Joan III sailed HMR 2012 and back through ICW
Joan III pictures > The Crew > Links to other's videos and pictures > Course, Weather and Log
Below is a narrative of the Regatta and the trip back home. There is also a picture series telling the same story as well as a copy of the Log maintained during these days.
The regatta started Thursday November 25 but the preparations for the Harvest Moon Regatta have started long before. Using the ISAF checklist Joan III was almost ready in 2011 but business made sailing out and back impossible.
Joan III is an Alberg 37 and this year is her 37th anniversary. Quite a good celebration for this young lady (compared to the crew that is).
Since then the crew has been training in various regattas and Joan III has been brought back to off-shore condition stimulating the Gulf economy!
11/25 Thursday
We headed out to Waterford Harbor and the crew got stuck in traffic so we were a little bit late. Lots of stores to put on board to feed 5 people for 5 days.
Joan Eischen (foredeck), Ken McMillen (foredeck), John Riddell (2nd watch captain) and Bill Courtney (1st watch captain and navigator) as crew and Maarten van Hasselt as skipper.
On the engine to Galveston which always takes a bit longer that expected. Underway used time to store everything. Bill and Maarten had a thorough look at the weather forecasts and concluded that the stronger winds would reach us in the early morning of Friday.
Barely on time fro the start and literally from engine off to start without pause or spare time. Lots of boats milling around with a 5-10mph breeze. After sailing free from everyone we settled into a routine of watches. See the log.
We left the Freeport outer marker at SB and reported in to a nearby competitor. We also made a picture but in the darkness you don't see much more than a faint light.
That night the wind died and we spent many hours rolling in the swell without much progress. Many shrimpers around that kept the skipper busy.
11/26 Friday
Before the cold front came through we reefed the mainsail in just to be prepared as there was no wind at all and we know that the fronts in Texas pass very suddenly. This indeed happened and within an hour we had NE winds at 15-20mph. We had a fortunately short spell of fog which is always a less than pleasant experience knowing that there are boats and oil rigs everywhere.
Later the wind came through with almost constant 20-25mph and gusts to 30. We have put in a second reef and rolled the genoa in to 40% and had the storm jib at the ready. We still did over 7 knots and sometimes surfing of the waves we saw 11 knots on the meter (but doubt whether this happened during a long time). The Dutchman system is unmanageable with a beam reach and we had to cut this loose more made for light weather.
When the sun came out around midday it all looked fantastic and it warmed up a bit though no one changed into lighter gear. Maarten actually got completely soaked on the fore-deck and had to change but kept the long underwear dry.
Arriving at Port Aransas Pass there were more yachts around not all that prepared and one actually ignoring starboard completely so we had to take evasive action and sail all around other boats and a shrimper loosing at least 30 minutes. There is quite a cross current and we had to sail back east after rounding the marker to be able to make the jetties. Finished at 18:52:52. Satisfied with a fast and very nice sail.
We had the engine in standby and after putting sails down made our way to the Moorings Marina. Moored and had dinner on board where the two bottles of red quickly vanished. One bottle was a survivor of Ike on board Joan II and it was a good moment to be able to open that bottle after a successful HMR on our own yacht.
We had great hospitality at Bill and Steph Courtney's house and must have snored loudly after a tiring two days.
11/27 Saturday
No one too early. Breakfast and a quick look at the Joan III to make sure all was well cleaned up after leaving in the dark. Delivered the finish sheet and had a very good lunch, a relaxing time and then a very good dinner. We arrived in time for the prizes and saw that we ended 63rd in the non spinnaker cruising class out of 119 boats finished. Some boats including our nemesis Big D actually had given up and went into Matagorda. In our class we had 3rd prize which is a nice memory of the regatta as it is a small wooden steering wheel that fits nicely on the bulkhead.
11/28 Sunday
Back on board and off to the Inter Coastal Waterway. Breezy and still cold after the front. Many other participants in a long line out of Port Aransas back home as well. Distracted by a large oil rig being towed into the Aransas Pass to Corpus Cristi we briefly ran aground in the mud, with the water being sucked away by the rig transport that meant heeling quite a bit but the waves helped us to bounce off and continue the trip.
