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The Log of Ariel:

11 Jul 2004

1120
Depart berth for West Basin Marina. Chris and I are serving as "captain" and "mate" for a cruise with a young couple who "won" our offered cruise and who have never been sailing before. Should be interesting! They are supposed to meet us at Fifth Third Bank parking lot in Saint Joseph, MI. We will cruise up to South Haven, Holland, and wherever else they want to go in three days.
1140
Arrive West Basin Marina. Took on 3.3 gallons diesel fuel to fill tank. Engine hour meter = 000.7. Waiting for our guests - they are very late!
1420
Depart West Basin for South Haven (D=18.5 mi.) ETA 1920. We finally connected with our passengers. They were waiting for us on the other side of the building. We are getting a later start than I wanted and that will push us to get into South Haven before dark. We motored out the channel and found no wind out there - and what tiny breath there was was coming from the wrong direction.
1930
Arrive South Haven Municipal Marina. Powered the whole way! Wind light from NE - right on the nose (of course!). Our female guest was not feeling well. Our male guest professed to enjoy himself, but wasn't getting into it. As soon as we touched the dock, they both bounded ashore and disappeared - for a smoke, I think. Engine AOK. All systems OK. Assigned to slip 35, South side of river, $38.00. Ate at Thirsty Perch and had a very nice dinner. Our guests were supposed to treat themselves to a romantic dinner ashore, but we met them coming out of a pizza joint.

12 Jul 2004

0100 Thunderstorm with hard rain. Lasted about 20 minutes.
1045 Breakfast is over, everybody is ready to go. Boat is prepped. Engine oil OK (1/2 quart low). Engine coolant OK. Engine belts and hoses OK. Engine hour meter = 5.8. Conference with the guests indicates that a day of sailing would be endured rather than enjoyed. Likewise, there is little interest in continuing up the coast to Holland to spend the night at anchor there. All things considered, the best course seems to be to head back to Saint Joseph today, spend the night at West Basin Marina and see about some day-sailing the next (and last) day. They are clearly not in love with sailing! Chris and I are enjoying ourselves, except for the feeling of failure as hosts. They won't eat any of the wonderful food Chris planned for the trip. They don't want to do any of the exciting things we had scoped out when we were planning. The closest thing to a "hit" was playing cards last night. Ah, well, at least we tried.
1115 Depart South Haven for Saint Joseph. Medium fog lay over the lake, reducing visibility to maybe 200 feet. Wind is light, about 5 knots, from the NW.
1300 Bilge pump cycling on and off every few minutes. It appears to be leakage from the propeller shaft stuffing box, but when I crawled to the foot of the quarterberth and peered in with a flashlight, the drip rate was fine. After more efforts to track it down, I concluded that the water was coming from the overfilled (center-aft) fresh water tank which has a nasty crack in it. We have been under sail, but the passengers got sick so we motor-sailed, then took sails down altogether and motored straight for the "barn" as quickly as possible to diminish the time of their misery.
1800 Arrive West Basin Marina fuel dock. Discharged passengers who took all their duffel so I conclude that they are done cruising and will not be returning. They said a polite "thank you" but clearly were grateful to be on dry land. I guess they won't be adopting the sailing life-style. I feel like a failure but at least we gave it our best try.
1840 Davie came aboard and we moved Ariel to her berth at Pier 33 Marina.
1915 Arrive berth. Engine hours = 9.7.

16 Jul 2004

1050 Depart berth Pier 33. Engine on @ 9.7 hours. First sail of the season for Davie, Carrie, Jakob. Bob & Pat Villanueva along as guests. Noticed need to caulk under bowsprit at stem. Need to make a lee cloth for one of the berths to contain Jake. He also needs a better harness. Jake loving the sail! Crawling around afterdeck (we're holding onto him, of course) looking over the side to watch the water slide past.
1810 Arrive at berth after stopping by West Basin to pumpout holding tank. Engine hour meter = 11.1.

24 July 2004

1120 Depart berth. Train bridge was broken down so we motored around in circles for a long time, finally tying up along the seawall to wait. Motored into West Basin Marina to take on diesel fuel (4 gallons). Calculated diesel fuel consumption at .28 gallons/hour. Aboard: Davie, Carrie, Jakob, Bob, Pat.
1245 Took departure from end of breakwater bound for South Haven. Engine off @ 13.4 hours. Wind out of NE forecast at 5-10 but more like 8-10 increasing to 10-15 later in the day and then to 15-20.. Approaching South Haven breakwater, turned engine on. Assigned to slip #37, south side of South Haven Municipal Marina. Engine off @ 13.7 hours.

25 Jul 2004

1105 Departed South Haven for Saint Joseph under power. Wind out of E at 5 kts. Switched off engine @ 14.1 hours. Sailed a straight course for St. Jo of 211 mag.
1715 Arrived of St. Jo breakwater and started engine.
1730 Passed under draw bridge. Tied up at berth. Engine off @ 14.8 hours.

