Another video of ‘Seabird’

Hey guys! We have been busy getting ready for our sailing trip this summer. We’ve gotten the hot water heater all hooked up to heat when the engine is running, and plumbed to the head so we can take hot showers. We’ve also moved the cat litter box, organized the tools and the sewing machines, put shelves in our hanging lockers so we can store more clothes, sold lots of our stuff so we don’t feel so crowded, and built opening doors under the settees so our storage is more accessible. It has been crazy!

We also did an interview with our friend Matt, of GuyManly productions, and he’s gotten it all edited and up on youtube. He really did a great job! Check it out by clicking the photo below:

Or click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVsoNulPU94&feature=colike

Published!

Hey everyone! Just writing a quick note to say that Travis has been published in Points East Magazine! If you haven’t already been reading this magazine, you really should. It’s free and you can pick it up in a wide variety of places throughout New England. You can also read it online, http://issuu.com/PointsEast/docs/may2012-issuu-new/53!

Let us know what you think :-)

Sophi & Travis

Guests – and a quick shout out to AirBnB

Looking for a unique place to stay in Portland? Ever wanted to sleep on a boat? Well, we have just the solution for you!

Hello everyone! Sophi here. Just a quick shout out to say “hello” to some of our AirBnB guests who are reading the blog! We have been hosting guests on our boat pretty much since day one. I have dreamed of owning a bed and breakfast in the past, but Seabird isn’t quite big enough for that type of adventure (obviously). In the meantime, we are hosting guests on a short term, more casual, basis. And we love it! If you are looking for more information on the boat, you have come to the right place. Check out the link “About the Boat” at the top of this page for more information. Also if you want to get a close up look of The Plan please check out the link. (Our AirBnB.com listing can be found at http://www.airbnb.com/rooms/164545. Please check out that link for our availability and pricing, as the calendar is updated frequently).

We are on the dock at Dimillo’s for the winter, in easy walking distance to the entire Old Port district of Portland. Come this summer we’ll be sailing off, so we hope to see you before we leave!

Best wishes and safe travels,

Sophi

From Dock Queen to Offshore Cruiser

Thankfully we have had a mild winter here in Portland and Seabird has had very few adventures “sailing” on her dock.. Aside from one experience just after we finished wrapping her. I was able to deduce that I, or more likely one of the kind folks that helped me shrink wrap, failed to properly hitch the bow line. A few days later, when the wind piped up to 30 knots, the line slowly payed out — as it was merely wrapped a few times around the bitts. I have never heard a story of a boat misbehaving that didn’t happen in the middle of the night (and when the operator was in the nude). Seabird must have read this book also as I was woken up in the early morning when the electric heater turned off. It does turn off from time to time but I happened to be looking at it out of the corner of my eye and I could not see the little red light. Reluctantly, I got out of bed to find we had no power on board at all and my reverse polarity light was on to boot.

Frankie was very helpful, as always

I didn’t even know the reverse polarity light worked, let alone had I ever see it on. I sprung into action. When I opened the shrink wrap door I noticed that my boat was slightly out of position and in fact her nose was about to start hitting our neighbor. This move to starboard had pulled our shore power cord out of the receptacle but only a little. It was enough to cause problems but an easy fix was figured out and life returned to normal shortly thereafter.

this is a Camera Phone picture taken of the new, larger, sleeping area

Sophi and I are planning to sail to Summerside, Prince Edward Island, this summer. So we have been thinking of safety and seaworthy issues, as well as some additional features that would be good for the crew while away from the dock.

We have electric hot water now, but we need to install a loop from the engine coolant to the heater so we may run the engine to create hot water. We have twin head sails to help us get down east, we have also recently bought a used cruising spinnaker to add to our inventory. We hope this addition will ease our dependance on the engine. I have been removing rotten plywood and replacing it with fresh stock. Our port settee backrest was mostly rotten so I ripped it out and made a new piece and added three larger opening doors that secure firmly. What a difference it has made! Even the largest of pots fits through with ease; each door is about 10″ tall and a foot long. I also added a 14″ pull out to the settee as well. It’s a piece of 1/2″ plywood that is bolted on top of the normal seating area. To make it pull out you have to take out 2 pins and slide the board on to a three sided frame I built around the bulkheads and along the length of the settee. I am happy with it because now when people sleep over we can have them sleep on the port side and out of the walk way.

as you can see we need to add some cushion.... soon

This week I plan on cutting out new cabinet doors under the settees port and starboard, to allow us to gain access to items under the settees with out removing the cushions to get there. Can’t wait! We are also planning on building a small arch to house our radar and solar panel. We are also “thinking inverted” which means, what if we are rolled over 90 degrees or more? What will happen to… everything? In order to keep things in place we are putting good latches on all the boards that don’t even have a hinge; this will keep the doors closed and the contents will remain where they belong. It also means not having any holes on deck, I don’t mean a hole caused by lightning or some other broken thing. I am talking about our dorode vents, hatches and our companion way. I’ve read somewhere that a 4 inch hole can sink a 35′ boat in about 30 minutes, we have 4 dorodes, does that mean we would sink in 7 minutes? Frankly I don’t care to find out, we will be putting plugs that screw into the dorode vents to keep the ocean out.

