Westsail 28

When I’m happy with this system I’ll post details (photos/instructions) on how to rig it and what you need… until then I’m keeping it vague. This is really dangerous. If you haven’t done a fair bit of climbing I’d advise against rigging systems like this. They’re really easy to screw up - and there are no second chances once your 30+ feet off the ground.

I bought three Petzl pulleys and a bozun chair to try to get up the mast a bit easier.

The bozun chair (which you wear in conjunction with a climbing harness) was a huge improvement… it was actually comfortable.

The 3:1 pulley system I rigged made it fairly easy to haul my self up. I put two pulleys up top (attached to the main sail halyard and the topping life [redundancy is the climbers best friend]) and one pulley and an ascender attached to my harness/chair. You need at least 3 times your mast height in rope (used climbing rope and, if you’re buying new, get static line or no stretch climbing rope [sometimes called big wall rope or rappelling rope or canyoneering rope - like this stuff]). A 3:1 pulley system makes it so you only need to lift 1/3 of your weight (for me that’s about 83 lbs… which is very do-able - it was actually kind of easy.

But, I ran into the following problems. One - getting off a loaded ascender and onto a belay device so you can rappel down is kind of tricky. I order a rescucender which will hopefully fix this but, it’s not to bad with a plain old ascender - you just need to hook up and clip in to your figure 8 (belay device) below the ascender, unweight the ascender by pulling on the rope above it, and release the lock… watch your fingers doing this and, for the love of god, make sure you’re clipped in.

The other (bigger problem) is that, once up there, I was too low to work on the top of the mast. I ordered an etrier (basically a series of foot loops) to try to get around this… but, it’s going to be pretty far from optimal.

Anyway - short of putting in mast steps this is the best, solo system I’ve found for going up the stick. It worked well, had redundancy, was moderately comfortable and pretty straight forward to rig. Given all the old climbing gear I had it wasn’t even that expensive.

I’m pretty sure Jason is just convinced I’m out of my fucking mind at this point. But, he’s the one going to Idaho this weekend.

You know you’re living small when your kayak is nearly as long as your boat.

Strange - that blue hat - it’s green… I guess that’s a fisheye thing.

So, I’ve been living aboard now for 3 months (all summer) and, I have to say, it’s the best summer I’ve had in a really long time.  The live-aboard/sailing life is everything I remembered from my Boston days:  great people, fun parties, awesome minimalist life style and, of course, lots of sailing.  It’s had it’s down sides but, they’re so minor (no room, no refrigerator, horrible showers).

I was really worried that I’d elevated the boat days in Boston onto some podium that never really existed.  You know how memory does that - you remember the good and forget the bad.  But, I’m happy to say that living on a boat is about as good as it gets.

I’m pretty worried about winter (and the rain that comes with that) but, with the rain, comes a lot of wind - so, that should be fun.  I’ve met a few nut-cases (I mean that in the best possible way) that seem eager to go out and push the enveloped during winter storms - so, that should be fun.

So - if you’re thinking about taking the leap from land to sea my advice is - do it!  (well, get on the live-aboard wait list first).

Quarter Master Harbor on Vashon Island is only 30 or so miles away from Shilshole but, moving at 4mph that’s still a 7+ hour motor.

Against everything we’ve learned sailing we took off Saturday morning with an abysmal wind forecast: Nada on Saturday, 90 degree temps; rain and 20mph from S for Sunday. So, Saturday would be all motoring - blah. But Sunday would be a ripping reach back and, even given rain, that could have been fun. Basically - sailing on a schedule is for dummies.

All pics up here. (in the usual screwy order that flickr does)

The motor down was about as boring as motors get… 90+ degrees, no wind, straight line, could more or less see the end point the whole time. We had beer, we survived and got some good shots of some of the boats on the way down:

Mike’s Straightshot - gotta love a hull you have to varnish (looks nice though!)

Fisher’s White Cloud in front of Mt. Rainier

The Ken’s on Totoro (leased from Island Sailing Club)

We all ended up staying at Dockton Park (Map) about half way up Quarter Master Harbor. $22/night which includes pump out, showers, bathrooms (flush toilets) but no trash dumpster. Nice park - but we didn’t walk around much. You could also anchor there and row in and get all this for free.

Everything was going smoothly (i.e. everyone was drinking) until Gary had a seizure and fell off Mike’s boat. Luckily Cathy and Les were there and jumped in after him - saving his life. Good job guys! Fisher and I pulled him out of the water (sorry about scraping your back Gary!) and a doctor who just happened to be at the dock took over from there, stripping off his clothes, covering him with blankets, testing his blood sugar, checking for water in the lungs, etc. The EMT’s got there in about 15 minutes and the Medics a few minutes later.

Gina and I walked over to the ambulance with the medics to hand off what we could find of Gary’s things. Ken and I gave them our phone numbers and assumed he was going to Harbor View Hosptial (via ferry on the mainland).

About 10 minutes later they called me and said Gary was refusing medical treatment. I tried to talk him out of it but, they ended up releasing him into my care - even though he wasn’t on my boat and I told them I barely knew him.

Gina’s got experience with epileptics and said that it usually takes a while to come back to normal… which was definitely the case with Gary. He didn’t know where he was, what boat he was on, who any of us were, was extremely tired (as in kept lying down while walking and going to sleep) and wasn’t very cooperative with the people trying to help him (no fault of his own though). Gina took care of him while I prepped dinner and then she finally convinced/forced him to go to Fisher’s boat and go to sleep (instead of spending the night on the dock).

To complicate matters Ken V (head of the PSG group) and Mike (owner of Straightshot - the boat Gary was on) were SCUBA diving for crabs the entire time this was going on.

No-one died or got seriously hurt. So, I guess it’s a happy ending. No pictures (felt inappropriate).