The engine had always presented problems in starting and getting to maximum revolutions and this morning was a particular difficult start (even the previous owner had accepted this as a given issue that was just part of the engine). It was a warning. Heeling over the engine lost rpms but recovered and we continued our trip with plan B to hoist the sails and race back to PA. Most passed us with our engine running slow. After an hour the engine really started to behave problematic and was clearly fuel starved. We decided to go to Rockport to investigate and repair rather than limping on and run into problems later on with all the barge traffic around us.
Nice clean facility in Rockport marina on SB when going into the entrance of the large harbor. Moored at the fuel dock after calling the port. Very friendly and again very clean. Fueled to see whether it was a pick up line issue. No.
Cleaned and replaced the Racor: dirty but nothing special. No change.
With Ken checked all the hose clamps and found many loose.
With the manual in one hand and the mirror in the other hand followed the fuel lines and decided to clean the water/fuel filter and the fuel pump internal filter. These clearly had NEVER been opened or changed as they had the Vetus yellow paint all over. Many dark curses uttered about our mechanic (now former mechanic!). We had no filter wrench (nor did they ave one in the yard) so we improvised a tool with a line and wrench (glad that my father once showed me how to do that).
Bill and John in a taxi (Sunday in Rockport!) to find the replacement filter for the water/fuel separator. Meanwhile Maarten and Ken dismantled the fuel pump (of course awkwardly placed under the air intake) also full of crud and small particles. Cleaned with a toothbrush. The replacement filter turned out to be just a bit too long so we had to improvise the bracket a bit.
After 4 hours all filters back in place all hose clamps fixed and....started the engine that ran as never before! Finally the horrible stuttering in neutral was gone and the engine came up to max rpm easily and with a nice even noise. Test ran for about 20' at 2500rpm. Cleaned up in the nice bathrooms of the yard and back out continuing our journey.
Very nice tour. The ICW is definitely worth a trip and we all enjoyed it. We even had dolphins following us. Of course our plan to be around cocktail hour in Port O'Connor fell through and we arrived after 2300. Though they had guaranteed us that there would be plenty of place of course by now all the HMRs had claimed the few places of this white elephant project. The plan must have been for a 100s of slips but the crisis limited the housing project and we didn't think there were more that 50 slips. Options were anchoring, nosing ourseves behind someones slip or improvising at the pier next to the launching area for trailer boats. Just enough water to do the latter. Nice showers. Cold night and according to the crew a very cold night with the hatches open and of course no heating.
11/29 Monday
Early start and at daybreak after showers off to Freeport. Passed some locks (more gates that keep the Colorado and Brazos rivers out of the ICW and they are normally open). Strong current in the lock and glad we could trust the engine to give some more power. In the first lock they closed a set of doors behind us that helped us to get through.
Lots of barges and later after a wonderful sunset and moon rise a good exercise in navigation lights of different barges and close to Freeport dredgers against all the Freeport lights. Passed the large LNG facility and crossed the Freeport Pass to reach the Surfside Marina around 2130. Surprisingly we were at Freeport at exactly the same time as we were on Thursday night abeam of the marker.
Here our reserved place was kept and we had a number of fellow HMR sailors of which one that had been towed in with a panoply of navigation lights that gave a lot of barge captain something to complain about. Well they use these enormous lights on you so that is not very pleasant either. Great service by the night watch of the yard. Ice for our drinks and decent showers.
Another cold night.
11/30 Tuesday
Up very early and now with electricity ran the heating because it must have been close to 40F and very humid. Decided to use the moment for an early shower (hot this time) and left early in the dark for the last stretch. We were able to top up the diesel tank with the great system they have where you don't have to move to the fuel dock but they come to you (on the east side of the harbor at least).
A quiet and uneventful trip back to Waterford Harbor. We did put the sails up but there was little wind and we thought that enough was enough. Dolphins playing next to Joan III, seems that they like to play.
During the last bit of the trip tidied up and packed and on arrival quick mooring, cleaning most of the salt of the boat (the snake kept one pier clean the snake-less pier was a duck bathroom again).
Some 350nm of which 152 racing on the GoM. Some 30 hours of sailing and 40 hours of engine. Apart from having to cut down the Dutchman system, loosing two wrneches in the bilge (well they are still in the inventory) a bump on John's head and another one on Maarten's shins no damage.
We missed few things and more than enough food to continue some more days. The home baked protein bars with pumpkin were the culinary success. We missed cup-holders to avoid getting coffee over your hands, ran almost out of coffee and would have liked to have a mid-size jib for the Solent stay but then again there is always a list of things to buy and to do!
