Rum Run!

This years Rum Run was a blast, we lucked out on some great weather (only rained a foot or two), had awesome wind and did pretty well thanks to some salty sea dogs seen below. That old spin halyard finally went during a big puff, time to start replacing all the halyards I guess. Looking forward to Le Mans!

Possible new Fleet 2 Website?

Tim and I have been playing around with the Google site making a new fleet 2 site. Check out the construction, voice your opinions and suggestions here.

Down to Old Vashon Island

We scooted down wind averaging around 6kts from Shilshole to Vashon Island in the beautiful fresh Northerly. (Really need to get the Asym up and running and it would be more like 8kts!)

We spent the night at Dockton Park, a very small, quite yet very modern marina. For anyone thinking of spending a night here the docks are all free from 8am to 8pm, then there is very good anchorage for the night (some exposure to the North).

The next day was a grind beating all the way up to home in 7 hours in 10 - 25kts of sunny breeze.

Finally home where we got to enjoy the sunset over some brats from the new and improved BBQ. A great trip overall thanks to some last summer rays and my grandparents Liz and Carl who graciously drove us around Vashon and kept us fed.

SAN JAUNS

Chris Brown's Catalina 22 "TA-KEEL-AH"

The Dream Team Crew

Beautiful Blakely Island, where we got to witness a crazy wedding of some locals.

Tug Zoe!

Zoe's new Asym

Just picked up a J-80 Asymetrical sail for Zoe. Jim let me try it out on Valkerie and Tim took some sick footage...

Father's Day Cruise

The Tbird Father's Day weekend cruise went off with out a hitch. We were blessed with a moderate Northerly on the way to Port Madison and didn't have to tack or jibe once.

The hospitality we received at Port Madison was awesome. They have a perfectly set up club house that only includes the necessities: Docks, Bathroom, Shelter and BBQ. One of the local Tbirds, Gull, came out to race but unfortunately the wind shut off for the night completely and only Puffy was able to scoot across the finish line for the first and last race.

Above is pictured my Dad expertly handing the bow lines in the Ballard Locks.



Thanks to Port Madison for the host, hope we are allowed to sail over again.

Puget Sound Cruising

Last weekend we headed out on the Sound to take a long weekend and cruise up to Port Townsend. A nice fresh Northerly provided us with a relaxing sail across the sound from Shilshole as the sun set to the West. Once dark, the wind and swell picked up a bit and we decided to motor the last bit of upwind into Kingston Marina. My dislike for large gasoline powered vessels was slightly increased when one cut in front of us at full speed, leaving a wake that sent a wave of salty water down the bow hatch and on to my clothes... Guess I need to get a hatch lock.

The following morning we set out for PT. We had a ebb current, blue sky but unfortunatly a headwind that kept backing to the West the more West we wanted to go. After a couple of hours beating into the wind we were barley to Pt. No Point. Right there we decided to put off PT for another weekend and with great pleasure set chute in the brisk NW'ly on our way to new destination, the mighty Viking port of Poulsbo.



A Quick stop over in Indianola from some BBQ, raft floating and trying out the racing anchor for the first time... it held!



Blessed with another beautiful sunset from a mooring buoy on Blake Island.




The trip home was fairly uneventful, except waiting at the locks for three hours due to salmon hatch maintenance, but we made it back in time just for class... whoohoo... Can't wait to get back out on the Sound and maybe next time make it up to Port Townsend.

Looking forward the the Port Madison cruise in a couple weeks!!!

Silver Duck

This Tuesday night blessed us with another fair breeze and clear skies, and also a silver duck. With our first "duck dodge on time" start we fought it out with Scat on every leg of the course and pulled away with a 2nd place.

Electric Duck Dodge

It was one of the wettest, shiftiest and exciting nights I've had on Lake Union. Thank god for the Space Needle!!!We got 4th, so close to a duck!

Zoe's First Duck Dodge!!!

Lost pics, finally found of Zoe's first encounter with the ducks...








We got 5th, almost within reach of a duck.

Windy Wednesday

This last Wednesday night was a blowin good. We got off three races in the 15-25kt southerly. It was awesome. We definitely need to work on our heavy wind sailing!

Wensday night racing Videos

This Wednesday's night racing featured some very close competitive racing, as can be see in these vids shot by Tim Satire.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdW1le4lGcQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUHaB7iG_7M

http://www.facebook.com/n/?video/video.php&v=88297756664&mid=64362dGa39ce4G3b477f9G1d

Blake Island Cruise

2007 footage of Zoe hauling in 28kt breeze

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCJX73Z2wkY

After winning the first two races the boom
snapped in half while leading the third!!!

Thanks to Rick Fowler for the vid.

Big Wind Blow

Well this week's Wednesday night racing sure made up for last week's! A nice 8-10kt Northernly allowed us two good races, Zoe came in 7th and 5th. Then on the first downwind leg of the third race it came on hard, really hard. Rounding the windward mark our spin had fowled so I was up on the bow with Will, by the time I got back to the helm the puff had hit and we were doing about 8kts says Tim. Under that much sail Zoe almost felt like a dingey: lively, responsive and FAST. A quick look around showed that most of the other birds to windward were either in the process of dropping their chutes or almost being knocked down. We tried to drop ours to, but couldn't with so much pressure on the sail, then our gennoa got wrapped around the forestay when we tried to blanket the spin. At this point we were well below the lured mark and we decided to abandon and just focus on saving the sails. All and all, I feel pretty luckey that we came away with no injuries, manoverboards, ripped sails and only minor damage to the spin pole. The crew: Tim, Katie, Will and Brad did awesome considering it was the most wind some of us have raced in yet. We look forward to the next big wind day on the Lake, becuase next time we'll be ready.

Blake Island Cruise April 25th-26th!!!

I would like to formally invite any and all Tbirders to cruise down to Blake Island with Zoe and Cloud Dancing next weekend. We will be weighing anchor early Sat morning and returning Sunday evening sometime. We will be BBQ'ing non-stop the entire weekend so bring some meat! Feel free to email me or Tim with questions.

Tbird Clinic

Zoe made it out to the annual Tbird clinic out of Leshi today. We had beautiful blue skies, temps in the upper 60's but were lacking in wind. After drifting around discussing sail trim and such with Sunny, our experienced Tbirder, the wind filled in the Southwest corner by the I-90 bridge and we got some great chute practice in. We ended the night in true summer fashion with beers and brauts on the bbq with fellow Tbirders. Big thanks to Dale for setting up the event and to Sunny for the pointers. Next up... Wensday night racing!

Zoe comes to Seattle!

We finally found a good weather window to bring her down last week. A 25kt Northerly and 6ft swells made for an exciting ride across the straits but after reaching the San Juan's the wind calmed down and we even got some blue sky.

A big thanks to my faithful crew who braved the cold, wind and ghost reefs to bring the Zoe home.

After three and a half days we finally pulled into our slip on Portage Bay, Seattle... Zoe's new home.