Towards the end of the seizure fiasco Jody on Hello Gorgeous came in (late, after towing Cricket earlier in the day to get gas when they ran out). He somehow got his spinnaker line wrapped around his prop and almost ran aground. I think he trashed his transmission and bent his shaft (pricey!) but was OK otherwise and did his usual gourmet-feast that anyone sailing with him gets to enjoy.

We did the usual party all night thing on the docks (sorry other boaters!) with Mike playing his guitar (he’s really good and might know every Dead song there is).

Mike and Gina

The next morning the weather report was looking good. Still 20 out of the SW. We all helped Hello Gorgeous get off the dock since she had no motor and a seriously jerry-rigged jib then prepared to leave ourselves.

Hello Gorgeous flying a small high tech jib as a drifter - worked surprisingly well!

I luckily was bored and decided to rig my stay-sail just in case. About 5 minutes after we left we hit squalls in the relatively tight harbor. We had the entire rail of the Westsail 28 burried until we dropped the jib and hoisted up the stay-sail. After that it was pretty easy going out of the harbor, where the wind died.

White Cloud under sail

We ended up having to motor home in pouring rain for 7-8 hours. Slingshot ended up towing Hello Gorgeous home.

Way, way, way too much motoring and entirely too much rain for August in Seattle.

We ended up finally pulling in around 8pm. Very wet and tired.

Kerry (my boss, or at least one of them) finally came out sailing the other night. We were worried it’d be dead but we actually had nice wind, but not so much wind that it interfered with drinking.

All pics up here.

Kerry and Carol

Ben - international man of failure in fashion (I think MIT offers that degree)

Fisher

I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen it rain in Seattle in August so, of course, the on deck party we planned came with poring rain and high winds. No worries - we finally figured out how many people you can stuff in a Westsail 28.

All pictures up in this set. Thanks to everyone who showed up.

One of Gina’s favorite restaurants is The Pancake Haus in Edmonds - so we went there for lunch. Their German Pancakes are great (burgers, not so good)

Seven people in a Westsail 28 is kind of ridiculous - not much room.

Someone gave Fisher a knife!

How very simple life would be
If only there were two of me
A Restless Me to drift and roam
A Quiet Me to stay at home.
A Searching One to find his fill
Of varied skies and newfound thrill
While sane and homely things are done
By the domestic Other One.

And that’s just where the trouble lies;
There is a Restless Me that cries
For chancy risks and changing scene,
For arctic blue and tropic green,
For deserts with their mystic spell,
For lusty fun and raising Hell,

But shackled to that Restless Me
My Other Self rebelliously
Resists the frantic urge to move.
It seeks the old familiar groove
That habits make. It finds content
With hearth and home — dear prisonment,
With candlelight and well-loved books
And treasured loot in dusty nooks,

With puttering and garden things
And dreaming while a cricket sings
And all the while the Restless One
Insists on more exciting fun,
It wants to go with every tide,
No matter where…just for the ride.
Like yowling cats the two selves brawl
Until I have no peace at all.

One eye turns to the forward track,
The other eye looks sadly back.
I’m getting wall-eyed from the strain,
(It’s tough to have an idle brain)
But One says “Stay” and One says “Go”
And One says “Yes,” and One says “No,”
And One Self wants a home and wife
And One Self craves the drifter’s life.

The Restless Fellow always wins
I wish my folks had made me twins.

A sad sight to see on any boat (car, home, etc.). But, hey, at least it’s a bottle.

This is Geometry 101 but, I’ve been meaning to figure this out for this boat for a while now. I’m not sure how high I can point but Wikipedia says most boats can do 35 to 45 degrees so I ran this for 30 to 50 degrees off wind. If you’re already bored and just want the short answer it is tacking up wind at the same speed as you’d motor up wind takes 1.2 to 1.4 times longer. If you want to brush up on your elementary school math then follow along… (there’s also a link to a Google spread sheet where you can play with these numbers).

So - basic 90 degree triangle stuff (so basic that I had to brush up on it here). I’ve included a really pathetic hand written explanation because I was too lazy to spend all day in SVG creating something wiz-bang because, well, this is a sailing blog.

So - basically - the wind is coming from C towards B. You’re tacking at B degrees off the wind heading for C and the distance you’re trying to cover is a units away (let’s say miles). Find for c.

So - it takes 3.05 times longer (in miles) to tack the distance from B to C.

You can play with all of this to your hearts content if you have a google account by following this link. If you don’t have a google account (silly you!) then you can view this data following this link.

Please (please!) point out all the ridiculous math errors I made. Math isn’t really my strong suit (I’m still not sure what is).

While we were up in Mats Mats I spotted this Westsail 28. Didn’t meet the owner though.

Mark called me up right before we left for the San Juans saying he’d seen this site and told me about his boat. Really nice looking 28 - teak decks, wood interior cabin top, gorgeous new main hatch (I need to do that too). Here’s the email he sent me:

hi Ben, we chatted briefly on the phone recently, i am Mark Hassinger, and live in Providence, RI area. I have a 1976 Westsail #18, and she is GYPSY, she has undergone a pretty significant re-fit . Amongst the things done, refastening and sanding of teak decks, new head liner, new standing and running rigging, new12volt wiring, , epoxied and sanded and painted cabin top, and new anti skid panels. Enclosed are some photos. Its good to see that you also love your boat, i will be moving on board in May of 09, and taking of cruising hopefully Nov 10, after retiring from fire dept, , be well Mark

re-fastened and sanded original teak decks

rebuilt main hatch, and cetol finish

new wood slat headliner

Thanks for the email Mark - hope to see you out there someday. We’ll be in Alaska next summer if you’re in the neighborhood!

You can contact Mark at: HBigtautog at aol dot com