Bay Week 2014

Lifeline moored astern of Maelstrom. The smallest and the tallest sailing vessels at the docks.

Three of four days looked like the picture above.  I had a wonderful sail over on Thursday evening.  There was a SE breeze, steady for two of the three hours I needed for the sail along the Catawba Peninsula (Lake Erie, south shore) and across the water to South Bass Island.  That breeze left when the sun went behind the cirrus clouds stretching out in front of an eastward bound summer thunderstorm.  Up came the engine and down went the sails.  I wanted to be in the harbor when that came through, and was successfully moored inside the break water along side Tec ……..

Last year I went to sail and Mindy and I had some fun.  This year I was there to work and there was a lot less fun.  I spent two days on a 15′ Boston Whaler setting marks for the centerboard fleet.  The first day was spent at anchor, a lot, as the engine on the first boat ran out of gas (who let this sailor run a motorboat, anyway?) and the second boat’s engine quite while idling.  I ended the first day wearing my t-shirt on backwards as I walked the 100 yds to the showers.  2nd day it rained, stormed, lighting showers, and more wind than the ‘big boys’ would handle.  Many of them weathered the storm in the lee of Rattlesnake Island’s east shore.  Day three went well for the sailors, but for us in the motorboat it was a day to try staying IN the boat as all the power boaters, throwing wakes up 3 and 4 times the freeboard of the motorboat, sped past at the high speeds one may assume a power cabin cruiser is capable of.  Sea sick?  Thank God (no really!  Thank God) No!

Time ashore was the highlight of the weekend.  I slept in the comfort of the Put-In-Bay Yacht Club’s chair indoors while the storm passed and we waited to see if we could go out after.  I shared dinner with friends in the evenings, as the sailor population was amply filled with Alum Creek members.  The Rum Party volunteers?  Alum Creek, led by the inestimable Allison Foreman.  Phil Verret was about, the Varvarosky’s, the Pyors’, Brent and Sharla, of course, and several of the ‘younger’ members, not all of whose names I know yet were pouring beer, soda, and rum punch by the pitcher, taking tickets, and hauling out the trash.

Bob and Chris Shepherd managed the regatta for I-LYA.  Thanks to them for their great work.

Saturday, after waiting out the rain, the docks were filled with sailors anxious to burn off the energy not spent on the water racing.  The deck of Maelstrom became party center for Alum Creek sailors.  It started about nine and went until… well, I don’t know how late it went.  When the ‘second shift’ arrived with a ukulele and five more strapping young men, I took my aging backside ‘down’ to Lifeline’s cabin just astern of Maelstrom.  Last thing I heard was some rock and roll song shouted across the water as I fell off to sleep.  Thanks for inviting me over, folks.  It was nice to be a part of the party.

Sunday morning was great for sailing while the fleet was out.  It turned into a typical summer day on the lake, and the air went straight up if there was any moving at all.  I motored all the way back to East Harbor State Park on the east side of the Catawba Peninsula.  It was a rough ride across the chop of the Western Basin.  A couple of hours unstopping the mast and stowing gear, a couple more driving back to Columbus.  My bed at home hadn’t felt this good since I returned from my last deployment.

See you next year, Bay Week.  Until then…the Old Fox is coming….

Bay Week – Returning to Sandusky

We were looking forward to sailing back together. It was only the second day we had together and another beautiful day for sailing was coming up with the sun. The wind was coming in as predicted from the Northwest and it looked as though we’d have a sweet run all the way back to Sandusky.

A glitch would keep Mindy from making the trip, though. She was on call for work and we couldn’t be certain if there would be cell phone coverage along the course as sailed, where ever the wind would blow us. Our excitement diminished and she decided she would head to her dad’s house for an afternoon visit and we’d meet back in Columbus. We said our good-bye and went off to our respective vessels. I got Lifeline under way and she stepped aboard the Jet Express for Port Clinton.

(Follow the journey home on the chart) http://www.charts.noaa.gov/OnLineViewer/14844.shtml

I motored out from the breasted mooring and used Gibraltar Island as we had the day before. Clearing the wind shadow it provided I had a wonderful port reach all the way to Ballast Island. I pushed the tiller over and showed the wind her stern, making the transit through the narrow channel South of Ballast Island. I had some company. A couple of motor boats and a forty-foot sailboat joined me. The motor boat had plenty of bottom clearance. The two sailboats were a couple yards close aboard.