A noteworthy long weekend. Hopefully we will have a repeat in 2013 with the full crew in good health with fair winds.
Below is a narrative of the Regatta and the trip back home. There is also a picture series telling the same story as well as a copy of the Log maintained during these days.
The regatta started Thursday November 25 but the preparations for the Harvest Moon Regatta have started long before. Using the ISAF checklist Joan III was almost ready in 2011 but business made sailing out and back impossible.
Joan III is an Alberg 37 and this year is her 37th anniversary. Quite a good celebration for this young lady (compared to the crew that is).
Since then the crew has been training in various regattas and Joan III has been brought back to off-shore condition stimulating the Gulf economy!
11/25 Thursday
We headed out to Waterford Harbor and the crew got stuck in traffic so we were a little bit late. Lots of stores to put on board to feed 5 people for 5 days.
Joan Eischen (foredeck), Ken McMillen (foredeck), John Riddell (2nd watch captain) and Bill Courtney (1st watch captain and navigator) as crew and Maarten van Hasselt as skipper.
On the engine to Galveston which always takes a bit longer that expected. Underway used time to store everything. Bill and Maarten had a thorough look at the weather forecasts and concluded that the stronger winds would reach us in the early morning of Friday.
Barely on time fro the start and literally from engine off to start without pause or spare time. Lots of boats milling around with a 5-10mph breeze. After sailing free from everyone we settled into a routine of watches. See the log.
We left the Freeport outer marker at SB and reported in to a nearby competitor. We also made a picture but in the darkness you don't see much more than a faint light.
That night the wind died and we spent many hours rolling in the swell without much progress. Many shrimpers around that kept the skipper busy.
11/26 Friday
Before the cold front came through we reefed the mainsail in just to be prepared as there was no wind at all and we know that the fronts in Texas pass very suddenly. This indeed happened and within an hour we had NE winds at 15-20mph. We had a fortunately short spell of fog which is always a less than pleasant experience knowing that there are boats and oil rigs everywhere.
Later the wind came through with almost constant 20-25mph and gusts to 30. We have put in a second reef and rolled the genoa in to 40% and had the storm jib at the ready. We still did over 7 knots and sometimes surfing of the waves we saw 11 knots on the meter (but doubt whether this happened during a long time). The Dutchman system is unmanageable with a beam reach and we had to cut this loose more made for light weather.
When the sun came out around midday it all looked fantastic and it warmed up a bit though no one changed into lighter gear. Maarten actually got completely soaked on the fore-deck and had to change but kept the long underwear dry.
Arriving at Port Aransas Pass there were more yachts around not all that prepared and one actually ignoring starboard completely so we had to take evasive action and sail all around other boats and a shrimper loosing at least 30 minutes. There is quite a cross current and we had to sail back east after rounding the marker to be able to make the jetties. Finished at 18:52:52. Satisfied with a fast and very nice sail.
We had the engine in standby and after putting sails down made our way to the Moorings Marina. Moored and had dinner on board where the two bottles of red quickly vanished. One bottle was a survivor of Ike on board Joan II and it was a good moment to be able to open that bottle after a successful HMR on our own yacht.
We had great hospitality at Bill and Steph Courtney's house and must have snored loudly after a tiring two days.
11/27 Saturday
No one too early. Breakfast and a quick look at the Joan III to make sure all was well cleaned up after leaving in the dark. Delivered the finish sheet and had a very good lunch, a relaxing time and then a very good dinner. We arrived in time for the prizes and saw that we ended 63rd in the non spinnaker cruising class out of 119 boats finished. Some boats including our nemesis Big D actually had given up and went into Matagorda. In our class we had 3rd prize which is a nice memory of the regatta as it is a small wooden steering wheel that fits nicely on the bulkhead.
11/28 Sunday
Back on board and off to the Inter Coastal Waterway. Breezy and still cold after the front. Many other participants in a long line out of Port Aransas back home as well. Distracted by a large oil rig being towed into the Aransas Pass to Corpus Cristi we briefly ran aground in the mud, with the water being sucked away by the rig transport that meant heeling quite a bit but the waves helped us to bounce off and continue the trip.
The engine had always presented problems in starting and getting to maximum revolutions and this morning was a particular difficult start (even the previous owner had accepted this as a given issue that was just part of the engine). It was a warning. Heeling over the engine lost rpms but recovered and we continued our trip with plan B to hoist the sails and race back to PA. Most passed us with our engine running slow. After an hour the engine really started to behave problematic and was clearly fuel starved. We decided to go to Rockport to investigate and repair rather than limping on and run into problems later on with all the barge traffic around us.
