This is actually old news but I had never heard of it. I ran accross mention of it on a DE owners website
In last year’s Baja Haha, we had a sailor fall asleep and the auto pilot took this Downeaster up on the beach at Santa Maria. She was lost a few days later.
and on a search came up with this report in Latitude 38.
For the record, Dachyon, the DownEast 38 that went aground north of Bahia Santa Maria was not part of the Ha-Ha fleet. But it’s not uncommon for Ha-Ha boats to come to the assistance of non-Ha-Ha boats, be they on the beach or otherwise disabled and in need of a tow. After all, helping others is part of the fun of cruising as well as part of the Ha-Ha ethos. By the way, we’re happy to report that Mark Cholewinski, who owned Tachyon, now has a new steel boat that he is fitting out for more cruising.
I’m very sorry to hear of the loss of a DE and for Mr. Cholewinski’s loss. Happily it looks like he has anew boat already. I think this happened in the fall of 2011.
The sun was up and the wind was down on Saturday April 30 2011, Sophi and I decided to sail. The only thing in our way was a North wind… let me explain, a north wind will push our boat back into our slip and or not allow us to point the pointy end east to get out of the dock area.
We had a plan tho, after a little puff we would back up quickly and hope we could turn the bow east and head out to sea, no luck, the wind prevented me from turning and pushed us back into our slip. we stopped and tried again, this time with a little better angle as we didn’t tie up to the dock. On try two, Seabird was pushed back into a slip but we did make progress as we fell into the next slip toward the open ocean. Thankfully a stranger who must have witnessed the goings-on came over and offered to help, I asked him to push the bow as hard as he could which he did and we barely avoided Hi Voltage, Central Maine Power’s service boat, then had to avoid a large fishing boat on the very end of Dillimo’s dock and a lobster boat on the Portland Pier side…. to say it was stressful would be an understatement; once we escaped the docks we both wanted to have a mooring. We took a second to breath then raised the main sail but it wasn’t until the engine was off before we could breathe.
I had the first reef in the main just to be safe until we rounded Bud Light, after seeing the conditions while facing the open ocean we set the sails for a downwind leg. Wing and Wing I was able to […]
It is cold out on the water of the Chesapeake. On Monday, Nov. 22, the first day of my 48th year, the sun was shining and the wind and waves were blasting me in the face. Hiding behind the dodger did nothing, I was soon shivering involuntarily thinking there were better ways to spend my life. The cold literally sunk into my bones. At the suggestion of both Michelle and my boss, I turned into Deltaville, Virginia, for a rendezvous with shore power at a dock. My electric blanket was looking pretty good.
I let a strong norther pass — it would have been a sleigh ride south but being a singlehander, it would also have meant going out on deck (and out on the fairly long bowsprit) to raise sails. With the waves growing, I decided against it. Falling off the boat would be A Bad Thing. No one would even know until Shadow Marie crashed into some rocks somewhere. That’s not a thought I like to conjure up. Being frozen fish food doesn’t sound so great, either.
The winds calmed and I took off for Norfolk. Of course what wind blew was on the nose and the cold was back with a flourish. I was happy to emerge from a gloomy day at sea to see a large American Flag flying at Hampton Roads. The electric blanket again sounded great so I decided a marina would be best over the anchorage I had planned. Michelle began calling around but, being Thanksgiving, none were open. She left messages, though, and one called her back. David Briggs, owner of Rebel Marina, invited me to tie up at a floating dock in his marina. When Michelle asked for the rate, he told her that he couldn’t […]
The people of Fiji are in general amazingly friendly and the customs folks were as well. Unfortunately while I was clearing out, it came up that Bodhran was at Vuda Point marina 12km down the road and not in front of the customs dock. The rule is that you need to be anchored in a specific spot off the dock for customs to clear you out, but they usually don’t leave the building to check if you’re there. I’d never heard of any boat actually being inspected before departure. They were very friendly and polite, but they wouldn’t clear us out with the boat in Vuda Point. Tiffany and I had taken a cab in to Lautoka to get our final provisioning done, clear customs and get off before noon so we could clear Nuvula Pass and get out of Fiji’s reef system before dark. Now we had to go back to Bodhran, motor 2 hours up to Lautoka and then deal with customs. There was a chance that we’d still be able to make the pass before dark, but alas when we reached the darkened customs office, the power was out and they couldn’t print off the form we needed. We waited for an hour or more before the power came back on, but then needed the immigration officer to return to stamp our passports. Finally everything was in order and we were all ready to go when they decided to inspect Bodhran. No big deal, but normally you do that with incoming vessels and there was no way the 3 of us would fit into my little skiff. So Tiffany stayed on shore while I skiffed the official out into a 15 knot headwind trying my best not to soak both of us. The inspection lasted all […]
After our 2 weeks trying to get my batteries replaced, we were definitely ready to get out and do some sailing. With a nice freshly painted bottom and clean prop, we easily made 6 knots motoring out of the marina. We had planned on going north up to the Yasawa Islands, but a fresh northeasterly wind dictated that we go back out to Musket Cove on Malolo Island. We spent a couple of days on Malolo waiting for the wind to turn out of the south, enjoying the water and sunshine in the rain shadow of Viti Levu.
After a couple of days a light southerly picked up and we got an early start heading north through the Mananutha Islands. Once clear of the reefs and shoals around Malolo we put up the spinnaker and had a nice run most of the way up to Navadra Island where we picked up a commercial dive mooring and had the entire island to ourselves with a building southerly blowing across the island. Unfortunately the reason that we had the bay to ourselves was the tendency for the ocean swell to wrap around the island and make for a rolly night. After the sun went down, we were minding our own business watching a movie on the laptop when I heard a boat pull up outside. It was a couple of locals from Waya Island 7 miles away who’d come over to spearfish in the dark of the new moon. When there’s no moon out, fish tend to just sit there even when you shine a dive light on them making them much easier to spear. The fellas were planning on staying out all night fishing, and wanted coffee and smokes to help them through. I didn’t […]
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