Trip to Sassy Marina, Algonac, MI 2016

September 16, 2016 - We left our homeport of Sandusky, OH on Friday afternoon, headed for our last stop of the summer at Put-in-Bay before continuing north up to Sassy Marina for our winter haul-out.  It was a beautiful evening and we all had big smiles on our faces.  Shortly after getting out on the lake, a rum storm moved in and didn't let up until after midnight.  A good time was had by all!
Saturday was windy and gray but fairly warm with winds at 8-10 knots out of the south to south-east, perfect for sailing across Lake Erie.  By the time we made it to the mouth of the Detroit River, the wind had built to 20 knots and the waves were stacking up.  For the first time in 10 years of winter storage at Sassy Marina, we were able to sail up the Detroit River.  It was awesome!  We made it to Bayview Yacht Club that evening and enjoyed a good dinner and drinks on the lawn afterwards.  Sunday was beautiful and sunny but the wind had died down quite a bit.  We were able to sail across Lake St. Clair and took the jib down and put away for the winter once we got in the St. Clair River.  We really appreciated the extra hands as we finished the preparations for taking the mast down and storing the boat for the winter.  It was another great trip up to Algonac, Michigan.

Check out my first edited video.  It's a little rough but not too bad for a beginner.  I hope you like it!

Link - Trip to Sassy 2016

Hard Top Dodger Project (2015 - 2017)

Joli came with a very nice, fairly new canvas and Eisenglass (hard, acrylic windows) dodger and Bimini.  This allowed the whole center cockpit to be entirely enclosed with either windows or screens.  Although the canvas leaked a little, it served us well for about 6 years.  Being Eisenglass, the windows were stiff so the dodger was inconvenient to store when it was removed.  We decided to make a new dodger and new Bimini cover using the old windows.  We used flexible vinyl window material and Stamoid for all of the dodger to allow it to be rolled up for storage when removed.  We also used Stamoid for the Binini top for its waterproof properties.  We laid out the old dodger on the kitchen floor and used it as a pattern to cut out the Stamoid and vinyl windows.  We had purchased a Consew commercial sewing machine which handled all the materials quite easily.  I replaced all the zippers on the cockpit windows so that we could use them with the new Bimini cover.  Although the Bimini was much easier to cut out and sew compared to the dodger, working with all those zippers was like putting together a great big puzzle!  The new dodger and Bimini came out pretty well for amateurs and we have been happy with the Stamoid as it has proven to be durable and much more waterproof than the canvas.  Now, 7 or 8 years later, we have decided to design, build and install a hard top dodger and Bimini.  It has been a 2-year project so far (Bryan started thinking about the design in earnest in 2015) and the goal is to have them both installed this summer, 2017.   

Sewing zippers

 The vinyl windows on the dodger have held up well.  We are anchored in Mosquito Bay, Middle Bass Island in this photo.

 Hibou is admiring the Dodger we made (or maybe he's actually looking at the Canada geese).

 Motoring north across Lake Erie to Sassy Marina, Algonac, MI for winter haul-out 

You can see how nice the dodger and Bimini are for protection from the weather, especially when all the windows are zipped onto the Bimini (not shown here).

The beginnings of the mold

 Coating the mold with filler/primer and fairing by "long-boarding" many, many times until the mold is almost perfect

Vacuum-bagging a test piece.  The vacuum pump, a Welsch duo-seal 3/4 Hp, came cheap since it was a used pump.

 

After some adjustments and refining of our technique, the second test piece was satisfactory.  Time to mold the dodger!

 We used 3-4 layers of 7 oz carbon fiber with epoxy resin, followed by 3/4" balsa core and 3-4 layers of carbon fiber.  The whole process of cutting the pieces and then laying them in place took about 5 hours.  

We were happy the piece popped off the mold fairly easily.  After the notch was cut out of the aft end of the dodger to eliminate the head-knocker on the current dodger, the piece is placed back on top of the mold for reference.

Fitting the hard top dodger and fabricating the models for the frame

Painted with Awlcraft 2000 in Matterhorn White

Making the welding jig from the model.  The frame will be aluminum piping/tubing bent by Bryan and then welded together.

Some Good Old C&Cs and an Interview with George Cuthbertson

Update - I found a Youtube video of Rainbow's Transatlantic crossing in 1998.  She was a C&C 61 sailed out of Italy.  I don't know her whereabouts now.

Rainbow Transatlantic Passage 1998


This is an interesting article about C&C Yachts and George Cuthbertson.  Towards the end of the interview, he mentions the C&C 61 as one of the C&C boats that he was "most satisfied with in retrospect".  He also talks about the double balsa core with a thin layer of fiberglass in between, which we have on Joli, mostly in the forward area of the hull to stiffen the hull.
Interview with George Cuthbertson

 Frenzy, a 1982 C&C 41 owned by our great friends, flying the asymmetrical spinnaker from our Schock 35

Sojourner, a C&C 30 owned by Bryan's sister and brother-in-law

 C&C 35 MKIII, Erin and Andrew, sailed on the Chesapeake Bay

Eric and Kristen's 1975 C&C 38 mk1

Triumph sailing home from the C&C Lake Erie Owners' Rendezvous at Spitzer Marina in Lorain, 2004

Joli Double-Headsail Reach, August 2016

We had a great weekend at Put-in-Bay with our son A.J. and even hoisted our collegiate flags while on the mooring ball.  When we were getting ready to sail home on Sunday morning, it was pretty windy, so we hanked the small jib on the inner forestay.  By the time we got out past Ballast Island, the wind had died enough that the small jib just wasn't enough sail.  Joli felt sluggish!  We unrolled the #3 jib on the forestay and along with the smaller inner forestay jib, we had a nice, brisk sail!  We're passing Kelley's Island in the video (see link below).

University of Toledo for Polly & Bryan, Miami (of Ohio) University for Lorraine (undergraduate) & Kevin, University of Cincinnati for A.J. and Columbia University for Lorraine's Masters in Journalism

Link - Double-headsail Reach

Triumph Refit - Through-hull fittings

When we bought Triumph, she had 23 (Yes, 23!!!) "holes" in the hull.  Many of them were still in service, but many were abandoned equipment such as depth sounder or had fittings that were in need of repair.  We ending up removing and filling/glassing-in 10 through-hull fittings and seacocks.  We have since added 1 or 2 but we are much more comfortable walking away from the boat after a weekend aboard knowing that sources of water into the boat are in good working order.  We are a little OCD about shutting the boat down for the week, justifiably so since more boats sink at the dock than anywhere else.  We always close the seacocks on the galley and head sink drains, engine cooling water intake and ship/raw water intake.  We hang the ignition key on the engine intake to make sure we open it before starting the engine.