Century Club: Tim Ford

Always fun when a ship has to transit your starting area just before the normal warning signal.  I sometimes wonder how much patience it takes for the ship's master to deal with a bunch of sailboats moving randomly in very near proximity.  We remained a politely distant proximity.  Have a safe voyage.

Persistant haze and big storms wobbling by to the northeast.  A lot of breeze (12-19 kn) that died down toward the last third of the race (< 10 kn). We were doing pretty well until a ship came in with its destination being the Coal Pier at Lazaretto Point.  That burried us.  We had to duck their stern and that not only added a few hundred yards to our last leg, but also put us in a ghastly wind shadow for a mniute or two.   Game over man, game over.  Still a nice night despite the weird smoky haze.

Taking another boat work day...was on the floating dock for almost five hours dealing with getting my mast stepped.  Thanks to a bunch of fellow PSA sailors. 

It went well, with one person, positioned well forward of the stem,  pulling on the masthead spinn halyard to bring mast to a vertical position, two people wrestling the butt of the mast on to the mast step and one person on another line to keep the butt in position until the forestay can get pinned.  Went pretty well...well, except somehow the starboard upper shroud's T-Toggle pin got severely bent and will need to be replaced.  Hope to do so tomorrow, and hoping Fawcetts has it.  In the meantime the lower and a very questionable lashing will have to suffice...praying for no severe weather or wind until I can get it repaired.

Got my reworked halyard cam cleats back on the boat.  They were looking sad and needed a refurb.  Then racing on the river, we finished 2nd and that was a bit of a victory.