We've had such a great sailing season so far, this weekend had to happen. Unfortunately, it was Val's first time on Kelly IV.
Val Schwarzmeuller is our latest addition to the Kelly IV Crew. Val spent his early years in the German Navy and Merchant Marine, married an American girl and has been enjoying the USA life for the past 20 years, including his serving as a sailing instructor with our local Moraine Sailing Club on Lake Arthur. Val, Ollie Browne and Guy Stewart joined Kelly & me for a weekend of storms, dead batteries and only a brief sail. The great news is that we all still had a very fun weekend! Ollie continues to become more skilled and comfortable sailing Kelly IV and Guy is his typical fix-it personality. We found ourselves enjoying a newly restored Kelly IV as she was just returned to the water after 3 weeks of being repaired on the hard. The damage from our Put-in-Bay mooring experience was finally repaired and Kelly looked shiny and beautiful again. Our spring waxing and buffing crew would be proud of the work as the yard crew matched their work on the hull. Kelly's blue topsides once again reflected beautifully on the observers, the stainless pulpit and ladder were again shiny, straight and in their original positions.
Val joins Kelly IV crew
Ollie, Val & I had an easy, relaxing drive on Friday evening as we prepared for sailing on Saturday. In the morning, Ollie fired up the new bottle for the propane stove, as Kelly now sports a backup bottle. No french toast on the barbecue, Bill Paviol! With that, Ollie prepared a delicious and filling eggs and bacon breakfast on board Saturday. A last minute check on the NOAA internet site revealed an 8am warning of thunderstorms and waterspouts across the Erie Islands until about Noon. This prompted me to look to the north where the clouds were already billowing into the tall cumulus threats that soon became black and ominous. Fortunately, the weather stayed north of Sandusky Bay as it clobbered the islands. In fact, it gave us the time to bend on the genoa and mainsail as they had been removed for the repair work done these past 3 weeks at the marina shop on shore.
Pulpit before repair
It also meant we did not try to start the engine until almost noon. At that point we discovered that the charger was never turned on, so the batteries were almost dead after 3 weeks of use without any recharging. Of course, we immediately commenced charging of the batteries (or so we thought). Val, Ollie and I found other activities to occupy our time as we waited for the batteries to recharge. When we tried to start the motor after a reasonable time for charging, the starter motor turned the engine as if there was no profit in the effort. In other words, nothing happened. Val has some serious experience with diesel engines so he suggested trying to start things manually. Without his suggestion, I would never have thought about the large crank buried in the lower port storage compartment.
Pulpit after repair
A mechanic had told me that the crank was there for manually starting the iron genny, but I had hoped it would never be needed. After Val broke into a substantial sweat resulting from his vigorous efforts to crank the high compression engine, he asked about a way to relieve the compression until he had the RPMs up to a respectable level. That request sparked another revelation as I recalled our Canadian mechanic in Leamington showing me how to ease the compressions for easy turning of the motor. Now Val and I worked as a team, Val doing the heavy labor of rapidly cranking the engine, then I would flip the compression on. Unfortunately, the motor merely stopped, instead of kicking back to life. Val lost 5 pounds as he performed this high-test manual labor. But to no avail. We kept checking the batteries, but the charging seemed to be very minimal, so the starter just never had the juice to work properly. This activity, though non-productive, occupied us all afternoon.
(Trumpet fanfare here!)
Guy Saves the Day!
Guy Stewart arrives at the marina, calmly assesses the info we shared with him, checks the battery charger and cables, identifies the loose terminal connections and corroded charger clips, and describes the needed remedies. Yes, in less than 15 minutes, Guy solves our weak battery issue and illuminates the end of our tunnel. After some wing nut tightening and soldering of wires and clips, our charger is now performing at its top level. Of course, this was all too late for us to go sailing Saturday evening, so we made plans for dinner and left the charger to do its work.
Since our initial goal was to go to the islands, we decided to grab the Marblehead ferry and enjoy a dinner on Kelley's Island. After a fun dinner enjoying the tunes and tiger-swim suited clientele at "The Casino", we grabbed a nightcap and Steeler game across the street at the "Captain's Corner". Aside from a few jibes traded with Brownie fans (their team won, our Steelers lost - hey, it's only pre-season), the big fun was the conversation with some young crew from a Bristol 28 that raced to Kelley's that day from Lorain, OH. The told their stories of waterspouts and 2nd place finish, while we retold our ancient history of FJ and 470 races in college and at the Moraine Sailing Club. We wrapped up the evening with a late night ride on the last ferry back to Marblehead.
Sunday morning was a bit cool, rainy and blustery, so we had a hot breakfast at the "Better Half", well known to most crew of Kelly IV. Then we decided to throw on our foul weather gear, brave the wet and cool weather, ignore the warnings for more waterspouts, and motor out of the marina. The exit from the marina proved to be a challenge as the bow blew around differently than I expected. Thanks to encouragement from nearby skippers and handy boat hook handling by our intrepid crew, I finally maneuvered Kelly IV into the bay. Thanks to the blustery breeze, we immediately set sail with the second reef and deeply furled jib and sailed out of the bay. Soon we had partly sunny skies, with no rain at all.
Val collected a good bit of video as we bashed through the wakes of the consistently inconsiderate trawler captains as they "blessed” us with washing machine wakes 2 - 4 feet high. Once free of the bay confines, Val sailed us north on a close reach keeping Kelley's Island to our port. Later Ollie took his hand steering us back to the Bay's entrance. As our return sail took less time than anticipated, we had some time to sail in the bay, north and east of the marina. Val took the wheel for a final hour of sailing in the 8 to 12 foot shallows.