One would think that after clearing this channel I’d have hundreds of yards of distance between myself and any other boat. After all, Lifeline is a sailboat and most of the traffic is motor boat traffic; BIG motor boats; cabin cruisers; four bedroom apartments with motors. It seems I was a curiosity and drew these personal cruise liners to me like bugs to a zapper light. Some were courteous and slowed as they passed. Others took their look and rolled on through, leaving me to rock in their wake or change course and turn into the wash. I ended up doing both depending on how much time I had to make the adjustment. I was beginning to feel like a rubber duck in swimming pool full of active splashing kids.

Passing Kelley’s Island to the South my heart beat a little harder. It wasn’t that there was one commercial ferry coming toward me. It was that there were three, and one was the Miller Ferry to Kelley’s. I remember from my Navy days how much different a ship looks when staring down the bow. The beam of the USS Iowa looked foreboding off Guantanamo Bay, and I was standing on the deck of a Navy cruiser. The Miller Ferry looked just as foreboding, I assure you, when looking down its bow from only a couple of feet above the water. Not to worry, though, there was more than a mile between us and I was clear of her course before she needed to blow a horn. The other cargo vessel passed well to my stern and the Jet Express out of Sandusky just seemed to dance around all three of us.

I was running downwind, but with the waves and a bit of shifting of the air with the rising summer sun I found myself jibing often. A Catalina 22 of Lifeline’s vintage won’t run directly downwind due to the lower aft stays keeping the boom from swinging parallel with the beam of the boat. I went back and forth on broad reaches and more than a couple of occasional jibes were ‘unplanned’. Four hours of sailing and I was inside Sandusky Bay once again.

One more obstacle to steer clear of and that was the collier coming out of the port. The Coast Guard came close aboard passing me to port in one of their response RIB’s. Maybe they thought I was too close inside the channel but they cruised on by in one direction and the collier in the other. Like Gibraltar Island out at Put-in-Bay, I was shadowed from the wind. It was time to furl the ‘canvass’ and motor into Sandusky Sailing Club.

To my great surprise and with the joy of returning home from deployment, there was Mindy on the pier when I arrived. She decided to watch for her sailor from the shore, stopping first at Marblehead Lighthouse, then traveling around the Bay and stopping at four different marinas before seeing my truck and trailer in downtown Sandusky. We hauled Lifeline out after her full weekend of work for us, wrapped her up and thanked our host, Dock Master Tim, and went off to dinner overlooking the Bay. We enjoyed a tandem ride home down State Route 4, and we arrived home as the sun was setting down to its evening rest.

The four days of sailing Lifeline was a dream-come-true. It took work and sweat, planning and more research, and mostly it took patience and persistence. Most dreams do.

Rattlesnake and Shimmering Chutes

(Clicking on the photos will bring them up full screen)

See where we are sailing with http://www.charts.noaa.gov/OnLineViewer/14844.shtml

The third day around the Lake Erie Islands during Bay Week and the regattas found Mindy and I getting under way around ten in the morning.  Paying our respects to those crews who’s boats we needed to cross over and board Lifeline, we hauled the Donate Life foresail out of the peak and hanked it onto the forestay.  Getting out of the out-breast tie-off was made a bit more challenging as the water taxi was running full to get people off their buoy moorings, a couple of power yachts coming into get fuel (a ‘yacht’ by definition is 36’ or longer), and some early jet ski activity for the same reason.  Ever watched bees around a hive?

The wind blew in this morning from the Northwest and it was steady.  We used Gibraltar Island as a windbreak and set the sails between the channel and the last row of mooring balls.  We hauled both sails up taut and steered across the channel.  It was as if the channel buoys were funneling the breeze.  Passing the markers the sails on Lifeline filled and billowed out.  Off went the ‘auxiliary’ motor.  We are a sailboat again!!

I steered Lifeline for Middle Bass and the old winery-turned-Ohio-State-park and we eased by Perry’s monument off to starboard.  The breeze was gentle enough but the waves told a different story.  We rode up and down a bit as they rolled down from the Detroit area across Lake Erie.  The mission, of course, was to have fun and show off the Donate Life logo.  The goal today was to get out and see the performance fleet flying spinnakers and come back and circle the multi-hull fleet again.  Then to port and ‘liberty call’!

