Day 1 Thursday, May 21, 2015

Chicago to Racine

I started my cruise a few days later than planned. First I couldn't get everything finished in time (actually, a boat is never ever finished until it's sunk or wrecked, there's always something that needs doing). One of the more important things to do was to get a better anchor, and get the bow roller fixed to easily deploy and retrieve it. I got a 33 pound Rocna:

I also replaced my Trojan T105 golf cart batteries with new ones. I had planned to keep the old ones and basically double my capacity, but I couldn't find any space on board to mount them, they are real monsters and hard to move around. I thought the old ones were likely worn out anyways, but I think I was wrongly blaming the batteries when it was badly oxidized contacts that caused me to have less capacity than planned.
I got myself a true sine inverter, finally they have become affordable, and that Xantrex 1000 has worked like a charm so far. Finally my microwave works beautifully, and that is such a handy thing to have. Think heat up your cereal in the morning, a cup of water for tea, or leftovers from the last meal.

Then when I was ready enough the weather was very bad - cold winds from the north and rain. But on Thursday I finally headed out north.
I had bought a brand new club burgee and a Stars and Stripes windsock since I never had replaced my flag pole that I lost in the Straits of Macinac a few years back. Unfortunately, I managed to lose the burgee on the first day already, I must have attached it wrongly. Stupid...

The day started cold but with a good steady west wind, and it became clear and a perfect sailing day. I pressed on to Racine where I anchored in an area my older charts didn't show. I had sprung for Navionics software on my Android tablet, which helped me find this place (after a hint from Active Captain). Unfortunately the Navionics software is kind of crappy, occasionally just not showing details on maps unless you reboot the program, and lacking even the most rudimentary of features like marking and following a route. They want you to pay extra for their 'Navigation module', but after my disappointment with the bugs and general clumsy, non-intuitive feel of the software I'll hold off buying this.
Anyways, this was the first test of my anchor, and here is my rather odd technique. The Caprice is almost impossible to steer backwards, so after deploying the anchor, when one is supposed to backup hard and let the anchor dig in, I usually find myself not being able to back up in a straight line. Instead the old cow always breaks out to the left or right. Once she's in a curve, there's nothing on earth to get her back on course. So, the next best thing is then to let her go until she's off perpendicular to the intended anchor line, and then go forward and turn away from the anchor. Not too hard though, and with care not to entangle the line in the propeller. She then moves away from the anchor until it's taught and then jerks her around. It seems to work, but to onlookers I'm sure it looks crazy.

Here's the view the next morning:

Other good news - I took some frozen food, thinking that I'll have to eat it pretty soon when it defrosts. Turns out that my fridge when turned high will keep it frozen. In fact I have ice cubes (great for drinks!) and frozen milk (not so useful).