The thought of hand steering some 1600 nautical miles is not the most exciting of thoughts and we have seriously thought about a wind vane of some sort but they cost so much money. A cheaper alternative is to attach the sheets to the tiller along with some shock cord, I have high hopes that we will be able to rig something up to keep us away from the wheel. Seabird has a stable design so perhaps with some practice with sail trim we will be able to simply lash the tiller and walk away for a while.

It’s official, we have sailed in November

Chandler's wharf, where Moya lives

Today Sophi Bella and I took our winter clothes and float coats over to Chandler’s Wharf. We boarded Moya, a Catalina 27 owned by our friends Adam and Meghan. As always it seemed as though we had a ton of wind whilst standing on the dock, when in reality there was almost none. In preparations for previously aforementioned ton of wind, we reefed the mainsail and used a small head sail.

The woman of the house, aka co-pilot staying warm

Then it happened, as soon as our last dockline was cast off Aeolus (greek god of the wind) flipped her switch and gave us light and variables from every direction. Even still we pushed on and were able to tack a few times between Portland and South Portland. Once Moya reached the center of the bay we dropped the small jib and raised a larger one, we also shook out our reef in the mainsail. Barnacles grow faster than we sailed. Sometimes that’s the way it works out.

Moya under sail (photo credit to Sophi's dad, Albert - thanks!)

Chandler's is just a stone's throw from where we are, at Dimillo's

It seemed the closer we go the docks at Peaks the more nervous our captain would get. I’m not talking cold sweats or anything here but you could tell he wanted advice or help or… something. I offered throttle positions. No one wants to hit a dock, at least not too hard and the water usually pushes my boat right into that slip. Why one time I remember taking my boat out of gear right at the green buoy guarding House Island and costing right in… do I sound old and salty yet? Needless to say we attached Moya to the dock successfully.

This is Adam and Meghan's big jib..

Turns out there wasn't enough wind to use the little jib

We all helped Sophi’s dad replace a wood stove for a gas one in the house on Peaks Island so that renters may have heat. Apparently a wood stove is too complicated for meer renters to use. The stove was heavy but many hands make light work and we were back to island time in a flash.

Wake -- proof you are, in fact, moving

Back on the water we lost a crewman to commerce as Sophi  had a baby-sitting gig that would not allow her to stroll leisurley along in a small boat… hmm. We left right after the 2:45 ferry was out-of-the-way.

How nauitcal, a bowline tied onto the sail. Beautiful, isn't it?

Under motor and mainsail we rocketed along between House and Cushing Island. The water was glass. When you get a new boat you always want to show it off, it’s human nature. A&M are no different, we motored all the way out the channel so that M’s parents may have a chance to potentially glance at the only sailing ship out there. Mission complete, and guess what happened….

Just a girl and her boat.. and a sail inspection..

The Wind Turned On! That’s right kids, we actually motored in a patch of wind that allowed us to wing and wing all the way home. Well, actually only to Bug Light, where we tightened up and practiced out tacking in the Fore River. We tacked and tacked and tacked again untill our little hearts made us make that final turn back to the barn.

Float coats all around, even for the canine friends

No one was hurt, nothing broke and we were able to sail, I call that a good day.

The captain and his wing-and-wing sailboat

Doesn't he look well-suited to this boat?

Moya with her sails up

Last Sail Of The Season?

This weekend, we sailed a few different legs around Casco Bay. Before I get into that, I’d like to brag a little bit about the cost of living on our boat. We spent about $56 on propane, and about $350 on electricity last winter heating our boat. This means out utility bill for the whole winter was $400 – not bad for 6 months of living. Go us!

cruise ship

On Friday after work, I single-handed Seabird to Peaks Island. There was barely any wind so I motored and used the jib for stability. It was pretty uneventful but the wind did sort of funnel into the little channel between Peaks and House, so just for fun, I turned the motor off and headed up wind in the channel a bit. Then I did a quick 360, rolled in the sails, and tied up to the dock. Apparently the “emergency” side of the dock has changed to the outside of the public float on Peaks Island. Normally, the inside is reserved for emergency vehicles, leaving the outer edge for people to tie up to, which is much easier for sailboats. After we docked and realized this, we backed Seabird out and into the other slip. It doesn’t sound cool, but it was actually kinda tricky to do a reverse-U-turn in a fat-ass sailboat. It actually worked out really well once we were settled in, because when we went to leave the next morning we could just motor straight out!