Mindy was working her new camera, but was limited to a 55mm lens.  She took some shots of Gibraltar as we passed.  This huge piece of limestone juts out of the water and gives Put-In-Bay harbor the protection that made it the staging point for Perry’s fleet of ships two-hundred years ago.  We beat upwind for a good hour past South Bass Island on a gentle close reach.  The sun rose higher in the sky.

We approached the perf fleet from the east just as they were beginning a down-wind run.  It was perfect for taking pictures, though as you can see we were still quite far off.  My task was to get Mindy close enough and still stay off their course.  Not knowing how far out they would come on their runs I gave a very wide berth.  It was too wide a berth to make Mindy’s shots come out very well.  This did not diminish the thrill for us to be out and watching this race and see those ‘chutes’ shimmering in the light.  The wind was from the NE and the sun still in the east.  That put the sun right on the sails and they shown as beautiful as a bouquet of flowers.

Coming about set us up for the photos shown on my log for the Donate Life logo on the sail.  The maneuver put us on a NNE course and the wind off our port beam.  I rode on the high side for balance, as normal.  This let Mindy ‘go low’ with her camera and have some fun.  She clicked the shutter like she was in a modeling photo shoot and was having a ball doing so.  In the end we picked two shots shown in my articles to use in continuing promotions.

Rattlesnake Island bit me while we were doing this, though.  I sailed in the lee of this private resort island and got caught in the swirls and dancing that the wind does in areas like this.  I guessed with the sun rising higher the wind was just abating as it might with the heating of the surface of the water.  But then when I looked over my shoulder and saw the island I knew better.  Off to the NE where we were heading and just off the East tip of the island boats were having no trouble filling their sails.  Just me, and just light swirling wind.  It all came back as Lifeline cleared the lee shadowing and off we went again toward the multihull fleet, Mindy’s camera clicking again.

We rounded this fleet and the jubilant colors of its sails and headed back to Put-In-Bay.  Mindy’s camera still clicking as Perry’s Monument eased ever closer in her view finder.  We secured the sails in the anchorage area and motored over to A Dock and tied off again in our breasted out position.  It was a good day on the water.  It was time to continue it as a good day on the beach!

(1) Lifeline Sailing is not related to Lifeline of Ohio Organ Procurement Organization, except that I am a volunteer for the OPO.  There are no financial arrangements between the two entities.  Lifeline Sailing is fully funded from our personal budgets and the sale of ‘From Tampa to the Cape – Eight Days Around the Florida Peninsula’ at www.iuniverse.com under the pseudonym John Louis.

(2) The ‘Donate Life’ logo is flown on Lifeline’s foresail with permission from DonateLifeAmerica.  The inclusion of their web address www.donatelifeamerica.net on the sail is part of that agreement.

Related articles

• Flying ‘Donate Life’ (faithandflag.wordpress.com)
• Donate Life! (faithandflag.wordpress.com)
• Bay Week – Getting to the Island (faithandflag.wordpress.com)
• OH: Hoist the Mainsail on 18 Tall Ships During August’s ‘Battle of Lake Erie’ Festival (jaunted.com)

Flying ‘Donate Life’

See where I’m at:  http://www.charts.noaa.gov/OnLineViewer/14844.shtml

(Click on the photos and they’ll fill your screen)

I did not stay aboard Lifeline while attending the Bay Week festivities.  Not that she is too small to my liking but she is too small and lacks the most primitive of accommodations that would facilitate a more comfortable stay with my wife on board.  We stayed in a hotel on the mainland for the three nights of the festival.

I wasn’t really surprised when I arrived at the docks on Friday morning to find most of the fleet already ‘out to sea’.  The races all started at 0920 and I didn’t arrive until just after 0900.  I was surprised when the inboard boat, Discover, was gone and the outboard boat’s skipper chided me for him having to move my boat.  If there was any glitch in the fine work of the Dock Masters it was that what we describe as a ‘support boat’ was tied up next to a competing one.  That would be corrected today and I was moved to the forth breasted out boat on the other side of ‘A’ dock.  This is where Lifeline looked more like a dinghy than a part of the fleet.

Forth breasted boat out.

And like a dinghy, on the third night, Saturday, the wind shifted to come out of the North and blew right into Put-in-Bay.  Lifeline was the furthest boat out and the only boat breasted out forth.  That made her a ‘scoop’ for the wind and pulled the whole group backwards as the wind blew down.  Not being aboard, I was not part of the scramble to keep our group from bouncing off the power cruisers behind us.  Staying aboard is important, and I know this from the Navy.  I was fortunate to have Dock Masters come from our club, and they were more considerate than I might have expected others to be.

