Cedar Key Small Boat Meet 2014

This was the 30th anniversary of the big bash at Cedar Key. As always we were really looking forward to this event. It's the highlight of the year for small boat messing about. Two weeks out the long range weather forecast was calling for rain Thursday through mid day Saturday. I've got to hand it to the weather nerds, they really nailed it this time as the rain started Thursday and cleared out Saturday afternoon.

A few folks couldn't wait and headed out Saturday before it cleared up. Photo by Hugh Horton.

We waited it out.



Once we headed out the first boat we met was Mike Jones' gorgeous William Garden Eel "Aunt Louise"

Everglades Challenge veteran Harry Tomlinson "Goke" in his Bufflehead.

Rob Hazard brought his yawl rigged Goat Island Skiff. It's so much fun sailing in company with a sister-ship.

Goat fun.

Beached on Atsena Oatie to check out all the other cool boats. Our Goat in foreground and Doug Engh's Penobscot 17 in the background.

One of the coolest boats this year was the famous Rob White Rescue Minor piloted by his son Wes.  The green hull is a Robb White Sport Boat. 

Hugh Horton arrives with "Bufflehead".

 Saturday mid afternoon the weather had become ideal for venturing out on a small expedition to Snake Key with a stop at Grassy Key. 

 "Goat" and Bill Ling's Sailing Canoe "Aku".

 Meade Gougeon's EC first-in-class rocket ship "Voyager" and "Bufflehead".

 Snake Key.

 Hugh arriving at Snake Key.

 Running through the interior cut on Snake Key.

The cool thing about this shot is that Hugh was taking the next one at about the same time.

Too much fun! Photo by Hugh Horton.

    

 Eventually we headed back in and were last in line for the feast. Geoff Chick's Yakaboo II also heading back in.

Rob's GIS heading back to Island Place beach.

Saturday evening in front of Island Place.

Love the Bahamas dinghy colors.

 Sailing canoes up for the night.

Goat is so light we pull out for the night like the canoe guys do.

Dinner time view.

Sunday and Monday I hung out with the sailing canoes. The sailing conditions were absolutely perfect.  Here we are on our way to North Key.

North Key.

This thing working?

 Exploring North Key.

 Goat can go pretty much where the canoes go but hitting oyster bars with the dagger board is a lot more exciting. Down wind we were generally OK with the board out and an occasional scrape. Up wind amongst the oyster bars was quite interesting. Bard (Hugh's son) was my able crew and he had a workout tending to the board. At one point it got so bad that Bard was poling us along with the dagger board. Fun times.

Ghosting along on the lee side of North Key.

 White pelicans on the way back to Cedar Key.

Packing up Tuesday. Pretty much the last ones to leave.



9th Annual Traditional Small Craft Festival

Sarasota Sailing Squadron are excellent hosts for the festival and the location is outstanding. The weather however had other plans and the forecast for 20+ knot winds and rain kept a lot of folks away. Dave Jennings, the organizer of this event says "I have come to the conclusion if the weather event is not "named" I will not change my plans." We agree except since we are a bit wimpier we add a low temperature clause. We love to just hang out at the SSS and soak up the atmosphere so the weather really did not dampen our spirits. Friday was a washout but Saturday turned out OK albeit a bit on the windy side. None of the small craft ventured out so we spent the day relaxing and talking boats. The winds let up Sunday and several of us had a great time just messing about.

Every once in a while the sun would come out and light up the colors. Did not get a chance to find out much about this good looking sharpie.

Kent and Barbara Blakely's classic Sea Pearl, #8 was one of only a couple boats to venture out on Saturday. A couple reefs in the lug rig and 6 people for ballast worked well. Oh, the other boat to go out was a Puddle Duck Racer, of course!



 

Check out the illusion of the sail logo looking transparent with the background condos showing through. The logo background is opaque off-white not transparent.

 

Very nicely restored sailing Whitehall.

 

22' Melonseed with all kinds of gadgets including a tiller pilot.

 

Mike Jones brought this new-to-him William Garden Eel. A very cool little cruiser.

 

Lots of us had a turn sitting in the cockpit making sailing noises.

 

We've seen this big Skipjack before.  She's an impressive sight. Took the owner 9 1/2 years to build.

 

A couple Abaco Dinghies, a Penobscot 17 and a Goat dagger board.

 

Sunday morning, winds were light but they built into the teens during the day. 

 

This is a crop of the previous photo.  Check out how little of the Goat is in the water with just me and a bottle of drinking water onboard.

 

Tom Busenlener's Phoenix III  "Rascal" heading out Sunday.

 

Doug Engh's Penobscot 17 "Ransom II"

 

Dabbler sails setting nicely.

 

Penobscot 17, Sea Pearl, Goat and Pheonix III just messing about.

 

Doug and I went back out on the Penobscot Sunday afternoon.  The winds were now in the low teens gusting to maybe 15-16.  We had full sail up and the boat stayed balanced and handled very nicely.

 

Ron Hoddinott took a bunch of great pictures of the boats on display. You can see them here on the WCTSS photo gallery page.

 

 

And Now for Something Completely Different

Not doing any sailing lately but we did make it to Sun-n-Fun. In case you are not an airplane nut, Sun-n-Fun is the second largest airshow after Oshkosh. It's a great time and only an hour away from our house. We were in a good spot and the light was right to get a few decent shots of the Blue Angels.

 Wing tip to adjacent airplane's canopy is 18 inches.....really. Look it up.

 

 

 

 

"Fat Albert" the Blue Angels support aircraft.

 

Not something you see every day, P-51, P-38 and F-22.

 

Shiny show-planes.

 

Hinge and latch mechanism on the Grumman Avenger's folding wing is a work of art. Ridiculously small and light considering what it has to do. Why do we not have push-button hydraulically operated folding masts on our boats? Oh yeah, sailboats are of no military value.

 

Matt Younkin puts on an impressive show in the Beech 18.

 

 Just Aircraft's Super STOL. One of my favorite planes at the show. This thing will take off and land in less than 100ft. A lot less in the hands of an experienced STOL pilot.

 

 

As dirty as it gets on final. Deployed leading edge slats clearly visible. That's an autogyro in the background.

 

We camped with friends at the show and watched the night aerobatics from the campsite while sipping refreshments.  Yes that is an airplane doing aerobatics while spewing fireworks.  Pretty awesome for airplane-nut pyromaniacs. You know who you are.

 



Everglades Challenge 2014 Start

It's that time of the year.  The EC started this morning and for once the weather was beautiful.   A record number of boats lined up at the start.  I heard that there are about 140 competitors this year but have not confirmed that.  Whatever the number it's the biggest turnout yet.  Here's a quickie iPhone video of some of the start.



"Meade's Island" daysail

To celebrate being the only state without snow on the ground I joined the WCTSS for a daysail.  We have not been on the water in quite some time and it was good to get back out there.  Several  folks braved the relatively chilly 62 degrees with 15kn winds and we had a fun time catching up on the beach.

Launching at Pop Stansell Park in Palm Harbor. It's a nice beach launch, perfect for small boats and kayaks.

Ron and Whisper coming in at top speed.  Whisper flew at 9kn-10kn on the down wind run to "Meade's Island"

 Eric and Jane Devoe's beautiful Welsford  Houdini, Belafonte in the foreground.  We met up on the beach at "Meade's Island"  We call it "Meade's Island" because it's in front of Meade Gougeon's house.

Pulling out at the end of a great day