It was an early rise in preparation of The Admiral's departure to Ottawa. As there is no public transit to Lunenburg, Neil had offered Pierre a ride there to pick up his car. It had been left there when we departed on the passage to Shelburne.
We hit the road at 10:00 and made Lunenburg in about an hour; a lot faster than the six days it had taken to sail to Shelburne from there. 😆
The free parking suggested by the Lads at Zwicker's Wharf had worked out fine and Pierre's car received no tickets.
There were no long farewells, as The Admiral is expected to return again over the summer.
With The Admiral on the road, Neil graciously dropped round with me to the local Sail Maker.
Perhaps regular readers, with a sharp eye, may have noticed in a recent video some damage to Makina's sails. Allow me to include the previous video in case it was missed.
You will see damage to the genoa jib. The UV Protection Strip is tearing away and there is an actual hole in the leech of the sail.
When sailing from Scarborough, Ontario to Halifax, Nova Scotia last autumn the mainsail took some damage on the Kingston leg of the passage. The Sail Maker in Kingston used a polite adjective in the description of my sails.
"You have tired sails.", he said.
They may take Makina to Digby, yet replacements should be had before heading further south.
It was not surprising to find out that there was a Sail Maker in Lunenburg and Neil graciously dropped by with me before we headed back to Shelburne.
There was a layover of two weeks in Kingston to have the mainsail work done. My objective was to get a ruff estimate of the time we might expect with these repairs. When Drew was asked that question he took into account the time of the season, his backed up work and the needed repairs for the damage explained to him, he estimated three weeks.
Drew offered his card saying to call in advance to make sure that that time estimate had not changed.
My Daughter and Son-In-Common-Law will be consulted if they have a better fix on their expected date that they will be joining me. It depended somewhat on the sitter for their cat. My guess it will be well under three weeks. Having my new (to me) yankee jib now usable will offer a great backup if the genoa actually should rip. Digby sounds like a reasonable last passage for those old tired sails.
It was then back to Shelburne. We had a nice chat. Neil is a psychologist and it always feels like a professional session may feel when spending time with him. You walk away feeling you know more of oneself. We stopped in Bridgewater to get a television for a friend from last night's dinner. He has a hotel in Shelburne and one of the rooms were down. 😇
Dashed next door and got some plastic containers to try to organize some storage better.
Made it back to Makina well before afternoon nap time. 👍😎
Tomorrow should be the time to take a pause, which has been my habit when crew depart, to digest the time together and await the crew that life decides to send my way. With the yankee jib installed, solo sailing will be much more feasible.
A listing of my sailing posts:
https://hive.blog/blog/@novacadian/categories-of-novacadian-s-sailing-seasons
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Is it often that the boat needs repairs while you're sailing? I can imagine it can be nerve-wracking to see certain things like the sails getting tired
For its age, Makina was in good repair when purchased last summer. The previous owner had been preparing her for his retirement down south yet ran into health issues. He had purchased a brand new diesel engine, for example, yet it was not yet installed when the vessel was purchased. The sails were on his todo list which became halted in its tracks due to his health issues.
That said, boats are certainly not investments. Some describe them as holes in the water that one throws money into. ;)
In my case it is my home, now, more or less so it makes the cost more practical than an weekend sailor.
That's so cool man, the freedom of being able to go where you want must be amazing. I'd love to have a boat. I think it would be cool to do a trip around the coast of Ireland, but I probably wouldn't go too far out.
Also, that makes so much sense, comparing essentially living in one as opposed to just using it as an occasional hobby.
Travelling the coast of the Emerald Isle sounds wonderful. It had crossed my mind that Ireland may be a good destination, using the Gulf Stream, to Europe from NA.
I imagine removing and moving the sails is quite a job?
The mainsail was taken off for the winter months in Halifax. The hardest part, of course, is removing it from the ship, then folding and bagging it solo.
Before the motor cruiser, my mum and dad had a wooden, very beautiful, motor-sailer. For the longest time the mast was suspended diagonally (the only way it would fit) from the ceiling in their living room. I never asked.
LOL! That must be a lovely large living room! 😄