Messing About In Sailboats

Champagne Sailing On July 4th

Alice and I took Cadence for our first cruise from Raritan Bay to Long Island Sound. We stayed at Larchmont, Indian Harbor and Riverside yacht Clubs over three nights, seeing friends, watching fireworks, working on the boat and generally chilling. Best sailing was in NY Harbor. On July 4th we came back in a mini-flotilla of 10 boats through Hell Gate, down the East River and into the harbor. The wind was a steady 15-17 kts and as soon as we passed Governor's Island we raised sails and beat across New York Harbor with the Statue of Liberty and NY skyline in the background. Great way to celebrate Independence Day. Read more →

The Black Water of Doom

Cadence is the first boat we have ever owned that is substantial enough to warrant anything more than a porta-potty. She is equipped with a fine Wilcox Critenden head, holding tank, macerator (God I love that word) and all kinds of hoses, sea-cocks, valves and what-not. In my humble opinion the head system is third in complexity behind the engine and electrical system and un-matched in being diabolic. One of the joys of sailing are the terms. One of my favorites is the delicately named Black Water, ie. the stuff in the holding tank not the former name of a "security" firm. Towards the end of Saturday's sail, the teenage boys who were aboard took no end of delight in pointing out that there was a stink on-board. Sure enough, the head was acting up and black water was trickling back from the holding tank into the bowl. Uh Oh!... Read more →

Memorial Day on Cadence Part 2 - New York Harbor

On Memorial Day, as there was little wind but otherwise beautiful weather, we decided to turn Cadence into a motor boat and explore New York Harbor. Our friends Colleen and Rob were aboard. It's Fleet Week so a good opportunity to see some of the ships tied up in the Harbor. We also heard that Maltese Falcon was moored at Chelsea Piers. We had a long motor East out of Raritan Bay, hung a left into the Ambrose Ship Channel and fought the outgoing tide under the Verazzano Bridge and into New York Harbor. Docked to port, on the Staten Island side were these three beauties taking part in Fleet Week! The modern looking one is the USS New York. The New York is an amphibious assault ship whose bow is partially made with steel melted down from the ruins of the WTC in memory of 9/11. The three navy... Read more →

First Weekend of The Season on Cadence Part 1

We spent the whole Memorial Day weekend sailing our butts off on Cadence our Mk2 Sabre 38. This will officially be the last time I refer to her that way. From now on she's just plain Cadence. On Friday we had the nerve-wracking experience of motoring her out of Morgan Marina where she has wintered. Kudos to Morgan Marina, storing her, working on her and getting us out of there. They did a great job. To get into the bay you have to motor up a creek that is bucolic at slack tide and almost torrent-like (OK I'm exaggerating) mid-tide. You pass under a railroad bridge and road bridge that both need to be raised. One that opens on the hour and the other that you have to hail. Between the bridges is a tight spot where more than three boats gets very crowded. I have done it half a... Read more →

Splashed!

There were times in the last six months that I thought this day would never come. We bought Poetry in October and were only able to sail her briefly before putting her on the hard for the Winter. Between the Morgan Marina guys, the awesome Joel from Fiberdex, Dave from Eggers, Robyn from Signalize and yours truly, a ton of work has been done. I will spare you the gory details but she's ready! Oh yeah! I almost forgot. She is now called Cadence. That was Alice's idea. It fits. This her third name. The original owner kept her on the Great Lakes where she was called Bagpipe. Previous owner sailed her out Stonington as Poetry. Entirely coincidentally, there is a thread between these names. Today she was launched. You can see the progression below. I then spent 4 hours putting her back together. As we had un-stepped the mast,... Read more →