Sailing for My Birthday.

I still hate that motor.

It’s been a while since the last post, but the Buena Vista was not done for the year. The day after my birthday (December 18^th) we were able to take her out for a quick “sail” to celebrate both my day of birth and what will probably be the last outing of the year. This time the crew consisted of me, Krsiten, Grant, and his better half Alice.

Yes, they are matching and we did make fun of them.

First, it needs to be pointed out that the guys at Sail Harbor must have felt bad for us because they finally moved our spot from deep within the bowels of the docks to a great spot near the open water. I guess they wanted to minimize their risks and insurance claims, but who cares. Now that we have the better spot we were able to make it to open water without any issues and start sailing, but the only thing was that where was NO wind. By “NO” I mean zero/nada/<1, so we were stuck to motoring.

At least we can look like we’re sailing

We stayed out for a while watching birds, getting extremely close to dolphins (Grant wanted to try and ram them), and stalking the ever popular Paula Deen house (For fun, Paula Deen Riding Things -> www.pauladeenridingthings.com). Once we had our fill it was time to give up on sailing and head back into port for the day.



She at least looks like we’re sailing.

Overall it was just great to be back on the water and I could not have asked for a better end to a birthday weekend. For now the Buena Vista is still in the water, but with the cold weather coming I don’t know for how long.

Good Times,

Short Sailing with Dolphins & the Forester's

The Forester's

One the day before Halloween we took the Buena Vista out for a cool, windy sail with our friends Evan and Morgan Forester. We pushed off the dock around 12:30 PM and only had about an hour to play until they had to make the looooooonnggg drive back to Atlanta. If you’ve even driven on I-16 in Georgia you know what I mean, it’s nothing but trees for miles.

Once in the open river Kristen and Evan got the main up pretty quickly. Due to the high winds we only put the main up which was more than enough canvas to get us moving. I would like to point out that Kristen is getting quite comfortable on the ol’ boat and that’s making me a very happy guy.

Once underway and everyone got comfortable the fun began. You need to know that Morgan and Evan keep up a blog of their own (http://www.evanforester.com/) and to help with the blog they got a VERY nice camera and learned how to use it. After digging in his bag of tricks Evan started a photo shoot on the decks of the Buena Vista. While trying to keep the boat from heeling too far, I would look up and see the girls posing while Evan in some ever changing, awkward position snapping photos. The things you will see on a boat…

The ladies.

By the time the photo shoot started to wind down, we were sailing downriver toward the old, rundown condos that would be a perfect setting for a horror movie. About that time the dolphins showed up, and by “showed up” I mean that they were everywhere. I think they were feeding as the tide was pushing the bait out of the river, but it was awesome. They were on all sides of the boat and as close as 10-15 yards. The water loving mammals put on a great show and everyone loved it. I guess I’m running a dolphin tour boat now?? (“That will be $29.50 per ticket please.”)To make it more entertaining Kristen was given the camera and she took pictures of EVERYTHING like Dolphins, me, Morgan, Evan, the boat, Paula’s house, the sky, birds, blah, blah, blah…

A pro

After all of that excitement it was time to head back so the Forester’s could make the trip back before too late. I hope to get some of the pictures from their camera because once I got home I discovered that I forgot to chance the settings on my camera and all of the pictures were off color (Irony?).

Overall it was a fun trip, but short. This was a cold and windy October day, it helped to set the reality that the 2011 sailing season is almost over, but not yet!

What was in that Champagne? Rocket Fuel? Pixy Dust?



(Image courtesy of Kristen in the Media Relations Department)



After doing some research on the internets and given our recent streak of bad luck I decided that we need to do something drastic to appease Mother Ocean. We had to officially christen the Buena Vista by the proper, age old tradition of giving a blood sacrifice (or the next best thing).

According to my in depth research (a quick Google search), to change the name of a boat you need to christen it to let the Gods know that the ship’s old name will no longer be on the water and that they need to keep watch over the vessel under the new name. In order to do this, a captain gathers anyone and everyone that will come in contact with the boat and does the following…

1. He appeals to all of the Gods he can think of that deal with water (God, Poseidon, Neptune, Jimmy Buffett, etc.) and lets them know the boat has changed names.
2. In the old days he would give a blood sacrifice offered to the Gods and poured onto the bow of the ship, (we’re not that into the "traditional" so we went with the modern method of using red wine/cheap champagne)
3. Everyone in attendance toasts to the ship, the Gods, and overall good weather.
4. The captain takes the boat out immediately for the inaugural voyage.

Now that the traditions were out of the way it was time to hit the seas. It was a full crew today with me, Kristen, Grant, Sean, and Courtney on board. Once we were on the river the wind was in our favor and blowing out toward the ocean. We had the wind to our backs and we quickly got the sails up.

