It's hard to believe that it's been 4 months now since my last post. To bring you up to date, we were so close to departing for the Bahamas near the 1st of Feb that we were actually moved aboard. We got up one chilly morning, lit the trawler lamp to take the chill off the air, had some coffee and went topside to strap down the dinghy closing the hatch as we went to keep the warmth in. As we were finishing we heard a beeping and suddenly realized it was the smoke detector. Dashing back and throwing open the hatch we found to our horror Avelinda was completely filled with a heavy oily black smoke and we could not even see the forward cabin. It was quickly discovered that the trawler lamp was belching out the smoke and it was removed to the cockpit and extinguished. It took over an hour to clear the smoke from the cabin and once removed the damage was unbelievable. The overhead was completely black and everything, table, cushions, cabin sole, counter tops, chart table, everything was covered with black oily soot.
   Needless to say, our trip was on hold while we figured out how to clean up the mess. To make a long story short... we are finally back on track. The cleaning took forever as we found that because all of the cabinet doors were louvered the soot had found it's way into all the cabinets and soiled everything within. The cushions required replacing and of course that took time but now we are almost ready to go to sea and have decided due to lost time we will just sail over to Bermuda and spends a little time and return via the Bahamas so we can get in some sea time before the heat of summer sets in.
   The last project before departure is to install a new radar post and that is in work and hopefully will be completed by the end of the week. A quick trip over the side to clean the bottom and we should be off...stay tuned.
   Below are some before and after pictures: Click on an image to enlarge

And the last pictures are aerial views of Avelinda on her mooring taken with my kite cam:

Merry Christmas Everyone!

   We had hoped to be on our way to the Islands by now but have run into another snag... Nancy has a doctors appointment for her shoulder injury on the 15th of Jan. so we are hanging around till then. In the mean time we are ready to move aboard but are holding off long enough for me to do a few projects that I didn't think I would get to until we returned. An enormous amount of work has been completed since my last post including but not limited to removing the old large ports aft and installing newer and much more robust ones, Nancy completed the new sail covers and they fit and look great, all the old batteries were removed and replaced with Optima batteries (what a job that was), enough food for six months has been stowed away and everything else has been declared a fiddle to be fiddled with later.

 New Ports port side

 Starboard side

Nancy's sail cover

At Sea pictures

   Slowly but surely we are getting the important things done before we leave for points south. One of the things which have been plaguing us is a leak over the forward bunk. That has to be about the worst place on a boat for a leak... imagine being awoken in the middle of the night by water dripping on you, ugh! Well as of yesterday that demon has been slayed. I had to remove the forward hatch and level the base that it is attached to. In a couple of places I had to add about an eighth of an inch of filler. Then some caulk was applied to underside of the hatch mount. An all night rain followed a couple of days later and our berth remained dry... YEA!
   A friend, John Bacon, took the following pictures during our second sea trials which took place during the "Out and Back" Race hosted by the St Augustine Yacht Club. We finished last but had a good time and learned a lot about the new rig.

Click a picture to enlarge

Things are getting done

You've discovered by now that as a blogger... I suck. Fact is we have been getting a lot done and this last Wednesday we came in from our fifth sea trial aboard Avelinda having finally worked out the sheeting arrangement for the mainsail which has been plaguing us with poorly setting lower panels. Following the previous sail Nancy suggested that the only difference from the mizzen, which was setting perfect,  and the main was that we ran the sheet back up to the end of the boom in order to take it forward and bring it into the front of the cockpit. The more I thought about it the more it made since that the problem lay there so I attached a block to the end of the mainsail boom and another to the lower sheet block and back into the cockpit. Off we went again to sea and sure enough the problem was resolved. Below you will find some videos of that last sail were everything was working perfectly, even the auto pilot. Enjoy!

In the following video taken from the lee side you can see how nice the leech of the mainsail, the forward one, sets now. before the lower 3 panels were completely scalloped and baggie.

In this next video we have turned around about 15 miles offshore and headed back in, we were then able to ease the sheets and the speed jumped up to between 7.5 and 8.5 kts.

Next we are arriving back at the St. Augustine sea buoy while still doing about 8 kts.

Finally here we are inside the inlet and turning into Salt Run where Avelinda is moored.

Well it's been awhile since I posted anything so let me quickly catch up since the last post.

   We were almost ready to set sail in early March after loading up Avelinda with food for three months and assorted gear. While Nancy worked at sorting everything out below decks I set to work completing tasks above deck.
   Just about ready, Nancy suffered a bilateral shoulder injury at work which necessitated trips to the doctors and delays to getting away. While waiting we started reconsidering converting Avelinda to a junk rig which would be easier for her to handle with her loss of shoulder strength. After about a week of considering the cost verses the benefits verses the time to do it, we decided to postpone our departure and try to finish the remodeling of our house while awaiting the design work and new sails. I drew up the plans for the new junk sails and sent them off to Lee Sails in Hong Kong. After all who better than a china-man to make junk sails

New sail plan

   Figuring it would take about three months for the order I threw myself into completing the kitchen remodeling while awaiting the new sails. To my surprise they arrived after only four weeks. A quick inspection reveled they were perfectly made. Now committed to the remodeling we set them aside until we could find a stopping point on the house which finally came in June.

almost completed kitchen

   Finally back aboard Avelinda we striped the wishbone booms off and, using Hedwig as a pickup truck, ferried them home.

   We then set to stripping the masts of all hardware except the cranes at the very top. This involved many hours sitting in a boson's chair while Nancy hauled me up and down. Probably one of the hardest jobs was drilling out the 630 rivets holding the sail tracks to the masts. Once stripped of hardware epoxy was mixed up and all those holes were filled in before we sanded the masts from top to bottom and applied two coats of Imron paint. Keep in mind the masts are 55 feet above the waterline and... they are free standing which means every time a boat passes with out slowing down I am whipped through an arc of about six feet... oh yea lots of fun!

 at the top

hello down there

   Once that was completed it was time to put the sails on. First we hung the main which ,now that Avelinda will be a schooner instead of a ketch, is the aft sail.

   Then it was on to the Foresail, which brings us up to date.

   

    We still have to complete the rigging of the sheets that control the sails and all the halyards and topping lifts etc as well as working out the deck arrangement for controlling all of them so work goes on. 

   Nancy is still seeing Doctors about her shoulders so we are making good use of the time delay until we are ready to get underway.

   Yesterday Nancy was able to hoist me up to the top of the main mast so I could complete repairs on the masthead light and the wind point. It took much more time to repair the light than I had anticipated but after over an hour the job was finished and before being let down I took some pictures of Avelinda from 56 feet aloft. Our masts are carbon fiber, weigh approximately 200 lbs each  are un-stayed and very bendy. You can imagine how much fun it must be to work up there when every boat wake that comes along whips you about.

 Avelinda from 56 feet, the thing top middle is my heel

Also, we launched our life boat/dinghy,a Portland Pudgy, named Rechonchalinda (Spanish for pretty pudgy)

Nancy christening Rechonchalinda with rum

   We are getting close to completing all the have to do items before we take off for a 3 to 4 month cruise to the Bahamas and maybe beyond. I have pretty much finished the work below (Nancy will probably tell me otherwise) and cleaned up the mess I made in the process so before we start loading every thing aboard and cluttering her up before everything is properly stowed I thought I would shoot a video tour of Avelinda.