or we stay here for two weeks.
However, the town is nice, the people here are really friendly, we already got water, food, fixed the mainsail, equalized our batteries (again), had dinner out, and today we’ll get diesel and do a tour of the town, maybe have a long lunch in the historic central district. It will be a quick visit, due, again, to those tides, but worth it we think. We wouldn’t have missed this for anything.
And tomorrow we’ll be ready to head north; at 09:00, plus or minus about an hour.
And, here, other than getting these astonishing photos, is the best part: We have a tip about another interesting place that nobody goes, and which requires another act of faith, but will be really worth it.
I don’t know when the troubles with the main halyard started, when the friction began to get bad, probably on the first Indian Ocean leg when we were crossing from Sumatra to Mauritius, but I do know we were aware of the problem before leaving Mauritius. A few times in Mauritius the sail was tough to put up or down but not impossible. I guessed the problem was in the sheave at the top and in the track itself. Maybe we could have repaired it in Mauritius but I knew the repair would require the mast to come out and I thought that this was impractical in Mauritius. I thought we could manage it until Africa. So we took the risk and left it as it was. It got worse on the next leg, from Mauritius to South Africa, but it never failed completely.
Despite my belief, or hope, that it would be OK every time on that passage that we put up the main, reefed, or took it down I half expected it to jam and become unmovable which I knew would be a disaster. I was in dread of that and it always was a tremendous relief when the sail actually moved when we needed it to; if it was not smooth at least it moved. Because of that very great worry we were very careful never to raise or lower the sail when there was a heavy load on it, going to extraordinary measures like coming all the way up into the wind while reefing or unreefing just to get the main to luff and relieve the pressure on the track and halyard.
The strategy worked and we had no major problems but I silently breathed a big “whew” when the main finally came tumbling down for the last time after we charged into Richard’s Bay on that stormy night in April. Once the sail was on deck at the end of that passage I knew it wouldn’t go up again until I’d had a chance to fix it.
Now we’ve started that project: The mast came out today; we hired a crane and, with just George and Ellen to help us, did it ourselves. That which was a bit nerve wracking because we haven’t pulled the mast ourselves before, but now it is sitting on the lawn at Zululand Yacht Club. It will go back in when we have replaced the main halyard sheave, repaired the mast track, fixed a couple of other items, checked everything else and painted it. It is another big project for us.
I am a sailor, born of a nautical tradition passed to me by my father and my Grandfather Alfred. I’ve spent most of life on my passion which is the sea and the vessels which go upon them. I have had many such vessels and now I live on and sail on the sloop WINGS.
which I acquired in 1986 with my wife Judy
who shared my passion. For ten years we lived on Wings in Seattle and sailed, including racing. Then we left the Pacific Northwest and voyaged across the world, across the seven seas, to faraway places, and made them our own.
For thirty-eight years I have lived and loved this life. I still live on Wings, in Mexico, and sail and race often. Judy passed away in June, 2023 and I miss her but you can still join us and sail the seas as we did for all those glorious years. Fred Roswold, SV Wings, Mexico
Instruments tell the story
Frankly, we’ve overstood and that’s on me. We should have jibed two hours ago. 
Here come the race flags
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Fred Steers
Ready to Tack
Renee fights with the mark
Cruising main, reefed, and a small jib.
We're home
Fred Sailing
Sailing fast to Punta Mita
Sailing Strategy
Temporary Faucet
Happy Owners
Clear Ahead
Still Life in Tenacatita
Circling Before the Start
Going to Weather
Crew Work
Winter Fog
Wow, That was Close!
Practicing Alone with the Heavy Kite
Approaching the Jibe Mark
Masked and Ready
Port Side
Wings Sailing in Seattle
Fred & Judy
Working on a new dodger
Marina Scene at Sunrise
Wings at the Dock
Ready to Haul Us Out
New Prop
Wings Flying
Marco and Andrew look at Damaged Sails
Superb Crew, never got discouraged!
Great Sailing, at times
Looking good
1500 lbs
New Shirt Graphics
Wings in Scotland Bay, Trinidad
Judy relaxes
Magic Nights
Marina Aven at Sao Luis, Brazil
Oops!
What is missing from this Photo?
Working Under The Coconut Palms.jpg)
