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Sunday, June 26, 2011

Bluebird got her first sea trial yesterday following the centerboard repairs. Someone on shore snapped this photo.



She passed her tests, sailed perfectly, first in light air, against the current of the falling tide, and then in a stiffer breeze, tacking back to her mooring, which she acquired under sail. There was a collection of rainwater in her bilge but no apparent leaks. And so far, the centerboard winch seems to be working well.
Next, Monica goes for a sail and falls in love with Bluebird.

Saturday, June 25, 2011


Yesterday, son Ted and his daughter, Zoe, were visiting when, out the back window, Ted saw some baby woodchucks on the ramp leading up to the utility shed. Their burrow is under the ramp, and they were on top, four of them, playing like kittens in a pantry basket.
Three of them played. One was stretched out on the ramp in a patch of sunlight, absorbing the warmth.
The more raucous pups were wrestling with each other, tumbling over one another's chubby, furry bodies, grabbing each other by the jowls, knocking each other down.
Until I saw this display, I confess, I'd always thought of woodchucks as mindless, vegetarian creatures whose only role in life was to forage. My opinion was formed, in part, by the behavior of my father, Archie Campbell, to woodchucks in our garden.
Archie, who was no vegetarian, planted about a half acre garden every spring with a vast assortment of food-bearing plants, from celery to blue hubbard squash. In the early years, another half acre was planted in potatoes. There is nothing like the smell of fresh earth opened by a potato fork with which you uproot a cluster of fully ripe spuds unless it is the succulent fragrance of green peas just as you snap open the pod.
In any case, Archie may have planted the garden because of the woodchucks. Not that he wanted to feed them. But it gave him an opportunity to pursue another of his obsessions -- hunting, or its necessary companion, marksmanship.
Every night, Archie would arrive home from work at 5:15 p.m., change his clothes, take the 30/30 Winchester rifle out of the closet and go down to a grassy driveway that led from our road to the garden. There, camouflaged by the tall weeds, he would wait.
Then there would be an explosion and a couple of minutes later, Archie would return to the house, where the smells of beef and potatoes and gravy would waft from the kitchen. Our mother would serve dinner and the marksman would consume, rarely a vegetable on his plate, as I recall.
Somewhere on the edge of the garden, a dead woodchuck would have already been buried.
Indeed, the work is done on the heat exchanger and the bill is paid. Next weekend, we'll spend time on Robin and, we hope, there will be wind enough to leave the dock.
This week, I spent two days aboard, taking care of a number of minor items. These included removing a cell phone antenna from the top of the mast and replacing a bulb up there for the anchor light. The antenna was there to boost the cell phone signal when I was employed and working aboard. I had an air card for the laptop and wanted to be able to communicate and file stories from remote anchorages. Since I no long need that capabiity, there was no reason to clutter the masthead with the antenna, nor to have its cable climbing the outside of the mast.
I also managed to get working one item that proves we are not serious long distance cruisers -- the air conditioner. That's a good thing, because in the days when the temperature hits 90 degrees Farenheit and above, the AC makes staying aboard tolerable.
I'll be returning to Robin next week for two or three days with the hopes of getting her in top shape before the long weekend. A dab of paint here, some caulk there and she should be presentable in any harbor.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

The news about Robin's heat exchanger is in and my sins are revealed. The heat exchanger is shot because I didn't change the zincs with enough frequency. When I get home, the work will be done and the bill will be due. Swallow hard and get out the credit card.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Bluebird has been on her mooring in the Delaware River for two days. Yesterday afternoon when I checked, the seepage amounted to less than one sponge full of water. If there is not substantially more water in her bilge tonight, I'll leave her floating until I return from Hawaii in a week. I'm visiting daughter Nancy and her family on the big island, an annual trek. It will be good to see them all. Perhaps I'll find something to report from there.
If I have Internet access, I'll be following the Bermuda One-Two on iBoattrack.com until all the boats are ashore. They will head back for Newport, RI, the day after I return home. They've had a fast run, with the lead boat expected in St. George's around midnight tonight, a passage of about 3.5 days. That's a very good run, and although no one is nipping at the lead boat's heals, several are poised to make it in under four days. If all goes well, the slowest boat probably will beat Robin's time in 2009, and that, we felt, was quite respectable.9

Saturday, June 4, 2011

The Bermuda 1-2 race started yesterday morning and the fleet is struggling to the southeast. You can follow the boats on http://cloud.iBoattrack.com . For much of yesterday afternoon, the boats were caught in what appeared to be dead air. It had to have been extremely frustrating for the skippers. This morning finds some of our friends at the tail end of the pack, others near the lead. Wish Robin could have been among them but we'll be cheering for them all to make a safe voyage to Bermuda and back.

Thursday, June 2, 2011


Robin's V-berth bulkhead is now patched and, apparently, is for the time being watertight. Constant vigilance will be necessary to avoid the rotting that occurs when a leak goes unnoticed.
I was lying on my back working on the overhead liner recently when I stopped to ponder what sort of fiberglass boat Robin is. It struck me that there must be significantly more wood than fiberglass in the boat. If everything that is wood was, instead, glass, there would be no rot problem. The bulkheads all are wood, as are the cabinets, storage bins, countertops, flooring, headliners, companionway ladder, caprails, rubrails, deck coring, cabintop coring, teak deck, bowsprit decking and stern pulpit decking and probably a couple of other items I've not thought to mention.
Robin still sits in her slip, awaiting the arrival of Dave Wheatly, owner of Generation III Marina, who two weeks ago had promised to work on her engine this week. I had asked Dave several times to let me know when he would come so that I could be there to open the engine compartment (and to watch how he worked on the engine.) There have been no calls, and so I have to assume that out of sight is out of mind. Perhaps in two weeks he'll have time. There appear to be no other qualified mechanics any place near Cambridge MD.
So we'll have to devote our love to Bluebird -- and hope she floats!

Bluebird, parked at the boat club on the Delaware River, has a new paint job (hull only) and may, if all goes well, be launched today. Then we'll discover whether the leaks have been halted and whether the centerboard works properly. If those two items are fixed, we'll be ready to sail this weekend.