Chaser 29 sailboat projects this season.

Since the beginning of the sailing season I have started a few projects on board the boat. One of them I mentioned in an earlier post. Completing the V-berth. When I purchased my Chaser 29 it slept 3. Two berths along side the cabin entry and a third in the bow of the boat.

At the beginning of the season this layout worked well for my family but over the last two month Myles has started to become more and more mobile. First it started with little scotches. Then he was spinning himself around in circles. It was decided that the quarter berths were no longer sufficient to hold him so I started to frame in V-berth. The photos below show the evolution of the V berth project. At this point I still need to get cushions and finish the wood work but I'm very happy with the directions things are headed.

Other little projects included mounting the anchor on the bow and doing a little re-bedding of various deck fittings nothing to big.






V Berth before + a little framing done but you get the idea.



V Berth forward of the baby stay. I have cut a little notch in the second piece of plywood and put a pull pin in place of the bolt holding the baby stay. This allows the baby stay to be easily removed if two adults were to be sleeping forward.




V Berth framed and plywood laid. Just need to paint it and get some cushions.




As you can see the little one has moved in already and the cushions aren't even made yet.



Little guy sleeping CSI style.

August 16th Chaser 29

This weekend Adam came out to sail. We had a great time out on the lake. About 5 hours of sailing around the bay. By the time we got back we looked a bit redder than when we left even with sunscreen. Today the redness is gone but my lips are sun burnt guess I need to get some spf chap stick for next time.

The Lake was really nice 2-3 ft waves with a steady breeze all day. The GPS shows a max speed of 7.6 knots while we were heading to weather! We were having quite a good time sailing with the 150 genoa. At the end of the day our average speed was 5.5 knots which isn't to shabby seems we did a bit of floating around under main sail only as we tried to sort out the rigging of the spinnaker. We did finally get the light weight chute up. However that was after we dropped it into the lake and tried to use it as a fishing net. Mental note if their is wind out on the lake it takes more than two people to handle the spinnaker. We managed to sail about halfway to Holland when we decided it was a good idea to peel the spinnaker back down and head back to the south. After all we weren't interested in beating ourselves up to much and the wind was coming from the southwest. A few short tacks and we were back in front of the Kalamazoo River. From there on out we just zig zagged around a bit. We sailed up the river as two other boats were sailing out. Then we headed back in to the marina to take a quick dip in the pool before grabbing a hot dog and heading home.

August 4th Tuesday timing is everything on a busy channel

What a night for sailing we got under way around 7:30 last night. We negotiated our way out of the channel slipping just in front of the chain ferry and out of the river smooth as could be. The wind was up and coming from the North. Exiting the channel we were looking at 2-3ft waves. As we set the main the fore deck crew realized we had a twist in it so it had to come back down but after a few moments of jiggling around. We were under way and a few minutes later we set the 120% Genoa. I love having all these sail choices. We sailed steadily out into the lake due west. Tacked as the sun began to set in a fiery ball of red and pink haze. As we neared the channel I could see the river boat red paddles heading back up the river. The last few times out I have been just in front of him or just behind him forcing me to make a course correction but not tonight. The river boat was well ahead of us tonight. To finish off the evening we sailed the boat straight back up into the harbor under full sail dropping the 120 in the channel and the main further up the river.