June 12 - NYC to Port Jefferson, Long Island

What a beautiful day to sail, sunny, cool, windy. Unfortunately, our expected companions for the first three days of the trip, Rhoda and Lloyd, from the Harlem, had to cancel due to illness. They were the first members of our Club to see ILENE afloat, in 2006, in Annapolis, at the end of a Windjammer type cruise that let them off there. They have sailed with us several times since then. We have learned that  Rhoda will be OK.

We slipped our mooring at 11:00 and arrived at the dock of the Seatauket YC at 4:10. This due to strong winds from the north, near our beam. It was a two jibe course, the first at Big Tom No. 2 bouy, a mile from home, under full main and small jib. Ilene handled the wheel during the jibes in mid-season form, giving me great joy. Then a port beam reach until we were about to enter the PJ channel by which time we had up only the single reefed main, and were making 5.5 knots. We sailed deeply into PJ and  dropped sail and motored the last three minutes. Other than these three minutes and about 30 seconds shortly after we slipped our home mooring, when, due to poor communications, we came too close to another boat before we had great way on, we sailed the whole way. Top speed was 9.5 knots and long distances at 8.5 knots. When the wind hit 22 knots, we put a reef in the main, which did not slow us down. The western part of the north shore of Long Island, which we hugged, is in the form of a curve. As one gets further from New York City, the course curves more east and less north, putting the wind a bit aft of the beam instead of in front of it, a more comfortable ride. And the wind speed decreased from 18-20  down to 12 - 15 as well. 

Here are two blond cats relaxing in the aft port quarter of the cockpit, underway.












And with Alfie Girl, in the forward swtarboard corner of the cockpit, at 7 knots.

At the Seatauket, we were helped tying to the dock to fill our water tanks. And then problems emerged. Not from the staff here, but from ILENE’s water system. We could not get fresh water to flow out of the faucets and taps (except from the cockpit shower) even though the electric fresh water pressure pump was humming away. I called Bob, from “Pandora” who gave helpful suggestions. But they did not help. I noticed that the bilge pump was pushing out too much water which was refilling back in too rapidly. And you have to look in the bilge to tell when the water tanks are full -- water then runs into the bilge through tubes from each fresh water tank. So getting my face close to the open bilge with a flashlight, I saw that the water was entering from a tube under the base of the mast – from the front of the boat, and that it came that way when the fresh water pump was on, and stopped when the fresh water pump was turned off. So the reason that water was not coming to the faucets was that the pumped water was flowing into the bilge instead. But from where? If we can stop this leak, there will be pressurized water to the faucets. “Let’s worry about that after dinner” said Lene. The staff at Seatauket let us stay on their dock for the night, for no extra charge over the $50 mooring fee, due to our mechanical trouble.

The Steam Room here in Port Jeff is not a recommended restaurant in our opinion, though I thought the rice was good; but that’s damning with faint praise.

Then I took to tearing apart the plastic cabinetry of the forward head, so I could get to see where the hoses connect to the fixtures where I thought I would find the loose connection. Almost everything on this boat is put together with stainless steel wood screws, seemingly thousands of them. But things do come apart easily, though they take longer to put back together again. The result: No leak found. But by virtue of this process, we deduced that the leak had to be under our bed, that is, forward of the mast but aft of the forward head. More screw removal revealed the problem: our water maker has three filters, one of them, the 5 micron charcoal one, is in a clear plastic “bowl". The bowl was shattered and the charcoal filter lay below, broken, in water. Turn on the fresh water pump and water gushes down from its head.  So in the morning we need to order the replacement parts, and in the meantime we have cold fresh water delivered to our galley sink via a foot operated pump.  A deal calm night here at the dock and a good night’s sleep.