Monday, October 20, 2008

Finally!

Jasper and I finally got Jose off her mooring for a sail yesterday, after a long summer of frustrations, setbacks and hard work, and it was a glorious day. Mostly about 10kts. with some afternoon lulls. We were in the NorthEast River, one of the Chesapeake's northernmost spots. Wide and shallow, with a deeper channel, we had to be carefull with the full keel Jose. Wind out of the north which is unusual. 

Jasper is the owner of Jose and my sailing mentor. He teaches mostly by the Socratic method, setting up situations and leaving me to respond. For instance, I was still rigging a jib sheet through the blocks when he cast off our mooring with no word. It took me a minute or two to realize we were moving, and looking up I see we are very near another boat, but managed to skim by her. I think the theme of the day was anticipation, anticipate what the skipper is doing, anticipate the next puff etc. Setting me up in situations where I had to respond without forewarning. Needless to say, there were moments of ineptitude on my part. All in all, though, a good day, fine wind and weather.

Here we are going down river, downwind, wing on wing with the sun in our face, travelling SSW.
We sailed off our mooring and back on, no motoring, the new diesel has air coming into the fuel line somewhere and we can't seem to track it down. As a matter of fact, in the four years since Jasper bought Jose, we've always sailed off and back onto the mooring without engine and really never motored at all, except to test the old Westebeke. Good training for me!

Spotted this interesting little boat on the way past Hance's Point Yacht Club. What is it? If anyone knows, please tell me. Looks like a hard chine, probably home built,and it looks like fun.


6 comments:

K & J said...

Hi

Looks like an Amphibicon:

http://www.macnaughtongroup.com/amphibic.htm

I enjoy the blog, thanks again for the link a while back.

Kevin

Anonymous said...

Nah, it's a Thunderbird, and a nice one. Ben Seaborn design. We proa guys like the blog. :-)

Thomas Armstrong said...

yeah, Michael, I agree-Thunderbird and a nice looking one. I was pretty far away when I took the photo at ultimate zoom. thanks. I had just concluded the same, but you beat me to it. cool!. glad the proa guys like it here, because I'm a big fan of proa.

Thomas Armstrong said...

Kevin,I too thought it was an Amphibicon at first, but looked at the plans and saw it didn't have a reverse transom. So I kept looking and found clark craft plans, on a hunch. Thanks for the comment and the wiki.

Webb said...

When I lived aboard my first boat, a 26' Excaliber, in San Diego in the late 1960ties, a Thunderbird was my neighbor. Must have been almost new then. Always have thought they are pretty boats, and even sail decently.

Anonymous said...

Definitely a Thunderbird, lots of them here in the Puget Sound. If I remember correctly the design just celebrated its 50th birthday, and many are still competitive in PHRF fleets. When I was in college I knew a guy that lived aboard one, of course he was a pretty small guy..... Rob on S/V Puffin Olympia, WA