Why yes, these shades are awesome.

Now we were sailing and it seemed like everything was working in our favor today. Maybe the christening really worked?!? With both the sails up we quickly gained some knots and were sailing in the desired direction. At this point we were able to do something that has never been seen before on the Buena Vista…relaxing/chilling/taking it easy.



Is this what sail in supposed to look like?

By this point we already made it further downriver than ever before and were headed toward the open ocean. But all good things must come to an end because we had plans for that afternoon so it was time to come about and motor back (or so we thought). Once we got the sails down and the motor fired up another sailor started gaining on us from behind. About that time the entire crew looked at me and the race was on…

Workin’ like a well oiled machine.

We hoisted the sails and caught the wind off of the port rail. After double checking we were holding our on with the other sailor and were actually moving FASTER than our speed with the motor. We were sailing somewhat into the wind to boot. What was in that champagne? Rocket Fuel? Pixy Dust? I don’t know but whatever it was it was working. Everything was going so well that it even gave Sean some time to enjoy his new hobby of spying on people with binoculars and scanning the Coast Guard channels on the radio.

Creeper.

Once the wind died down and the sailor was out of range we decided it was time to fire up the motor once more. With many hands on board we got the sails down and covered in a flash so we could enjoy the cruse back into port. Sean even got to take the tiller for a while to test out his skills at the helm.

Don’t get too excited Sean

Overall I was a great day for the Buena Vista and crew. Following the christening everything seemed to work in our favor. We had the wind at our backs, the ability to go where we wanted to go, perfect weather, and the beloved motor actually ran when asked. The only thing we had to worry about was our sunglasses tan.



Third Times a Charm (Almost)

Check out the sweet, sweet new headpiece.

Trip número three started and ended a LOT better than the one before, but we still have a long way to go. Everything started fine and we got out of the marina without any surprises with me, Kristen, and first-mate Grant onboard.

As planned we motored upwind (still lame, I know, I know) and once in open water I noticed that the motor (while running) was not idling as it should. "Eh... I'll check it when we get back," I said. After a while and many pirate jokes later we made it far enough upriver and killed the engine (AKA it died when idling) and we raised the sails. The sails went up rather quickly and we even looked like we knew what we were doing. But that sense of pride was quickly lost when we compared our skills to the regatta taking place downriver. Stupid regatta stealing our thunder.


With Grant working the jib sheets, Kris trimming the sails, and me at the tiller we started making way. While still not able to sail downriver (the desired direction and upwind) we were able to successfully able to sail with the wind on our port side and downwind, I still can't figure out why we can't go with the wind coming over the starboard rail. Maybe the Buena Visa has the Anti-NASCAR curse? It can only make right turns. After a while we notice a storm cloud forming inshore so we decided to head in for the day. Fun's over. 

Grant in all his glory taking us in.

 

Once back at the marina the fun began. As soon as we got close to other, more expensive boats the motor started to act up. Have I mentioned recently how great this motor is? (If not refer to the previous posting for details) After restarting we were able to quickly regroup thanks to my superhuman motor skills, but as soon as we reached the point of no return the motor died/croaked/stopped/ceased to work. At this point Kristen was on the bow holding onto another boat and the stern was quickly turning away from the dock as I was trying to get the motor started again. I hated that stupid motor with every ounce of my being at that point. About that time Mick poked his head out of his boat and asked if we needed a hand. Yes. He came around the dock as we tossed a dock line to him to pull the stern into the slip. Within a few minutes it was all over and we were back safe without having to call TowBoat U.S. Success!

Overall we did pretty well and we learned a lot even thought we only spent a few hours on the water. However, it is still depressing to be sitting still while we get overtaken by another sailing yacht like we're a beat up station wagon getting passed by a European sports car. One day....one day.


The following day I went back to the Buena Vista to work on my believed motor. My first thought was to make sure the plugs were not fouled. Nope. Next, I took off the carburetor to clean it out. Nope.

Somethings missing...

During this painstakingly non-simple project I managed to give Davy Jones my 5/16 wrench and I was still no closer to finding the problem. Great.

If found please return to the Buena Vista.

 

Once I got the carb back on (thanks to a spare wrench) I fired off the motor to find two things: 1- the motor still did not idle 2- the seal for the thermostat was leaking saltwater. Awesome. As usual, Mick popped his head out to save the day. He said, "de issue is tha ethanol. Everyone here swears that it screws with ya motor." Thanks Mick. Now with that with mystery hopefully solved I now had to deal with the leaking thermostat to prevent my beloved 7.5 from turning into an overheating lump of corrosion. Thankfully the designers of this part understood that it might have to be removed and I was able to see the issue quickly and clearly.

