A nice sail

Trouble the Sailor Dog and I went for a sail yesterday on our local lake. The day was just too beautiful to resist.

You'll notice that Trouble took her ease on the foredeck, which didn't work out so well for her. In the later photos you may also notice she looks a little damp. One of the nice things about Ravn is she is roomy enough for a wet dog to shake off gallons of water while the helmsman stays perfectly dry.

The winds started out nice and steady from the northeast, then died completely. I spent some time drifting aimlessly thinking it is a perfect metaphor for my life recently. Then the winds filled in from the southwest and Ravn came back to life. Perhaps I will find new direction with a change too.

Prudent, or just a chicken?

Devil's Lake looks deceptively placid. It's blowing like stink!

After what seems like weeks of cold, rainy weather we got a little sun. All day yesterday I was wishing I wasn't at work so I could take Ravn out. Today wasn't supposed to have any sun, but by late morning it broke through and I hitched up the boat. What was a nice breeze at my house turned into fairly strong wind at the boat launch that's five minutes away. Nevertheless, I stepped the mast, tied the halyard to the spar and put the oars through the humlibands in preparation to launch.

As I was walking to the truck to launch, I got hit with a 40-knot gust. I hesitated; weighing my feelings. Was it fear I was feeling, or instinctive warning that one ignores at one's peril? I guess I will never know: I unstepped the mast, strapped my little faering down and headed for home.

The one job I've been putting off is leading some lines to make reefing easier. Maybe if I had those in place I could have tied a reef or two in and had a great sail. One more thing on the to-do list. I really hate being a fair-weather sailor.

I did get some good photos of the newly-served humlibands while they were out in the sunshine.

It is now four hours later and the clouds are back. The sun is gone. Again.

Oars finished

I finished Ravn's second pair of oars back in October, but I'm just now getting around to posting about them. I'm a happier with the look and balance of this second set. (They are the lighter-colored pair on the right.) So I carved a little more on the older pair and now I'm pretty happy with them too. I used several coats of my oil-varnish-mineral spirits mixture. It seems to work well and is very easy to repair and maintain.

Now that I have four oars that match I need to recruit three more rowers to reenact the experiment at the Toledo Wooden Boat Show.