looking back again

The next day, when we headed out, we were actually able to sail all the way to House Island before the wind died. Then we motor sailed around Fort Gorges, up the channel, and all the way to Handy Boat. We docked at the northern most dock and spent the night there. We had lunch and tried to get Adam and Meghan’s new boat’s A4 running. Their weak battery was unable to spin the engine fast enough for long enough, so it would not start. We decided to give up our trickle charger so that others may have battery power. While that was cooking, Sophi got to cookin’ (white sauce with gnocchi). After a scrumptious meal of white sauce and gnocchi, I invited the ‘boys’ from the Concordia 40’ over, Kurt and Bill, to swap sailing stories. We learned that they were sailing that boat to Portsmouth to haul out for the winter and had a lot of experience sailing together in Maine and in the Caribbean.  The weather was calling for favorable winds for them, good luck, boys!

see, we did sail

We slept well on what seemed like a rickety dock in little water, but we had no issues, so life goes on . In the morning, we had great coffee and a great breakfast with our crazy animals on deck. Bella especially liked the parade ground with a flag in the middle at Handy Boat. It’s amazing how well a 50’ patch of grass can really help get the crazies out. Bella found a baseball and made us throw it until our arms fell off. She was a blur of orange and reflective stripes, chasing that thing on a mission. When Adam and Meghan arrived from Cape Elizabeth we got to work again on their A4. Heeding the advice from Bill the night before, who apparently had a gas contraption in one of his boats, we fed the carburetor one teaspoon of fuel then kicked the starter. It exploded into action, but only for a few seconds. Well, if one tablespoon did that, what would two tablespoons do? Two shots of fuel almost had the thing started. I thinkw e’re on to something, here! One more go of direct injection got that A4 just a’whippin’, and she was loud! Of course, all the doors were open and the choke was wide open also. We even tested the transmission by popping it into forward and reverse when we got it running well, and the folding prop opened up (and turned the right way)! Yeah, buddy!

Franky loves dodgers

After the engine issues, Sophi and I dressed in our Sunday best in order to fight the wind all the way home. After three days of northerly wind, it finally switched when we were as far north as we were going to go. It was a typical gray, cloudy, windy, almost-raining New England day. I dressed in long underwear, head to toe, extra shirt, pants, and my rain pants – plus a fleece vest and my float coat. Complete with balaclava and hat, and of course, eye protection. Sophi was a wuss and only wore her float coat. It felt like the wind was blowing 20kts from our dock, and as we motored through the “log field,” (aka mooring field) at Handy the wind was whipping right at us so much so that we figured we would need at least one reef and maybe an inch of headsail. Once we got around Clapboard Island, it seemed like there was no wind and we had just been getting a funneling effect between the two landmasses. Disappointed, we shook out our first reef and unfurled our headsail while trying to avoid the day-marker.  The more I steered away from the day-marker, the closer I got! If we didn’t have a motor we probably would have been all up on it.

nice float coat

I think I finally figured out how this boat sails: it needs 15 kts to go into the wind. So after our fight with the day-marker, we were plopping along happily at 2.5 – 3kts into the wind. We did several tacks between the mainland and the Diamond Islands, and much to my surprise, there was quite a fleet of boats out there in the harbor. We saw our friend Chris Keene on Soulmate, who doesn’t need 15kts to sail upwind, and we saw our friend Graham from Hamilton’s, who flew past us in a 16’ sailboat then did a 180 and threw up a spinnaker. A few hours ticked by and we slowly gained ground on the cruise ship. We did one last tack out towards Fort Gorges because it was just so nice to be out on the water. We were hoping we would do one last tack right to Dimillo’s and end our day, but, the Portland tugboat made us beam reach for a few minutes and ruined it. So we motored to our new slip, B7, our old winter slip.

this one was all by himself

All in all it was a great sailing weekend even though the sailing wasn’t that great. The sun wasn’t really out, the wind really wasn’t there, but being on the boat on the water with someone you love made up for it.

Portland sailing club

Congratulations to the newest liveaboards in Portland, ME, who have just started the process of moving onto their dinette-model Catalina 27’, Moya. They currently reside somewhere in the vicinity of Chandler’s Wharf, slip 50, so go say hello, and give them some extra snubbers!

....still at the helm