By Rich
Sunday was another wonderful day on the Bay: a 10 knot Northerly and high temps only in the 80s. This time I brought friends!
Below: I took a break between my two trips out to chill on the mooring for a while. I love having the boat on a mooring!
After cleaning the boat up I ran to the house for a couple of items, then stopped for takeout Chinese. When I returned to the boat to enjoy my takeout and settle in for the night, I was met with this incredible sunset!
By Rich
With Lisa in Newport to contest the J/70 Worlds and other cronies tied up with miscellaneous distractions, I needed to do some single handling today if I was going to put hours on the Sabre to learn how to operate it and to look for bugs to fix before the spring. I learned a lot today and Seb and I had a ton of fun together after a (steaming hot) 10 knot Southerly filled in.
The weekend started Friday night when Brian, Lisa and I took the boat to the Club. After dinner I spent my first night on the boat.
Key learning: The AC works! And what a difference. I never would have stayed on the boat at the dock in that heat without AC. Very nice! Growing up, our boats didn’t have heat, AC, or microwave ovens. Cruising sure has changed.
Continue reading Single Handling The Sabre (W/ Short Videos)
By Rich
I left work promptly yesterday and ran straight to Lake Ogelton. Since Lisa needed to put in some overtime at work, I spent the next couple of hours sniffing curiously through the boat’s nooks and crannies like a hungry mouse trying to figure out how everything worked. How are the heads operated? Where is the engine sea water intake? Which one of these is the speedo sensor? I even had to play a little salon cushion Tetris trying to put the boat back together before Lisa arrived for our planned dinner date aboard.
Lisa brought takeout sushi, and seeing only light winds in the Lake, we decided to head out on the Bay for a sunset dinner cruise. The Lake is a little better protected than I thought, because once we cleared the channel we found ourselves enjoying a nice 10-12 knot SSE breeze and a mild leftover swell.
With her move to Lake Ogelton, Seb (right) has been reunited with one of her sisters from the factory back in Maine. I’m sure they’re getting caught up on all kinds of war stories during the weekdays while they wait for us to come play with them too.
By Rich
Lisa and I took delivery of Le Saberage today, and she spent the day on the docks at the yacht club while we toiled away at the office. As much as we wanted to take the day off, we had to remember that toys need to be paid for! As soon as the quitting bell rang we all yelled “YabbaDabbaDo!” and ran to the Club to fetch her.
Alas, no wind, so we motored instead of sailing to her new home in Lake Ogelton. The benign weather afforded us the opportunity to do some practice manovering to make sure we didn’t slam into anything the first time we docked her. Then the real test came when we stopped off at the docks to tie up for a quick hose down. Success! No broken timbers or fiberglass. Finally we tucked her in tightly for a night’s sleep on her new mooring.
The evening was way too short to be satisfying so tomorrow we plan to bolt straight to the boat for an evening cruise and some dinner aboard. We’ve got a lot of testing to do this Fall!
By Rich
Earlier today Lisa and I closed on this beauty, a 1989 built Sabre 42 centerboard! After a fairly long and storied search for just the right boat, we’re over the moon to have found and closed a deal on our new baby. She will be re christened Le Saberage (Google it for the meaning!) and we’ll call her “Seb” for short.
In the days that follow there will be a lot more posts as we take delivery of her (tomorrow) and begin a series of shakedown cruises here on the upper Chesapeake Bay as preparation for our first full season with her next summer in Newport.
Stay tuned – lots more to come!
By Rich
Lisa and I have been busy on our hunt for the perfect two-couple cruising boat, and have seen six boats. We really liked one we saw in Connecticut, but found ourselves disappointed when it didn’t work out. In the end it may work out for the best, however, since we’ve got our eye on another boat closer to home. Our fingers are crossed that this one finds a new home with us!
By Rich
This past weekend we loaded up the Suburban with 43 gallons of fuel, five bikes and three sailors (Rich, Lisa and Brian) for a trip up to Newport, Rhode Island. Our mission? To scout marinas for the cruising boat Rich and Lisa are planning to buy, and to stop off on the way to take a look at one candidate for the boat itself.
Other than appalling traffic through just about all of Route 95 in Connecticut, we had a smooth ride and enjoyed a wonderful dinner once we arrived in Newport. Our first Newport learning of the trip: the food is excellent, but every meal (even breakfast) seemed to be expensive.
After dinner we hit the bars. Our second learning of the trip: the summer nightlife in Newport is outstanding, but guys n’ gals in their 40s should consider themselves warned about the next day unless they can show some self control. Your esteemed author (Rich) learned a valuable lesson.
By Rich
With plans brewing for Lisa and Rich to purchase a cruising boat, we decided it would be a good idea for three of us (Brian, Rich, and Lisa) to get in a bit of endurance sailing by joining the J/35 Maggie for the 2014 Governer’s Cup race. The race is run overnight, covering the 70 miles between Annapolis and St. Mary’s. It’s hardly an ocean crossing but on tight work schedules it’s a start. The race begins on a Friday afternoon and carries the boats about half way down the Chesapeake Bay, with an expectation of crossing the finish line just before sunrise the next morning. It’s enough to stretch out your endurance sailing muscles while still making it to work on Monday.
Editor’s note: to get our new blog going, we’re importing articles we’ve written in the past about our sailing adventures together. This article was written by Rich and was published on the J/Boats website, where it remained linked from the main page for many years. Rich and Lisa owned Jeoaprdy from 1996 through 2002. This article was written at the end of 1998, and Jeopardy would go on to bring us years of adventures, including first place at the 2001 J/29 North American Championships.
Without specifically setting out on the task, during the last two years I have found myself determined to bring my J/29, Jeopardy, as close as possible to a new condition. It’s a challenge I have grown to love as much as sailing her.
Continue reading Throwback: The Restoration Of J/29 Hull #171
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