Mead's "Blue Horizon"
Thankfully, the moderate breeze and flat water on both the lake and bay made for very enjoyable sailing to make up for the lost Saturday, fiddling with the battery and manual engine starting effort. Guy pulled us into the slip with our trusty spring line and we discovered that the company of a terrific crew made for a fun weekend, despite less than perfect weather and a reluctant battery charger.
To round things out, our Great Lakes Cruising Club (GLCC) friends, Chuck and Joanne Mead of "Blue Horizon", returned from their 7 week cruise of the St. Lawrence Seaway's 30,000 islands, east of Lake Ontario. We had a chance to chat, help them move their dinghy from deck to water, and discuss anchors, windlasses, and old ketch designs.
It turns out that when you have a great crew like Val, Ollie and Guy, even a weekend that most would describe as "bad" turns out to be a lot of fun! I have been most fortunate, that everyone on Kelly's crew has proved to be great company!
Sean and Cameron Stull of "Hakuna Matata", Lake Arthur, Moraine State Park, and Bill & Sarah Paviol, of the Snark, also of Lake Arthur, Moraine State Park, joined Kelly IV and I for a terrific weekend of sailing, July 31 - Aug 2. We drove to Sandusky Friday night and set up our berths for sleeping on Kelly IV after a late night of "Texas Hold 'em" as taught by Cameron Stull. We used peanuts and Combos for chips, which made it hard to keep from munching our winnings!
Saturday proved to be a great day for sailing as Bill prepared a super breakfast (so what else is new!?!, Bill ALWAYS does great meals!!) and we motored out of the marina. With the 12 knot breeze coming out of the SW we had perfect conditions for sailing all the way out of the Bay, so we raised sails and shut down the motor almost immediately after exiting the marina. We sailed through the channel, north along the east coast of Kelley's Island, then turned northwest to close on the anchorage on the east of Middle Bass Island. While I sailed a good bit of this distance, Sean Stull and Bill Paviol both took some long turns at the wheel as we all enjoyed the broad and beam reaches to Middle Bass. It was just a terrific sail as we had enough breeze to sail at a comfortable heel and speed but without needing to reef. The only reason we turned on the motor was to turn upwind into the SW breeze to buy some ice at Put-In-Bay, a couple miles southwest of our anchorage. We also motored through the new marina at the State Park in Middle Bass Island, so we got to see the new setting from the water. It looks like a very nice marina, although they have no electric, water, showers or ice for the 2009 season, only slips.
Cameron and Sean assemble the Port-A-Bote with Murph
Once back in the anchorage, we tried to drop anchor near a small, but very busy, pebbled beach tucked into the northwest corner of the anchorage, well north of the airstrip. After 3 tries with a dragging anchor we finally moved Kelly IV to the same spot we occupied in early July, just barely north of the airstrip. We found the good holding we recalled from a few weeks before and made our preparation to row the Port-a-bote dinghy over to the beach. Even though we had only spent about 90 minutes since entering the anchorage, almost all the powerboats had vacated the area, leaving the small beach to us alone! With 5 of us on board we decided to row the crew in 2 trips to the beach. While Bill enjoyed his cigar on board, I rowed Cameron, Sarah, and Sean the 150 yards to the beach. Once they disembarked, I returned to Kelly IV and Bill treated me to a ride as he pulled the oars and sent the 2 of us flying across the anchorage. Once all of us were on the beach we enjoyed swimming and wading in the shallow water, cooling off after a very sunny day. We met Tom of a Morgan 29, "Timeless". Tom was "walking" his dog, "Morgan", and stopped by to chat with us. I say "walking" in quotes, as Morgan was wearing a doggie PFD as was swimming more than walking! We learned from Tom that the entire northwest corner of the anchorage was hard rocky soil that resisted anchors digging in, hence our dragging experience. He pointed out where the thick clay-like mud begins so we'll know in the future where best to drop our hook.
While at the beach, Cameron took his hand at rowing and did very well for a 10 year old! In fact he did well compared to Bill & me! He's a natural born boatman! Upon our return to Kelly IV, Bill prepared a wonderful dinner and we enjoyed more card games. This night we were taught Gin Rummy as played by Sarah and her Grammy.
The sky clouded over as the evening progressed so we rigged the awning to keep any night rain from reaching the cabin or cockpit. Bill chose to sleep in the cockpit, but a light shower chased me back into the cabin. Later, maybe about 5am, a more insistent rain chased even the persistent Bill down below. After we all slept in a bit late, Bill cooked our French toast on the barbecue grill as the propane for the stove gave out. No problem and we ate well once more. Given the NW wind, we easily sailed off the anchor as Bill did the heavy work and explained the workings on the foredeck to Cameron and Sarah. For variety's sake we sailed south along the west coast of Kelley's then turned more easterly towards Marblehead as the wavering breeze blew from the west to northwest and back again, changing directions several times. Even so we had a good breeze to keep us sailing with no thought of firing up the motor. We gibed our way into the entrance of the bay, then sailed through the channel until just 50 yards from the marina. Finally we dropped our sails and motored into the marina for a near perfect landing into the slip, with Sean and Bill pulling us neatly away from our neighbor and alongside our pier, without any excitement. Docking is always great when there is no excitement!
It proved to be a wonderful 2 days of sailing with no need to motor except in/out of the marinas at Sandusky and Put-in-Bay. The company was a blast as Sarah & Cameron added a terrific perspective on how great life is when viewed through younger eyes! Bill and Sean were excellent crew as both bring significant experience to sailing Kelly IV. All maneuvers went smoothly and with easy fun.