Again, my thanks to Gordon Fowler and Brian Ross of Alum Creek Sailing Association, as well as the crew and skippers of the boats I was breasted out from.

My ‘mission’ today was to raise my ‘Donate Life’ foresail to promote signing up for the organ donor registries in Ohio and Michigan primarily.  This has been a goal for me since arriving back in Ohio.  My wife has been a donor coordinator for fifteen years now.  I gave over my time to volunteer for Lifeline of Ohio¹ while looking for work.  That gave me an opportunity to help promote the concept with a year of volunteer work.  I got the idea to put the Donate Life logo on the sail watching video from the Volvo Ocean Race and seeing how they promote their sponsors.  Today I would make my debut in the sailing community among the 75 or so yachts racing and the surrounding islands.

The westerly wind made a circumnavigation of Middle Bass Island an easy task.  I reached northward.  It inverted the logo on the sail, but the logo is pretty bright in the colors on the Dacron and is still visible over my port side in this configuration.  The mulit-hull fleet was off to port and I was about a half mile off the shore.  Local knowledge was lacking.  I’d sailed aboard another boat as crew in the October 2009 Fall Bay Regatta aboard Foghorn, an S2 9.2 out of North Cape Yacht club.  I was retracing the route of that trip today, but forgot about the reef between Middle Bass and Sugar Island, just to its northwest (see the NOAA chart link).  I had a new chart plotter, courtesy of my wife at Christmas, and I learned quickly enough I was not going between these islands.  I came about and beat back windward to circle Sugar Island.

Multihull race day three from the south

The sun was being shrouded by a blanket of clouds.  That was good for two reasons.  The first was it kept me from being cooked in the sun.  I don’t sail with my bimini up, it keeps me from tending the mainsail.  The second was the increase in the westerly wind velocity.  It was perfect for flying the sails wing-on-wing and doing so filled out the foresail very well.  It would be a ‘banner’ day for showing the logo.  I was able to run the whole length of Middle Bass Island’s north shore.  Coming behind me were some of the larger catamarans.  They blew by me as though I was stuck on that previously mentioned reef, but smiling as they did.  Coming from the other direction were some cruisers who chose the opposite direction for the circumnavigation.  As they were beating upwind while I was running down, they were smiling and waving as they sat on their rails.  This was the most fun of the day.

In case you haven’t pulled up the NOAA chart, Middle Bass extends under the surface for several hundred yards past it’s visible termination and I needed to sail ‘round the buoy marking the end of that reef.  Coming to starboard I was crossing that stronger westerly and it continued to grow with the day’s progression.  Still, Lifeline and I were able to handle full sails.  The cruising fleet regatta was now in sight of us, and though few might be looking in my direction, those that did were able to see the Donate Life logo brightly gleaming back at them.

Lifeline and I had some trouble as we cleared the lee of Middle Bass Island, though.  Heeling over wasn’t the problem.  Catching the sail on the anchor was.  I haven’t modified my anchor’s rigging and it hangs suspended on the bow pulpit as was the design at the time she was built.  This puts the flukes and their cross bar up where a tacking sail can catch on them, and the foresail did just that.  The light winds that started the day would have allowed me to ease about and free the canvass, but the current conditions would not.  She just started to wrap around the forestay.   “THAT’s not going to happen.  No, no, no, no…” I thought.  I might have even said it, or shouted, but as no one else was there to hear me, it’s of no consequence.  The ‘energy’ of those words was present on the boat and I loosed the jib halyard and headed her up then went forward.

Now, stand by for the lesson learned….I was wearing my manually inflatable life vest, a safety must on my vessel when single handing, especially in ‘big’ water like the lake.  And I almost needed it, as  being on my knees and pulling the sail down wasn’t quite enough of a balanced position as the wind kicked the boat around and the waves pushed over the bow.  I was wet , the sails were wet, and the deck was wet and I ‘almost’ took a swim.  But I managed to get the sail down and put the bungee over it to keep it mostly on deck.  The sheets were all  twisted and to keep them from pulling the sail about in the wind I removed them from the clew.  It was curiosity that hit me as I clasped them onto the mast and noted that Lifeline was sailing herself on a port tack.  I had not loosed the main sheet and the tiller had caught on its own tending line.  Maybe the boat sensed I was going to fall over and sailed herself under me and gave me a steady ride?  It’s a great idea for a fantasy story, but my error in not losing the main sheet put my boat under way with no one at the helm.  This would have been a problem in tight quarters, such as might be found within the race course boundaries.  Tactically having the anchor mounted as it is caused a situation of concern in safely operating the boat.  The money spent at Catalina Direct on a new anchor mount for my bow will be money well spent before the next open water trip.

