Just spent a week on a Core Sound 17

[John Turpin]

Last week, I crewed on Kevin Nicolin's CS17, Jubilee, in the 2010 Texas 200.  For once, we had wonderful weather.  Instead of the "too much wind" of the past years, this year we almost had "too little", but all in all it was a wonderful week of sailing.  Most days saw light winds in the mornings, but it would fill in nicely in the afternoons.  In a nice departure from past years, I don't think we had a gust over 20 mph all week.

But, back to the CS17.  I'd day sailed on Core Sounds and a Princess quite a few times over the years, but this was the first time that I've had serious tiller time for a full week of sailing.  I finally started to understand how to really sail a cat ketch and by the end of the week, my sails seemed to be trimming up pretty nicely.  Actually, on the first day, Jubilee beat the entire fleet into the first night's destination (with Travis' P22 hot on our heels).  The rest of the fleet arrived to see the two B&B boats already sitting snugly on the beach.  Heh heh heh.

The CS17 is a fun, well-behaved boat that quickly builds confidence in a helmsman.  Great experience.  Can't wait to see how the Lapwing compares.  I'll post some photos when I gather them up.

[DawnS]

Paul and I just spent 8 days on vacation at the NC Coast in our Core Sound 20 "Dawn Patrol", along with another boat, Steve Earley's John Welsford Pathfinder named "Spartina".  We had a great time.  I think I can now call myself a real sailor.  And I can't wait for our next trip.

Steve is a professional photographer and blogger, he's started posting pics and trip reports will follow at http://logofspartina.blogspot.com/

I too keep a blog and have started writing up the trip at http://sandybottomkayaker.blogspot.com/

We even managed to sail up to Graham's for a short visit when they were painting Marissa before leaving for Maine.

Dawn

[John Turpin]

Here we are, somewhere off the Texas Coast.

[SUKIE]

But wait, John, where are the lawn chairs, BBQ grill and hammock?? (all of which should be strapped to the foredeck). I can't believe you were out for a week without all the comforts! 

[John Turpin]

Yeah, it was fairly primitive camping.  Some boats took a lot of stuff, but we sailed light.  One boat brought a generator and a blender for making fruity drinks, but most boats treated this as the serious event that it is.  For food, we packed a small amount of freeze dried food and tiny backpacking stoves.  Kevin slept on the boat, but I had my cot tent and slept on shore.  The camping was all primitive in very remote places.  (But, they were often remarkably beautiful.)

If we had a luxury item, it was ice.  We loaded up with ice on the departure day and reprovisioned on day three.  We had cold drinks right up until we got back to civilization.  And, with record heat, we drank fluids non-stop.

For comfort items, I packed two small pillows and a plastic flamingo that stood guard next to my tent.  Even in the wild we can have tasteful lawn art!

[John Turpin]

The aforementioned Object d'art