The sailing weather for the Father's Day weekend was supposed to be good. The First Mate and I got an early start for the islands and wound up at a mooring at Put-in-Bay Friday evening. The winds were a good 15 knots but unpredictable. Since our last trip to Kelley's had ended so poorly, we had hoped to drop the hook off the north side on Saturday.
We had trouble pulling out the main sail again this year and Friday's sail to PIB was made purely under the power of our genoa. Since the First Mate sleeps late, I decide to use the time to take the boom car off its track and clean the ball bearings that were obviously clogged with dirt or grime. Here's where a good idea took a turn for the worse. Evidently, everybody in North America... except me.... knows that you aren't supposed to take the boom car off its track or else ball bearing will fall out and rain down over the deck, bouncing into the water.
Even with this minor mechanical faux pa, we were able to still sail over the north side of Kelley's. Unfortunately, again, the winds didn't cooperate. The once full bay slowly emptied as the wind, which was supposed to be from the south, blew stronger from the northeast. With 15 to 20 knots expected throughout the night and whitecaps already building with a 60 percent chance of thunderstorms in the morning, we again decided to cut our stay at Kelley's short and head back to Herl's Harbor.
Not sure why, but it usually seems that I have to break something in order to learn how it works. Now that I have a good understanding of the inner workings of the boom car, I'm sure that I can have it fixed in time for our next sailing adventure.
We had trouble pulling out the main sail again this year and Friday's sail to PIB was made purely under the power of our genoa. Since the First Mate sleeps late, I decide to use the time to take the boom car off its track and clean the ball bearings that were obviously clogged with dirt or grime. Here's where a good idea took a turn for the worse. Evidently, everybody in North America... except me.... knows that you aren't supposed to take the boom car off its track or else ball bearing will fall out and rain down over the deck, bouncing into the water.
Even with this minor mechanical faux pa, we were able to still sail over the north side of Kelley's. Unfortunately, again, the winds didn't cooperate. The once full bay slowly emptied as the wind, which was supposed to be from the south, blew stronger from the northeast. With 15 to 20 knots expected throughout the night and whitecaps already building with a 60 percent chance of thunderstorms in the morning, we again decided to cut our stay at Kelley's short and head back to Herl's Harbor.
Not sure why, but it usually seems that I have to break something in order to learn how it works. Now that I have a good understanding of the inner workings of the boom car, I'm sure that I can have it fixed in time for our next sailing adventure.