FYI, this should be one piece... Just so you know

After a lot of scrubbing, scraping, and leaning over the back of the boat I was able to clean the surface and prep the area for the replacement parts which were ordered today. Once they come in it's only three bolts to replace so should be an easy fix, I hope.


With that knocked out I wanted to run the 110 volt shopvac to remove that pesky water from the bilge due to the weeks rain storms. I fired her off and filled up the first bucket, then the second, and then the third. What's going on here?!?!?! Then I figured it out, we're taking on water...

The crack...

The bad news is that it's a crack in the hull below the waterline (that's bad) and the only good news is that it's small and seems to only let in about a half an inch of water at most. It still makes me nervous and I want it fixed. I want it fixed now. How in the world am I going to fix this one?

It seems like I've got my to-do list for the week...


Good Times,


- Jake

Location:Wilminton River - Savannah, GA

Day 2 - Dead in the Water

Day two started out well enough, we took her out early in the afternoon to see how we could do against the wind. Playing it safe (thank goodness!) we decided to motor further upriver to stay clear of shallow water and to give us more room to play just in case something happened. It did...

It's all fun and games, for now...

Once we got upriver we quickly got the main up and even successfully hoisted the jib (the actual jib this time). We were under way and doing great for a few minutes, heck we even got up to some decent speed and had the rails leaning a little. We were sailing!


After a few minutes we stopped to make some adjustments and noticed that we were creeping closer and closer to the bank. Playing it safe we fired off the trusty ol' motor that we've never had any issues with and that always fires right up. Have I told you how great the motor is? It's all kinds of awesome. After a second, she was running (as you guessed) but the boat was not moving away from the banks. No good, very NOT GOOD. About this time the depth sounder starts going crazy (which sounds something like a fire alarm near your ear) and things started to get progressively worse. Acting quickly (think ninja like reflexes) we got the sails down and hoisted the keel to be safe. The last thing I wanted was to run aground, please God don't let us run aground. But why is that motor not doing the job??? Is the wind/current that strong? Then the movement stopped, we were stuck. Crap.


Now we've done it, we needed to get unstuck ASAP before it got worse. With the motor going full speed we started throwing our anchors trying to pull ourselves free. This was a nasty, dirty, wet, and overall horrible experience that I never want to do again, but it seemed to be working. With every throw we moved but as soon as we pulled up the anchor for another throw we were back where we started. At this point I had lost a shoe, Kristen almost got knocked out by an anchor, and the ENTIRE boat was covered with thick, black, slippery bottom muck. What were we doing wrong? Then it hit me, is the motor even doing anything?!?!

The problem...

Upon inspection the motor had failed us. Somehow we sheared the prop pin and while the motor was running, the prop was not spinning. We were dead in the water and all of our work for the past hour (what seemed like days) was for nothing. Time to call for a tow and wait it out, but in the mean time we had to keep ourselves from getting pushed further into the marsh. Time for more anchor toss and pull, pull, pull.

A site for sore eyes and backs and arms and hands

Once help was on the scene things got a lot better and morale improved greatly on board. The good news is that the captain assured us that we were doing all of the right things for our situation, but once the motor died all was lost (this made me feel a lot less like a moron). Heck, he even said we did a good job keeping her from going deeper into the marsh. Within minutes of hooking to us we were headed back into the marina

at the side of the tow. About that time Mickey (a neighbor from the marina who had come out looking for us) pulled up alongside on his skiff and commenced to shouting congratulations on our fine adventure.

Once we got back safe at the marina, we were secured, and I had finished the paperwork it was time for our real work begin much to the amusement of the rest of Sail Harbor. I can only imagine what everyone else thought, but we were a mess and the boat was still covered in blackness, but as soon as we started cleaning the help began arriving in droves. Micky came over with another friend to ask all about our adventure and then he started helping to spray off the gunk. Looking back at it, I am pretty sure that he was truly jealous of us for having a "proper adventure" as he like to put it. By now, Brian (another dock regular) came out with his own water hose and started on the other end without even saying a word. It did not take long for news of our exploits to spread and at least 10-15 people came over to introduce themselves, to hear our story, and to offer whatever help they could. Even Kristen's friend Jill rode down to the marina to help.


With all of the extra hands we were able to get the Buena Vista back into respectable condition before dark and we were no worse off than when we started. Overall we fared out well with only the loss of a shoe, some hurt pride, and a broken pin. I already have the motor at home and I'm plan on fixing it over the week. If all goes well we will be back on the water by the weekend for round three.

At the end of the day it's good to know we're surrounded by good people at Sail Harbor and everyone assured us that we would look back and laugh one day. Honestly, I think we already are..

Location:Wilmington River - Savannah, GA