More Sushi Tower Pics

We are very pleased with how the Sushi Tower turned out on s/v Honey Ryder. So pleased that we took quite a few pics. The link below has more Sushi Tower pics with various angles if anyone is interested. Although....I must say I am tad worried as I caught Cap10 Tom gazing at it lovingly like he used to look at me in our first summer of love sailing the Sweet 16. HA!
The ultimate Sushi Tower (arch).

Happy Anniversary s/v Honey Ryder

One Year. One very happy year.

Kewl Toy

On a sailboat there is vital, essential, necessary, useful, nice to have, silly, luxury, opulent, and in no way neccessary but really kewl. This definately falls in the last catagory. And NO - we don't have one.

Charleston Race Week 2011

Our trip to Charleston happen to coincide with Charleston Race Week 2011 and we were in the thick of things.

While we are NOT racers, it was very kewl to see all the boats, crews, prep work, vendors, party and overall race venue. Pro's and armatures from all over the country showed up accompanied by a few international teams including my Italian buddies up the dock from us.

With 274 boat, we were told that this has officially become the largest regatta in the country edging out Key West Race Week.

Very kewl indeed.

Some cruising boats raced, leaving all their "comforts" on the dock to lighten the load. This stuff belongs to Franz, a dockmate in Savannah who sailed up to race in the offshore series.

Damages were inevitable. Our dock mate s/v Diesel - a Melges 22 snapped their spinnaker pole, rushing in, repaired it and headed back out to continue the battle.

World famous sailing photographer Billy Black showed up to shoot all the action so keep and eye our for his pics - no doubt coming to a sailing magazine near you soon.

Those who are further interested should check out the Charleston Race Week web site or YouTube for details, pics, videos, etc....

Sail til it hurts

I did sustain an injury on this trip. I fell and cut my chin open pretty good.














The story? Well....I was on a boat. None of this falling on, off or around the dock stuff.
Version #1
The Italian Melges Race team was in a slip just up the dock from us. I decided to make friends with them (imagine that), one thing lead to another and I got a ride as they ran did a practise sail. Have you seen the Melges boats? Those suckers can fly! Anywho....they didn't speak much English, I don't speak any Italian, throw in a jibe or two and SMACK, split chin, blood, butterfly bandage and broken relations with the Italians. Ciao!














Version #2
I was touring the flight deck of the USS Yorktown and tripped over the plane catcher cable thing, stumbled about like a drunk sailor trying to catch myself but went down anyway - HARD and cracked my chin wide open.



















Let the voting begin. Vote for which story you think best explains my chin injury.

USS Yorktown

Part of the fun of owning s/v Honey Ryder is the fabulous people we meet and the neat stuff we get to see and do as we sail about exploring














The USS Yorktown was started and completed in only one year.















Now that is a ships galley!














Just a small, little batch of chocolate chip cookies! Girlfriend Andrea might want to try upping the quantities on her fabulous cookie batches.



















Flight deck














Of wood? I guess so

Savannah to Charleston 4-11-2011

We castoff at 6:45pm for an overnight sail up to Charleston.














Quartering seas made for a bit of a lumpy ride. Light sprinkles started as we entered the long channel entrance into the harbor. Weather coupled with ship traffic gave us a perfect chance to test out our new radar with chart overlay. Very kewl!



















We tied off 113 nm and 16 1/2 hrs later. Success! Are they both listing to starboard?

Crew for Savannah to Charleston 2011

Michael joined us for the entire trip from Savannah to Charleston. He was terrific crew helping with numerous projects, chores, trouble shooting, watches and such.
Unfortunately Kimberly had to work but when she joined us in Charleston, she quickly made her mark as a valuable crew member by securing an evening of FREE Goslings Rum drinks complements of the Goslings National Events Rep who happened to be at the bar when Kimberly ordered her first Dark and Stormy of the evening. Woo Hoo Kimberly.
Gosling wagon? NOT! Thankfully the marina staff was smart enough to lock up the key.














*If Michael crews for you....don't let him near the DC switch. Ha, ha Michael...you a funny guy flipping the switch and making all the nav instruments go dark. Very funny indeed!

Dinner on s/v Tammy Ann - simply yummy

It wasn't all work and no play this trip. Our crew Michael found a new friend at dinner.

Magical Fire Hose

Over the past year I have paraded into over half of the fire houses in the KC area looking for old fire hose to use primarily as chafe protection on our docklines. The scene usually went something like this.....(picture Elle Woods from movie Legally Blond for the below - it helps. NOT that I am Reese Whitherspoon but mainly it's the character Elle Woods)
I stumble upon a fire house while out and about, flip a U, park, wonder in to the bowels of said firehouse, find some firefighter guy and then explain that I am a sailor looking for old fire hose to use on my sailboat for chafe gear and blah, blah, blah and flip blond hair for affect (sadly it helps in certain situations). After some blank stares, head scratching and the 10-15 second delay of processing all that was completed, said guy or guys would generally do a search and find that they have already pitched their old stuff. I just couldn't score any of the stuff.
Dad to the rescue. My good old hometown firehouse had a big roll. Dad procured and shipped it on down to s/v Honey Ryder last fall. It was a huge box - 50ft. Unfortunately it was the harder type fire hose vs the fabric so not good for chafe gear on docklines. What now? We had 50ft of the stuff in a huge box. We pushed it around to various areas of the boat for storage. But slowly we have found a thousand other applications for it and now find it very handy.

Traveler Repair

Not good. The black, bumper stuff is crumbling away.















Repairs being made with FREE rubber scraps from Hanna Rubber Co.














Much better!

Various Swabby Projects and Tasks

All the glamorous stuff that makes up boat love!

Wiring up the wind generator














New bilge float switch



















Old davit bolts removed
















And ?????














Ah....Bow pulpit bolt replacement.














And most important....after much pondering, testing this, trying that, hammering this, shimming that....Honey's belt chew habit seems be fixed. YAY!!!!

CodeLock SUCKS!

I will say it again.....CodeLock SUCKS! If you are looking at a used boat and it has CodeLock, run- don't walk in the the opposite direction. If someone gives you a boat for FREE (Caliber, Swan, Oyster..no matter) and it has CodeLock, pass. It's a good idea in theory but in reality it blows. I won't go into the details but let's just say that the freaking stuff won't unlock when the correct code is entered - not good! Then how does one unlock the units if the code won't work you ask? Why by send them back to the factory to be reset, of course! This makes perfect sense when one is out on the ocean sailing along, doesn't it! Argh!
Rumor has it that it was only on the market for about one year. And that the chief engineer on the project is now destitute, living in shame on some broken down cruiser that he can't even move because of the very Code Lock he invented!
*Ok, I made that last part up but it could be true....it's that crappy.
Now in Raymarine's defense....they apparently came to their senses as the ST60 line is CodeLock free and seems to work great.

Sushi Tower for Honey Ryder

Sushi Tower? On a sailboat? WT.....?

We decided to ditch all the junk on the back of the boat and add an arch. We sailed s/v Honey Ryder up to Wilmington Island GA so the Boykin Brothers could build us an arch. They build archs but the bulk of their business is tuna towers for sport fishing boats. Honey's arch soon became Honey's Tuna Tower and finally Honey Ryder's Sushi tower. Yes, we ARE that easily entertained.

Before - all junked up with davits, outboard hoisting arm, wind generator poles etc...














After - simply a stainless steel work of art...or so we think.

The Boykin Brothers skillfully integrated it into the existing rails.




















The wind generator got a new, high quality, sturdy pole for it's mount. The solid build of our sushi tower will allow for additional solar panels in the future.