Andijk - de Kreupel - Andijk

 July 23rd, 2020 - 13.8nm, Bft 3-5SW, Sea: 0.5m

Feierabend-sailing. Left harbor with a lot of small problems: forgot to untie both aft lines, etc :) Setting the sails not a problem, then took course 42° targeting the W-corner of de Kreupel, with wind dead-aft. Wind was blowing around Bft 5 and I could fly wing-on-wing all the way to de Kreupel. Unfortunately, after rounding the island on the lee side, I got the wind right on the nose. I fought it for some time, but eventually I started the engine and motored home. It was the first time I've ran the engine for more than 1hr. I've even folded the jib and stowed it away, and put on the main cover on the way back. Easiest job back in the harbor - ever :)

Trip to Texel and back

 Andijk - den Oever - Oudeschild(Texel) - den Oever - Andijk

Andijk - den Oever (July 18th, 2020)

1-3Bft SW, 4h14m, Sea 0m

I've started the weekend on Sat July 18th with shopping and boat improvement projects: new 74Ah battery, double-swivels for bringing halyards to the cockpit and triple-swivel for bringing the reef-lines to the cockpit. Unfortunately the black reef-line (3rd reef) is too short, I'll have to replace it.

I left Andijk around 3:30pm and had a wonderful sailing weather all the way to den Oever. I could even read on the way, simply perfect! I reached den Oever around 7pm, too late to go through an unknown lock and spend the night on the North Sea. So I decided to spend the night in den Oever. I've entered in the marina after a Marieholm 26, they wanted to take a berth quite at the entrance - and a huge one. By the time I got in the harbor, the harbormaster was already there telling them to go to another box, and he also guided me to a suitable-sized berth. I got some help with mooring (single-handed flag does wonders!), after which I've helped another boat to berth right next to me. It turns out they were there just for the evening, got a grab to eat and then left again. Price for the night was around 12€.

den Oever - Oudeschild(Texel) - den Oever - Andijk (July 19th, 2020)

3-5Bft W/NW, 12.7nm to Oudeschild + 27.2nm back to Andijk, Sea 0,5-2m

Started my morning in den Oever marina watching how a guy wanted to get out of the box, got a line in the propeller (his daughter couldn't save it on time). He was able to get in his wet suit in 5min, took a dive, and was out of the box in 15-20mins, so really agile. I left the marina at 8am and met the same guy and his daughter in the waiting area in front of the den Oever lock, waiting to get inside. We simply moved back and forth up until the lock opened (didn't have to wait more than 20mins). In the lock I was able to 

Lids for the cockpit lockers

As part of the winter projects, I've decided to replace the cockpit lockers lids - the old ones look deplorable:

Hull restoration

I've started the hull restoration by scraping the whole hull with the ProScraper. I don't know how many layers of paint are there, but the last one(s) is very hard to scrape off and sort of "slippery" for the blade - I suspect some sort of epoxy-based paint directly on the gelcoat. So I will leave it on for now and try to get it off by sanding.

The process of scraping took almost 3 mornings, and I've managed to do it with a single blade.

 

Home-bound

We decided to buy a street trailer and bring the boat home for winter projects. Yesterday I've picked up a truck (that can pull 3.5T), drove to Asten, NL to pick up the new Vlemmix trailer and then drove to Andijk to prepare the boat for the haul-out. 

Today started by my first single-handed "parallel" mooring manoeuvre to the dock next to the crane. Then we've hauled-out the boat, but we had some trouble:

• I completely forgot to disconnect all the cables in the mast
• I was not able, for the love of God, to disconnect the water intake host for the engine from the thru-hull valve. Last year i was able to disconnect it without problems, stuck it in the anti-freeze bottle and run the engine for some time. But today i had to cut the hose.

What we've also noticed is that the stanchions are mixed, so some open if you turn them clockwise and the others in the opposite direction. I'll have to fix that.

Fitting the boat on the new trailer was a little bit tricky, but went well. I decided to leave the mast at the harbour and not fight with fixing it to the boat or trailer. Next spring I'll have to check it before launching the boat. 

Project of the day - fix storage lockers lids

Something that started breaking were the lid 'hooks' for the lockers behind the sattee, so this is today's project.

The good hooks are L-shaped and look like this:

And the broken ones looks like this:

In the same picture you see the replacements I've manufactured.

First, peel off 4 layers of fabric at the corners and undo the 40 yrs old screws. Then drill holes in the new hooks, first the big ones and then the small thru-ones (learned by doing it the other way around and breaking the hook):

And then screw them back in:

Gorgeous sailing day

After driving for 5 hrs on Friday thru the Weekend traffic, we had a gorgeous sailing day on Saturday. On Bft 4-5 winds and 1m waves we were able to do constant 6kn on a beam reach towards N. After ca 10nm we did a gybe and tried to heave to, which worked but the SOG was between 1-2kn. Unfortunately I didn't try to keep the boat 30° to wind, but it was rather on the beam, and also didn't watch if the speed was forward or sideways - homework for next time. We returned home on a close reach, while the wind came down to force 3-4.  On the way back we had to avoid a couple of regattas taking place, it's incredible how fast the small boats can go!

All the maneuvers of taking up/down the sails were done with Susie, so pretty much single-handed.

Total of 22nm in 4:40hrs. 

https://boating.page.link/nHyr