Bristol-Blue Lake Michigan Sailing Adventures

Getting ready for the Venitian festival fireworks we pulled out the cushions and sat back and relaxed.  Hammock up too.

Biminis, preventing sun stroke on the water since. ...  times forgotten.  This week we have taken one step more towards cruising boat and one step away from racing boat. The recent heatwave has us thinking it's a long way out a sunny channel to get into the lake and it is not too shady out on Lake Michigan.  So, there are a few ways to go about this Bimini business. You can go the custom route get the parts, bend the tubing or have someone do this for you.  Can you say cha-ching, because the local canvas guy can see you coming.  Yeah, that's not the way I went. After much measuring and figuring, I decided to visit Amazon.com and find a prefab kit and modify from there.  I went with a 3 rib system that is 8ft wide by 6ft long.  8 by 8 would cover the entire cockpit but the mainsheet would interfere so there will be a 2ft area uncovered at the front of the cockpit perhaps someday I'll install a dodger to cover it as well.  Once I wrestled around and figured out w

So many people have asked why did you not go with a bigger boat.  The answer always comes back to money. We want to do some traveling and as a teacher and civil servant, we have a limited budget.  Last week we got the chance to do some of that traveling.  We went out to San Fransisco, California rented an RV and drove 850 miles in a week. We visited the Redwoods and Sequoias, Monterey Bay Aquarium and Sonoma for a little wine tasting. To finish up the week BB and Myles took to the San Fransisco Bay for some whale watching and I got the opportunity to ride along on   USA AC-76   <click through to the link if you are in San Fran.  The trip is totally worth it.   76 is the hull number for this American Cup Class Racing Yacht .  It measures in at 86 feet in length with a 12-foot beam and a 14 ft draft.  The boat has been outfitted for day charters so there are some stanchions and safety features added along with a motor.  However, I'm told they still race it occasionally. 

Over the past few weeks, I've been reading about sail design and trim. I've been reading about loose footed mains and decided to give it a try.  Many sails are designed with a bolt rope in the bottom that holds the sail to the boom along the entire length. From what I have been reading this turns out to be a bit of holdover from the old cotton sail days wear ripping and tearing were an issue. Modern Dacron does not need this additional support and a lot of sailmakers are going to loose footed sails. The easiest way to try this out on your boat is to simply remove the bolt rope from your boom and see how it goes.   On the Mirage 24, I have been very impressed with the results so far.  Sail handling is much easier especially with regards to tensioning and loosening the outhaul. You can really tune your sails foil shape and so far I can not find a single reason not to do this.  Here is a nice video of us sailing along at 6K loose footed main  and150 genoa.  

We set out to the lake again today.  It was a great time.  We are still getting a feel for the procedure in tacking.  Moving the traveler setting the genoa blocks, prepping the sheets, changing up the backstay tension. This boat has a lot going on compared to the Typhoon and we are loving every bit of it.   We spent our first night out in the anchorage after we returned.  This panorama of Lake Kalamazoo early in the morning show the tranquility before the channel gets busy. The new mosquito netting on the forward hatch and companionway worked great for our first night out on the hook. I attached both of these with industrial strength velcro. This velcro is supposed to hold up to 10lbs and work when it is wet, so I know the netting is not going to fly away in the wind. We even got the privacy curtain installed. Now the head can be used without flashing everyone on the boat. Again I used industrial velcro but at the top, I installed velcro strapping so when the

The season has entered full swing. This week THYC had their kids day. We decided to spend the night aboard as a family. The wind scoop is one of my favorite things on the boat.  It just blows cool air right down the front hatch.   The club had games and crafts set up for the kids and we spent some serious time playing with the giant Jenga set. We decided before we do too much more camping on the boat it was time for some mosquito netting.  So I broke out the sewing machine this week and got busy.   I took a few short cuts with the netting instead of hemming all the edges I melted a few of them with the blow torch.  I think this will work just as well to preventing the Sunbrella from fraying and it saves some of my material for future projects. I decided to sew up a quick privacy curtain as well.  This will separate the main cabin from the head and V berth. To do this I used Sunbrella for the backing.  In Ann Arbor, there is a great shop called the Scrap Box.  They

We finally settled on a name for our Mirage 24. With much discussion and input (from the 10-year-old.) We have gone with Woodstock. Not the 60's music bash but the cute little yellow bird from the Peanuts. I found a great sign shop here locally and they printed these up for me $25.00 to do both port and starboard nameplates. I came down to the boat and stuck them right on.  First the starboard side then I pulled out of the dock and backed the boat into the slip, so I could do the port side.   Turns out I really like the boat backed into the slip. So I've been leaving it backed in. It makes it easier to leave the dock when it is just me sailing and it is a bit easier to get back into the slip as well.  Our third trip worked out well after I reassembled to boom gooseneck.  As I pulled up the mainsail the boom dropped right off. Turns out the thing had been assembled upside down. The pin had been pushed up and the nut was on the top and it worked it's way off.