The jib was down and now the sailing was slower but far better controlled.  I needed three tacks between Ballast Island and Middle Bass to make it upwind to the harbor.  I used the lee of the west footprint of Middle Bass to my advantage and progressed well toward the remains of the old winery.  Clearing this part of the island again I needed to go back and forth from port to starboard tacks one more time before having a straight shot into the harbor.  My only disappointment was that with the foresail down I was not showing the logo.  Few would be able to see and none would discern the same logo on the pennant at the top of my mast.  That was mostly for in-port identification but I left it flying all the time.

Approaching Put-in-Bay from Ballast Is

It was a terrific day on the water!  Just being among the fleets was a thrill for me.  Making the debut of the Donate Life logo goal completed a three year vision and commitment I’d made to myself for the program.  Over 106,000 people are waiting for life-saving transplants nation-wide in the United States and more than 3,000 of those are in Ohio. (note 3) Ohio allows for voluntary registry through the Department of Motor Vehicles upon driver’s license renewal.  One person volunteering can affect up to eight (8) other lives through organ donation and help improve the life-style/mobility of upward s of fifty (50) others through tissue donation, which include giving someone a new set of eyes.  The DonateLifeAmerica organization can help you find the means for you to register in your state in the U. S. www.donatelifeamerica.net.

Tomorrow Mindy will join me and we’ll sail out to where the perf fleet are showing their colors!

(1) Please note there is no financial relationship between Lifeline of Ohio and Lifeline Sailing.  The name similarity is a coincidence of the entendre’ of the name between the importance of lifelines on a sailing vessel and the name of the central/southeast Ohio Organ Procurement Organization.

(2) The operations and maintenance of Lifeline Sailing are funded by my personal budget and any sales of my book From Tampa to the Cape, Eight Days Around the Florida Peninsula; available through www.iuniverse.com under the nom de plume’ John Louis.  The book is available in soft cover and e-format and also available through Barnes and Noble.  (I’m somewhere around 450,000th on the best sellers’ list.  Marketing, don’t you know)

(3) Facts and figures; organ donation needs; http://www.lifeconnectionofohio.org/donat_facts.html  updated since writing the article

Related articles

• Donate Life! (faithandflag.wordpress.com)
• Return to Middle Bass Island (fadedlinesofgray.wordpress.com)
• Bay Week – Getting to the Island (faithandflag.wordpress.com)

Donate Life!

Science is moving along quickly but not quickly enough for some peoples’ needs. ‘Lifeline’ is so named as an entendre’ for both the name and part of its sailing mission. Connected to organ donation through my father’s heart problems and a friend’s final gift of life, flying the foresail of the boat with this Donate Life logo is both an honor and a duty.

This past weekend ‘Lifeline’ sailed out of Sandusky, OH harbor and through the pass between Marblehead and Kelly’s Island on Lake Erie. Put-In-Bay OH and the Interlake Yachting Association Summer Sailing Regatta was the destination. I spent two days sailing around the islands’ shores and along side the race courses. The weather and wind direction worked well so the sail billowed outward to show the message.

Approaching the Harbor

The route home was the reverse and the wind again cooperating rather than the storm met on the outgoing voyage. Cooperating weather meant heavier traffice on the water from both power and sail vessesl, and of course, there were the commercial vessels with their passangers and crews. The Jet Express ran past me five times on Sunday alone with several hundred passangers aboard. What view anyone from Cedar Point amusement park had would have been from The Breakers hotel dining room and the roller coasters. Some minor road traffic as people drove to-and-from the hotel and the cottages along the shore. Sandusky Bay was also busy, including the Coast Guard coming close aboard to take a look.

So, ‘mission complete’ for the first run on Lake Erie after working for three years to get the boat ready and figuring how to get the logo on a sail.

Now, with the photo posted and the mission accomplished, I’ll write more about the regatta and fun on ‘liberty call’ ashore. With the celebrations of Perry’s naval victory on the 200th Anniversary, this is a good year to make the trip out to Put-In-Bay, OH.