While our boat has been in the boatyard in Oxford, MD this summer, I’ve still managed to get in some sailing. In late June, I taught the beginner sailing class at Lake Manawa. The Lake Manawa Sailing School is a big team effort organized by the sailing school coordinator (Ali) and quite a few people helping as coaches, etc. My sister-in-law Tessa took the class and did great so she’s all ready to crew on Zephyr! I don’t spend as much time at Lake Manawa these days since I’ve been traveling a lot, but it’s always great to see everyone and go sailing at the lake.
In late June, I crewed on Albatross, a Solaris One 42 in Queen’s Cup from Milwaukee across Lake Michigan to Muskegon. This opportunity came up through an introduction through a colleague at work and I’m thankful for the opportunity. The race starts in different groups with the slowest boats first and the fastest boats last. We started at 5:30pm. We had beautiful weather with comfortable temps (just needed to add layers overnight), winds of 12-15 knots on the beam out of the north, and averaged close to 8 knots sailing on the main and the asymmetrical spinnaker on the same tack the entire way. The race was a distance of roughly 70 NM and we finished about 9 hours later. We got to pass a lot of the smaller boats that started earlier and towards the end, you could look back and see the navigation lights of so many boats. There were over a hundred boats in the race. The last boats to start were long fast boats with large crews. The fastest boats raced with a big square top main, two staysails to funnel wind around the mainsail, and a huge asymmetrical spinnaker. It was cool to watch them pass by the rest of the fleet. You can see photos of many of the boats at this link. At the finish in Muskegan there was a party at the yacht club. We got a nap in after celebrating for a bit and then sailed back to Chicago, arriving around 2:30AM the following morning.
Then I made it back to Virginia to teach a 3 day ASA104 sailing class, and on the following weekend an ASA103 class. On the 104 class you go on a short cruise, so we went from Willoughby Bay (where the sailing school is located) to our home marina of Morningstar at Little Creek for a night, over to Cape Charles for a night and then back to Willoughby Bay. I had a great group for the 104 class including Griff (who was in one of my ASA101 classes this spring) and Richard. Richards mechanical background came in handy when we ended up helping out with a fuel leak on another boat. Griff gave us a golf cart tour of Cape Charles since his parents live there and let us borrow their cart. An interesting sight at Cape Charles was a seaplane that had landed and was motoring into the marina.
Near the end of our return to Willoughby, we had furled the sails since there was a thunderstorm coming in. However, the engine overheat alarm when off right before we were about to go into Willoughby Bay. We turned the engine off, unfurled the headsail and were able to sail into Willoughby since we could go through the channel on a broad reach. Fortunately, we just needed to clean out the strainer since we picked up some seagrass, so we were able to turn the engine back on after letting it cool for a few minutes and verify the raw water was flowing to cool the engine. There was a notable breeze in an inconvenient direction for docking, but we got tied up successfully thanks to the nice work of the crew.
The following weekend I taught an ASA103 class including a couple of students that had taken ASA101 with me. You get to know people pretty quickly while sailing and it’s nice to see people again as they come back to take more classes. There wasn’t much wind the first day so we did a lot of docking practice, but we got some good sailing in the second day. Everyone had a good attitude despite the heat and humidity that weekend.
Right after that, I flew to Mackinac Island where Albatross had just finished 3rd in the cruising division of Chicago to Mackinac Race. It was pleasant change of weather to arrive in Mackinac where there was a cool breeze. I’ve never seen so many boats rafted up together. The island is packed with sailboats after the race. For the delivery crew to return the boat to Chicago, there was Fernando (the owner of Albatross), Matt, Mike, and I. Mike, Matt and I rented bikes and rode the loop around the island which is a great way to see the sights. It’s quite nice to get out and away from the crowd. We stopped for a break halfway through and ended up talking with the engineer at the Grand Hotel. He grew up on nearby Bois Blanc Island and gave us some local history. We got underway the next morning. Unfortunately the winds were not in our favor so it was a motoring trip. It was my first time to go underneath the bridge at the Straights of Mackinac and the first time going the entire length of Lake Michigan. We arrived at Chicago at dawn in flat calm, so you could see the reflection of the skyline on the water.
Next weekend we are headed back to get our boat from the boat yard in Oxford, MD and start our cruise south. We are looking forward to cruising on Zephyr again!
SAILING ISLAND ZEPHYR 
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