Going sailing tomorrow

The last few months have been very hectic here getting ready to sail south for the winter.

The Hogfish Maximus has been gone over from stem to stern. All looks well. I will be leaving in the morning sailing single handed out Ridley Head Channel heading east sailing with a forcast of NNE winds from12-23 knts . This is forcast to last for 4 days and will then start veering down to ENE for hopefully the rest of the trip south. HFM does well when hard on the wind as does my wind vane "Sinclair." Should be a one tack cruise. Well see. I will be shooting to make landfall in Antigua with the goal of making it in time for Christmas. Iam not a fan of the western worlds idea of capitalist Christmas 

but I have lots of friends there so should be a good feed if the wind gods treat me well.

Rachel and our dog Bequia will fly down and meet me after the new year. Bequia is 11 years old and does well in day sails but 10-12 days at sea would not be fair to her.

I want to thank every one that has commented on my posts and to all the readers through out the world that seems to be reading my posts. I can see by my traffic that people from all over are reading what I have to say. Well thanks for taking the time.

It is very easy for me to answer emails so email me at ... Spankthemermaid@gmail.com

This is a good way to talk.

I will try and get some good photos of HFM sailing along on this trip for all the flat bottom boat followers. This IPad contraption is quite remarkable . I have not figured out yet how to get videos to play on this blog but will take a bunch and post on my facebook page when I get near the WYFY matrix again.

 So to everyone out there please enjoy your customs, beliefs, and family as the year ends.

Talk soon... See you down island

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Wooden Boat Festival Starts Tomorrow

Today I spent a very pleasant few hours sailing the Didi Cruise-Mini "Segue" on the very beautiful Puget Sound. She was lying on the dock of the NorthWest School of Wooden Boatbuilding at Port Hadlock and we needed to take her the few miles to Port Townsend, venue of the Wooden Boat Festival, which starts tomorrow.

Fine bow and beamy hull of the Didi Cruise-Mini "Segue"

 This was the first time that I had the opportunity to sail one of these little boats and it proved to be a delightfull surprise. It is a cruising version of our Didi Mini Mk2 design, with detuned rig and shallower but heavier lifting keel in place of the deep draft fixed keel. The water was flat and the breeze a very pleasant 10-15 knots. We were towing a 12ft dinghy that is also to be exhibited and which was probably knocking off about 1 knot from our speed. Yet she still sailed at good enough pace and heading to outsail other small cruisers that were heading the same way, both on heading and speed through the water.

Robust rig, with full-width swept spreaders.

 "Segue" was built by the NorthWest School of Wooden Boatbuilding for David Blessing, who completed her from the structure and interior that was supplied. She proved to be very stable, able to carry her generous full sail plan to windward even in the strongest gusts that came our way. I helmed from the leeward side of the cockpit, only moving to windward twice when stronger gusts arrived. She is very forgiving, with light and comfortable helm and just the right amount of weather helm to allow her to round up if the tiller is left unattended. With only two of us on board, she did not demand weight on the rail to give her power and was very easy to helm from leeward, for best view of the jib telltales. She has the feel of a much larger boat, giving a sense of strength and security.

Didi Cruise-mini "Segue" with her tag-along dinghy.

Overall, she showed me that she very aptly fits the fast micro-cruiser role for which she was designed. I would be happy to go coastal cruising on her, with her lifting keel and shallow twin rudders opening up many cruising areas that are totally inaccessible to larger boats. She can tuck into shallow bays, far from the cruising crowds. And when she comes out onto open water she can pick up her skirts and carry her crew to their next destination at better speed than almost any other cruiser of comparable size, as well as many bigger boats.

In company of hundreds of other wooden boats, waiting to show herself.

David Blessing sails her single-handed much of the time and at other times with friends and family. His comments to me have been that she is an amazing little boat and has not disappointed him in any way. I tweaked the rig and his sail setups during and after our delivery sail and am sure that he will find her even better now than before.

To see more about this and our other designs, please go to our main website at http://dixdesign.com .

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Cape to Rio Race Starts Tomorrow

It has been a long slog to get here and, strange as it may seem, even now I am not sure where "here" is. We need to be on the start line in Table Bay at 14h00 South African Time (UTC+2) and have been working toward that goal for a year. Now that we are almost there time-wise, we have had all sorts of issues popping up to try to trip us and prevent our participation. Each time that we side-step an issue, another appears in its place.

These are not problems that are directly related to the boat, neither are they related to most of the crew. I cant say what they are but they have been a major distraction in our preparations, detouring our efforts and moving our focus from much needed work into stuff that really should not be on our minds at this stage of preparations. These issues sap energy and drain enthusiasm. It takes effort to maintain optimism, which is normally self-fortifying.

We expect to be on the start line tomorrow and will be deeply disappointed if we should be prevented from going. Only time will tell whether or not we will be there. Watch for the yellow boat if you are able to watch it live, or maybe recorded live (whatever that means).

From here on I will not be posting on this blog live until after the race is over and I return to USA. I will be sending email updates to my wife, Dehlia. She will be posting on the blog but it will probably be without photos. Our Internet connections via satellite phone will be too slow to transfer photo files. If we have something really special to show then we may make an exception.

So please follow us via the tracking link on the race website at http://cape2rio2014.com. This is not a clickable link, so please copy and paste into your browsers address window.

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