Nice clean facility in Rockport marina on SB when going into the entrance of the large harbor. Moored at the fuel dock after calling the port. Very friendly and again very clean. Fueled to see whether it was a pick up line issue. No.
Cleaned and replaced the Racor: dirty but nothing special. No change.
With Ken checked all the hose clamps and found many loose.
With the manual in one hand and the mirror in the other hand followed the fuel lines and decided to clean the water/fuel filter and the fuel pump internal filter. These clearly had NEVER been opened or changed as they had the Vetus yellow paint all over. Many dark curses uttered about our mechanic (now former mechanic!). We had no filter wrench (nor did they ave one in the yard) so we improvised a tool with a line and wrench (glad that my father once showed me how to do that).
Bill and John in a taxi (Sunday in Rockport!) to find the replacement filter for the water/fuel separator. Meanwhile Maarten and Ken dismantled the fuel pump (of course awkwardly placed under the air intake) also full of crud and small particles. Cleaned with a toothbrush. The replacement filter turned out to be just a bit too long so we had to improvise the bracket a bit.
After 4 hours all filters back in place all hose clamps fixed and....started the engine that ran as never before! Finally the horrible stuttering in neutral was gone and the engine came up to max rpm easily and with a nice even noise. Test ran for about 20' at 2500rpm. Cleaned up in the nice bathrooms of the yard and back out continuing our journey.
Very nice tour. The ICW is definitely worth a trip and we all enjoyed it. We even had dolphins following us. Of course our plan to be around cocktail hour in Port O'Connor fell through and we arrived after 2300. Though they had guaranteed us that there would be plenty of place of course by now all the HMRs had claimed the few places of this white elephant project. The plan must have been for a 100s of slips but the crisis limited the housing project and we didn't think there were more that 50 slips. Options were anchoring, nosing ourseves behind someones slip or improvising at the pier next to the launching area for trailer boats. Just enough water to do the latter. Nice showers. Cold night and according to the crew a very cold night with the hatches open and of course no heating.
11/29 Monday
Early start and at daybreak after showers off to Freeport. Passed some locks (more gates that keep the Colorado and Brazos rivers out of the ICW and they are normally open). Strong current in the lock and glad we could trust the engine to give some more power. In the first lock they closed a set of doors behind us that helped us to get through.
Lots of barges and later after a wonderful sunset and moon rise a good exercise in navigation lights of different barges and close to Freeport dredgers against all the Freeport lights. Passed the large LNG facility and crossed the Freeport Pass to reach the Surfside Marina around 2130. Surprisingly we were at Freeport at exactly the same time as we were on Thursday night abeam of the marker.
Here our reserved place was kept and we had a number of fellow HMR sailors of which one that had been towed in with a panoply of navigation lights that gave a lot of barge captain something to complain about. Well they use these enormous lights on you so that is not very pleasant either. Great service by the night watch of the yard. Ice for our drinks and decent showers.
Another cold night.
11/30 Tuesday
Up very early and now with electricity ran the heating because it must have been close to 40F and very humid. Decided to use the moment for an early shower (hot this time) and left early in the dark for the last stretch. We were able to top up the diesel tank with the great system they have where you don't have to move to the fuel dock but they come to you (on the east side of the harbor at least).
A quiet and uneventful trip back to Waterford Harbor. We did put the sails up but there was little wind and we thought that enough was enough. Dolphins playing next to Joan III, seems that they like to play.
During the last bit of the trip tidied up and packed and on arrival quick mooring, cleaning most of the salt of the boat (the snake kept one pier clean the snake-less pier was a duck bathroom again).
Some 350nm of which 152 racing on the GoM. Some 30 hours of sailing and 40 hours of engine. Apart from having to cut down the Dutchman system, loosing two wrneches in the bilge (well they are still in the inventory) a bump on John's head and another one on Maarten's shins no damage.
We missed few things and more than enough food to continue some more days. The home baked protein bars with pumpkin were the culinary success. We missed cup-holders to avoid getting coffee over your hands, ran almost out of coffee and would have liked to have a mid-size jib for the Solent stay but then again there is always a list of things to buy and to do!
A noteworthy long weekend. Hopefully we will have a repeat in 2013 with the full crew in good health with fair winds.