My favorite of President Trump’s many excellent Executive Orders!
Trump Renames Gulf to Gulf of America
Sadler 34
Beryl (update July 7 20:00 hrs)
Beryl is a no-show…
Sunday July 7 13:00 Forecast: Landfall of Hurricane Beryl around 100 miles north of Corpus.
Latest Chart:
Sunday July 7 07:00 Forecast: Landfall of Hurricane Beryl around 75 miles north of Corpus.
Latest Chart:
Saturday July 6 10pm Texas ChaCha and I spent a hot afternoon on Frank in Corpus replacing fenders and upgrading/changing/moving lines.
We drove home through 4 hours of non-stop cloudbursts, thunder/lightning storms etc which came from Houston heading SW. Not the hurricane.
Latest forecast (pic at bottom) says that Corpus may miss the worst of the hurricane, Corpus (and Frank) now being just outside the South-Western edge of the “cone”. Hopefully it keeps moving North East along the coast. I feel sorry for Rockport and Bay City if they take another direct hit as they did in 2017.
I dislike the June-November period – Hurricane Season.
Hoping that Beryl keeps moving right as it rotates through the Gulf of Mexico.
The 16:00 CST forecast had it tracking straight at Corpus, so the tracking/forecast line has moved a few hundred miles up the coast in the last 24 hours, from Mexico to North East of Corpus. Due to the very warm, shallow coastal Gulf of Mexico waters the storm will pick up energy, but that also increases its clockwise rotation over the water, giving it impetus to move to the NEN (I hope).
July 6th 22:00 CDT – Forecast track has moved North along the coast a tad and the cone (“spread”) has narrowed slightly as Beryl moves closer
Louis Robein’s unintended landfall
https://globalsolochallenge.com/louis-robeins-argentina-en/
The hero of the Global Solo Challenge, Frenchman Louis Robein, went aground in a sandy bay on the southern Argentinian coast, having rounded Cape Horn. He was given a ride to a navy base and his boat was towed to safety with him, after 50kt winds had him pinned to a sandbar but kept him off the shore.
Hopefully he will get his autopilot fixed and head back to sea pronto. Sea is safer than shore. Marco’s purple prose (link above) clearly wants Louis to surrender, the guy being obsessed with safety. I mean, everyone who sails solo around Cape Horn is thinking safety first, aren’t they?
Takeaways for when I eventually do my own solo rtw:
- Autopilot: have spares
- Make sure windvane works and has spares
- Follow the winning track
- Minimize advice (it dilutes energy)
- Replace Iridium satcom with Star link
- One rudder, heavy displacement and double skin is preferable to twin rudders light surfing hull.
- Stay away from land.
- Don’t let images like this get published:
Courage, Louis!
Frank’s 3rd Leg!
I have been so busy that I’m years behind editing the 3rd and 4th leg videos of Frank’s solo sail from Gosport England to Corpus Christi Texas. This weekend I managed to put together a video of one day, from Dawn To Dusk, March 2nd 2015.
The audio is poor. There is so much background noise on a sailboat, which you tune out when sailing. Lines banging and all sorts of other noises, plus the GoPro has a very limited microphone. I’d assumed it would be better. Next time I will wear a better mic.
Philippe Delamare Wins GSG
I’m 3 days late posting this but – great sail by Delamare!
He sailed to the race line with no mainsail, due to a broken boom. Mowgli had a knockdown and the boom was badly damaged. So Delamare came home on his headsail. Great job.
Link to the GSC story here: https://globalsolochallenge.com/philippe-delamare-wins-gsc-en
Sailing: A Business Case Study
Philippe Delamare posted this last week and I have been meaning to put it up as a superb case study. For sailing. For business. For life.
“Let me explain: we all start with a strategy, a roadmap, a certain level of aggression versus a degree of caution, ambition, a vision of what we came for. It’s really great to have tons of messages of support, words of encouragement, signs of friendship. But they are often also opinions, advice, especially caution and safety. Paradoxically, all of this can become anxiety-inducing – discreetly – which is very bad of course, and can influence you or make you lose sight of the direction of your initial energy.”
Link here Straight Line
Approaching Cape Horn – GSC
New Sails
I bought this new fully-battened mainsail last year. These pics are from the local UK Sails guy, Doug Weakly, in Corpus.
Doug ran the mainsail up the newly-installed tracking, installed by Matt Sebring at Coastal Bend, who also arranged the sail making. UK Sails’ loft in in Houston.
UK Sails – https://www.uksailmakers.com/lofts/texas/
Coastal Bend Yacht Services: Matthew Sebring cbyscc@gmail.com 361-461-4067
The sail is strengthened to give protection against high winds. The full battens will provide extra stiffness. Hopefully I’ll get out to sea next spring, to try them out!
Fettlin’ Day! October 29, 2023
Frank used to have a 12volt fridge, which also ran off mains when alongside.
I mentioned (https://wordpress.com/post/frank-justfrank.com/306 October 2015) the fridge, which I extracted from its hole by the engine : “Most useless kit: the refrigerator. I donated this to a charity in Dartmouth. Every time I had a problem with the electrics or engine I had to haul it out of its home.”
So ever since I have had this hole, having converted the icebox to be a fridge:
I am going to finally turn it into a storage cupboard. I’ll leave access to the engine water inlet. There is a separate access door under this pic.
Crow’s Nest
Frank is at the end of her pier. Originally I was Billy Nomates, and happy with it. Less busy and easier to park (Frank is a bitch to park..).
Now, it is busier. But a disadvantage of being here is the bird shit. The birds make free, and some of them are baby pterodactyls. With poop to match.
People put streamers on the standing rigging and rubber snakes on the deck. Owls and eagles on the mast. Here is my solution:
Bird Spikes! Here’s the view tonight as the foul fowl avoid Frank (mind you, me sat here might be a factor…
Will it work? Dunno. The pterodactyls break off my windvanes and antenna atop the mast. I think this is a pterodactyl: gotta be 2 feet high. Zoomed in pic on someone else’s boat.
frankjustfrank 