Where is ORION?

[RLW]

Good account; well written. Thx for sharing!

[Skeep]

Oh indeed. And kudos to your nerves to be able to settle in and read during such a blow. Glad all worked well. Tribute to so many things in addition to the make of the vessel. And you had much to do with the success!

[Sea Hunt Video]

Well done Jim

Hopefully, you have much more to share with those of us who will probably (and sadly) never be out of sight of land.

[Jim Walsh]

5/26/15 Day 1
This was the day I had chosen primarily because I felt confident I had completed all my preparations and the offshore weather report was favorable for the next 48 hours, 10 to 20 knots from the southwest with 2 to 4 foot seas. I hoped to be off the continental shelf and out of the primary shipping lanes within that time knowing I'd get little sleep.
I got some rest during the night but was up with the sun. Just a little nervous. Why not? This was something I'd looked forward to and put a lot of effort into preparations. I made believe I was doing something useful but soon realized I was just checking things I'd already checked many times before. So, at 6:30am I left my slip in Noank, Ct. and headed slowly out to The Race. From there I'd head out toward Montauk Point and the open sea.
My log read 2,740.6 at the start and my engine hours were 391. Not bad engine hours for a seven year old engine. Averaging 56 engine hours a year so far. No wonder they say most diesels in sailboats suffer from lack of use.
I had no wind to start so I motored through the Race and a couple miles outside a breeze started to pick up. At 8:00am I shut the engine down and raised full sail, main, staysail, and yankee. It felt good to be close hauled in a freshening breeze and I was confident I could make my next mark which was G1, a green gong which would ensure I cleared Endeavor Shoals, just east of Montauk Point.
For the next half hour I just adjusted the sails and set the wind vane. Life was good! I was doing an easy 6 knots and I was looking forward to clearing the coast and getting into less frequented offshore waters. Something unexpected occurred though. The wind continued to increase. Occasional whitecaps became frequent whitecaps. I put a reef in the main. Better to get it done now and be over with it. I got everything going along comfortably and made a couple small adjustment to the windvane. Life was good! Again.
Within a half hour it was steady at 25 knots and gusting to 30...32...
I dropped my staysail and rolled a little of the yankee up. There! Now I was close reaching comfortably once again. I again made a small adjustment to the windvane and was quite comfortable. Other than the spray hitting the dodger at regular intervals and the seas off Montauk running about 4 to 6 feet on top off the usual rollers everything was going fine.
The next notation in my log was just before nightfall. At 8:15pm there was no increase (nor any decrease) in the wind strength and my log read 2813.4. I'd just sailed 72.8 miles in 12 hours. I continued to sail close hauled on the starboard tack and I was 32 miles southeast of Block Island. The current was sweeping me east of my rhumb line and I was sailing as close to the wind as I could. I fully expected the offshore weather to cooperate and fulfill its obligation to the United States Weather Service and steadily decline to the 10 to 20 knot prediction. It adamantly refused to follow the script. I was in it for the long run so I continued on my course and hoped for a favorable wind in the morning.
As I did every night to follow, I did a check of everything on deck and in the rig to be certain I was headed into darkness confident that everything was in order. I turned on the radar and took a look around. Everything was clear. I headed into the cabin, checked my AIS and ate a liight supper. I set my alarm for 30 minutes and fell sound asleep. Every time the alarm woke me I'd check the AIS, do a visual, and do a quick check on the radar. Then it was back to my bunk to start the process over in 30 minutes.
So ended Day 1.

[Sea Hunt Video]

Thanks Jim I will look forward to the next chapter.

[Jim Walsh]

I bought a new set of sails a year and a half ago as part of my trip preparations. They consisted of a new main with two reefs and longer than normal battens (though not fully battened), a staysail (which was a vast improvement over the baggy one it replaced), and a yankee which is full hoist but barely extends past past the lower forward shrouds. I am very happy with the cut of the sails and there's nothing like a new set of 'crispy' sails to show you just how poor your old sails were. What a vast performance improvement new sails provide. When a sails draft is kept forward, where it belongs, the sails propel the boat forward instead of sideways which is the result of the draft moving aft as sails age.
Having the new sails last year allowed me to familiarize myself with them and, more importantly, instill confidence that they were free of any noticeable flaws and could be counted on to complete a blue water passage.
I had no issues whatsoever until I got walloped on 7/1 as noted in detail in my posting on 7/16.
The morning of 7/2 is when I noticed the clew of my yankee had sustained some damage. The webbing used to secure the clew ring to the clew patch had, at some point in the sustained high winds, apparently made contact with the forward lower shroud. Some of the webbing was loose where stitching had broken in places. I decided that enough of the webbing and associated stitching was intact and left the yankee in place. I had brought my old yankee on the trip as a spare but decided not to set the replacement. I kept a close eye on the clew for the remainder of the trip and saw no further damage.
Upon returning to port I removed the damaged sail and brought it to a sailmaker (not the original sailmaker as they had closed their facility near me), explained the facts and asked for their recommendations for repair and improvement over the original design. After close inspection with the sailmaker they recommended that the clew webbing be replaced with spectra webbing which I was assured was a much stronger webbing with a longer life. My further concern was to provide a chafe patch to protect the webbing. After discussing a couple options I decided to go with a chafe patch made of Hydra-Net, a woven spectra fabric normally used to produce top-end sails.
I now feel confident that the clew of my yankee is better than new.



I failed to document the original damage but here is a photograph of the repaired and improved clew visible through the new Hydra-Net chafe patch.

[Capt Hook]

Bump

I bumped it to make it easy to find Jim's account of the last time he made the trip.

And so I could read it again.