3 Aug 2004

1100 Dave, Davie and Jonathan aboard, preparing for a trip to ... who knows? We just want to sail somewhere. How about Muskegon? Holland? Let's do Holland. We did some maintenance this morning: replaced transmission oil, replaced radiator cap with new one (7#), added a bit of coolant. Expansion tank appears to be sealed now - Davie put a hose clamp on the overflow hose. No more coolant leakage into starboard cockpit locker. Engine hour meter = 14.8.
1130 Under drawbridge outbound.
1200 Switched engine off @15.2 hours. Under jib, staysail, main. Wind is W at 5 kts. Heading for Holland.
1405 Engine on. No wind at all. Flat calm. Swam for a bit. Beautiful! P&J for lunch (Dad's specialty!).
1810 Off of South Haven heading for Holland. We debated sailing through the night for Muskegon but decided not to. Thunderstorms likely tonight. Flies are terrible! Biting every chance they get. We sit in the cockpit armed with the flyswatter and keep busy. Fly carcasses are scattered all over the boat. The little buggers are so bloodthirsty they even eat their wounded relatives.
1950 Dad made spaghetti and we ate in the cockpit. Still under power, still no wind at all. Weather cloudy.
2020 Passing Saugatuck. We're a ways offshore, but we can see the two channel markers through the binoculars. ETA Holland = 2119.
2130

Passing Holland breakwater into channel. Twilight now.
2155 Anchored in Lake Macatawa in the special anchorage just off Eldean Shipyard. Jono and I jumped in the lake and cleaned off. Dad's preparing to make popcorn. Engine off @ 22.1 hours. That's 6.9 hours under power from the time we dropped sails and motored for Holland out of 8.7 hours under way. I thought this was a sail boat?

4 Aug 2004

1230 Weather forecast from NOAA: Winds NE 10-20, tonight becoming N 10-20; tomorrow winds N 15-25 becoming N 10-20 tomorrow pm. Partly sunny to partly cloudy today and tomorrow. We decided to head for Milwaukee just for the fun of sailing across the lake. We won't have time to stay but will just turn around in the harbor and sail back. It's about 75 miles from Holland to Milwaukee and should take us about 15 hours. The trip from Milwaukee to Saint Joseph is almost the same distance and should take about the same time. We should reach Milwaukee about 0500 tomorrow morning and be in St Jo about 2000 tomorrow evening. It's a beautiful day after a vicious thunderstorm last night. The day is clean and washed, bright and blue.
1341 Preparing for departure.
1500 Passed Holland light heading for Milwaukee. Engine off @ 23.1 hours. About 1 hour of charge into house bank.
1915 Whew! The wind has piped up from 10 knots to over 30 knots! We saw the wind speed indicator hit 50 knots true. We have been beating under double-reefed main and staysail only. Boat handling well but very uncomfortable and wet. Short, very steep seas I estimate at 7-10 feet. Lot's of spray. Not a lot of progress. Jonathan declares that this is not a lot of fun and I ask the boys what they want to do. Jonathan wants to head for home. Davie and I are agreeable - this is not a lot of fun. It's exciting and challenging, but it will become cold, wet miserable work after sundown (it's pretty close to being all that now). It's true, Gentlemen do not sail to windward! We drop the main and staysail and put up the jib, turn tail to the wind and waves and run for Saint Joseph about 8 hours away downwind. Our position is: N 42, 45.17. W 86, 36.5.
2000 We are flying downwind, steering straight down the wind and waves, under jib alone. Big waves! Wind is 30+ knots. Steering requires concentration as Ariel surfs down the face of the waves at speeds of 12 and 13 knots. She is well-behaved but there is a definite tendency to broach as these big waves pass under her.

5 Aug 2004

0100 Approaching Saint Joseph North breakwater light. Our plan is to start the engine and make sure it's working well (concerns about fuel tank crud being stirred up by rough conditions) and head into channel - my eyes glued to the GPS plot and Davie and Jonathan watching ahead - under jib. We will drop the jib in the channel. Conditions are wild enough that working on the foredeck in the dark of night is not a desireable prospect. We are all (of course) in PFDs and harnesses with tethers. We are also wet and cold and hungry and tired. My back, shoulders and neck feel like they have a knife sticking into them from hours of wrestling the wheel. Davie and I took turns. Exhilirating but exhausting! As we approach the channel, Davie makes out the lights of two vessels ahead. He eventually makes them out as a Coast Guard boat with very unusual (and non-regulation) lights towing a sailboat into the channel from the south. We tacked back out to avoid them. That was wild! Lots of spray flying, wild flogging of jib in 30+ knots of wind. After a few minutes we jibed around and made for the channel entrance again. Very large waves right on the beam made for a wild ride! We had a few very anxious moments as we approached the north pierhead - the channel looks awfully narrow when you are being swept by wind and wave right across the entrance! My imagination goes into overdrive as I imagine what might happen if the jib blew out, if the rigging failed, if we had misread the lights or the GPS plot... I have a very vivid imagination! A few anxious moments and we were inside the channel which was boiling and churning like a mixer, then into calmer water. We dropped the jib, engaged the engine (which worked perfectly) and motored into West Basin Marina because the railroad bridge was closed, we couldn't get to our marina, and it was late. Tough trip but stimulating.
0200 Tied up in somebody's slip at West Basin - next to the sloop the CG towed in. His engine overheated and he was afraid to sail in so called the CG to tow him in. Engine hours = 23.8.

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