Record high + snow

Victoria airport hit a record high for November 27 of 17ºC on Thursday.

That was also the highest temperature in Canada for the day.

And then, on Saturday the 29th, this:

(No, that's not ice on the surface of the water; just ripples.)

Good to see the boom tent is working!

New boards

First off, here's our weather this afternoon. It was cloudy and rainy but calm earlier, now Oak Bay looks like this:

Yesterday I got the daggerboards cut out:

The cardboard was more for spacing than final form.

Final form of the bottom came from drawing with a compass on the board.

They're ⅝" exterior grade ply, good one side. John took one look at the board and said, "That's a skinny ⅝!" And he's right, it's more like 9/16". I'm intending to put a good bit of polyester resin (and 6-oz cloth) on each side, so I'm okay with them being a little "skinny", as now I won't be worried about making the boards too thick to fit in the slots.

Daggerboard blues

Went and checked the boat a few days ago. She was dry as a bone, dock lines and bungees showing no wear despite recent strong winds. I didn't stay long, so didn't take the boom tent off, just lifted the corner to get in. I enjoy being inside with the setting sun making things bright:

 

I noticed, last time I used the daggerboards, that after I took them out, one of them wept for awhile, water streaming out from under the layer of glass cloth.

So I took it to John's and ground off the glass cloth. I found that much of it was no longer fastened to the plywood.

My key just dove in. Time to build another daggerboard!

John sold me some ¾" ply. It had a bit of a wow in it, so I just cut it out rough to try it before going any farther, in case the wow would jam it.

I took it to the boat to test it out and found that it sticks in the slot. I'm not sure if it's because of the thickness or the wow. So my plan is to get some ⅝" ply and give it a good layer of glass each side. This will make it strong enough, yet still thin enough to not stick in the slot. I'll just make one for now, to see how it goes. If it goes well, I'll do the other, too. I'd like to round the bottom, get rid of those corners.

Meanwhile, no sailing happening!

Bungee cords, anchor rode

Yesterday the wind hit 56 kph from the WSW (240º) at 4 pm. I was at my boat then, and saw that she's quite protected from that direction. There was a lot of shrieking and halyard-banging coming from the rigging of the larger boats on the more exposed docks. The water off the Island was all big whitecap waves.

What I've noticed is that there's a fair bit of movement of the docks and the boat, and the boat was getting jarred when its motion was stopped by the dock lines. I didn't want my cleats pulled out, so yesterday I got some solid rubber bungee cords and put them on (photos are from today). 

Bow dock lines:

The loops in the dock lines are lineman's loops.

 

The port aft bungee cord was too long, so I replaced the inboard hook with some light line and fastened it to a cleat. I may just get a smaller bungee:

The starboard aft one was the perfect size to hook into the eye bolt that I installed for the corner of the boom tent. Both of these aft ones were hooked to the eye splice on the dock end of the dock lines.

 

I like the next photo for the reflections:

The bungee cords worked great: there was no jarring as dock lines hit the end of their extensions in that big wind. And they were still attached today when I went.

Yesterday I also repositioned the cam cleats that I'd installed on the boom for the jiffy reefing, using small horn cleats for that instead. I realized that I needed the cam cleats more for the jib sheets than for the jiffy reefing. 

Port side:

Starboard side:

Today I also put the mizzen back on. You can see it in two of the photos above. I took it off because of a storm forecast last week or so, and put it back on today thinking I might go sailing. But no wind. So, because of seeing how protected the spot is, I left it on. It's too much of a hassle to take off and put back on again, and I don't think it's going to come to harm.

The other thing I did today was to attach the small grapple anchor to the 150' or so of poly 3-strand. This is for an emergency so I at least have something ready to heave over. The 5 kg claw (Bruce) will need its own line. I'm thinking of getting nylon for that.

I tied the bitter end to an eye under the deck and handed the line into a bag. It's kept under one of the cockpit seats so it's handy. I didn't use a shackle because the shackle is supposed to be the weakest link—but really because I didn't think it through. However, there are still a couple of shackles there: one holding some ⅜" chain to the anchor, and one between the ⅜" and the ¼" chain that you see above—so I could use this line with the big anchor if I wanted.

Andrew's photos

Thanks to Andrew Madding for some nice photos of Firefly on the water with all sails set. These are from October 19, a mostly calm day. As Andrew was passing by shooting (unbeknownst to me), I was working on rigging up the latest iteration of the jib sheet lead.

The telephoto makes it look like an entirely different place!

On one side, the Oak Bay Beach Hotel,

And on the other, cormorants, the sea,

and mountains...

 

Every nice day since, unfortunately, I've had other things needing to be done.