Sailor Girl

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Judy

The upwind steering position on Wings: Judy sits on the high side where she can see ahead and see the tell tales on the jib. She holds the tiller extension easily in her right hand, and if it gets windy she'll put her foot against one of the battens on deck.

The tiller is 6' long and usually light as a feather. If the wind is strong and it's a bit hard to steer then its time to reduce sail.

This isn't the standard configuration for a cruising boat, and even racing boats now days don't look like this: the cruising boats have deep cockpits with seat backs and protection from the elements. On a typical cruising boat you are in a walled cocoon. The raceboats, on the other hand, have wide cockpits where a handful of people can walk around.

On Wings we have neither. Our cockpit is not wide nor deep, its not walled in and we don't have room for a bunch of people to walk around. At the helm station on Wings there really isn't a cockpit at all; just a flat wide deck and a foot well that's basically a place for the engine controls and a hatch, and a spot to throw beer cans and whiskey bottles.

So you say: we are exposed on the high side with no protection. Yes, when the boat takes a knock-down we are looking at the sea 15' below us over a long expanse of deck and not much to keep us from flying right off into the ocean. Does that scare us? Not that much. We do have a solid stanchion right at our elbow to grab, and anyhow, when we are cruising we don't steer that much; we let the windvane steer and we are in the small cockpit behind the dodger.

So you say: the tiller is too difficult on a long passage. Yes, I'll grant you that hours on the wheel are easier than hours on the tiller, but like I said, on those long passages we aren't steering, the windvane is. We carry spare parts and an autopilot and we keep our fingers crossed that we don't have to do this all the way across an ocean. In 20 years, we haven't.

The plus side is that from this position we can feel the wind in our faces and we have great visability forward. If you love sailing, you'd love to sail this boat, and a large part of the experience is steering from the high side with a tiller in your hand.

Fred & Judy,. SV Wings, Phuket

For more shots of Wings'steering position, click the links below:

When you need to see!
Everyone is on the high side!
Wide decks for working!
Great visability!

Sea Dog Takes the Helm

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Relaxed

Wings spreads some canvas

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Recut sail working well

The old #1 genoa recut into a high clewed #2 works well in light air. Because it has less overlap and the foot is well above the lifelines this sail is much easier to handle, tacks quietly, and in many ways acts like the small #4 which we love; only it is bigger. Spreading this much canvas on a light air day really helps the performance.

Heading into Phang Nga Bay

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Close Hauled

After we wore ship we came up on starboard and sheeted in, making for the limestone islands of Phang Nga Bay.

Moving well in light air

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Port Tack

Yacht Haven

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Wings

The sailing trip is over, Wings is closed up until next time.

Arrival at Ko Wa Yai

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Judy

It is just eight miles from Yacht Haven Marina to Ko Wa Yai island but we've never stopped there before. Today we came in to the middle ground between this island and three others which form a large open square area where anchoring is easy. Right in the middle we are pretty exposed but with islands on all sides it is easy to move closer to one and get shelter from any wind.

Phang Nga Bay

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Ko Phanak

On nearby Ko Wa Yai there is a good beach and many canoeists are dropped off here to explore Phang Nga Bay. The next island is Ko Phanak.

In the Water

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Cleaning the Bottom

Except for the keel the bottom after one year was still pretty good, just a heavy slime which we could quickly wipe off. Judy went around the whole boat and cleaned the waterline and down about two feet. I dove under the hull and cleaned the rest square by square. The keel was the worst. Where it was damaged in Feb all the paint and fairing compound on the very bottom was chewed off and barnacles covered the bare lead already. It took nearly 20 dives with a scraper to get them off. We have to haul this boat soon and repair this damage.

Anchored

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Ko Payu
We first anchored near Ko Wa Yai but a westerly wind came up and this anchorage was exposed to the wind and became choppy. We upped anchor and move 1/2 mile to the lee of Ko Payu where it was calm.

Judy in Sunset

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Ko Payu

As the sun went down over Ko Payu things cooled off a bit and we came topside to enjoy the evening.

Sailing Junks

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After sunset two junks sailed by.

Randy & Laura Visit

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Our New Apartment in Bangkok

Baan Siri Silom

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View Out the window on a rainy day

Back In Bangkok

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Off to Work



KBank

Arrived in Bangkok on Sunday afternoon, and on Monday Morning I'm on the street in front of our hotel heading off to work at another bank in Bangkok.

Searching for Apartments

The first thing we had to do when we got to Bangkok is look for a place to live. Judy had already been looking on the Internet so she only had to start making appointments to see some places, (from the luxury of her hotel tub; we don't have one of these on Wings, do we?)

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Making Appointments

Checking out the view

Wow, Linen included!

Near Silom

Not only could we see my office from the hotel, but we could also see the neighborhood where the apartment is located. It's a couple of blocks off of Silom Avenue, close to the train station an also fairly close to the office.

Sailing Memories-Remember This?

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WINGS, powered up

It seems like an eternity ago that we were racing in Singapore in the Western Ciruit Regatta when this picture was taken, but it was not even one year ago; just last August. A lot has happened since then: our crew developed into a fine machine and also became good friends, we sailed the Malacca Straits to Phuket, raced in the King's Cup and won, cruised all over the area around Phuket with our granddaughter Candace and again after she left, raced shorthanded with Pierre in the Phang Nga Bay Regatta and came in second behind a fully crewed race boat, and since then have come back to Bangkok to work.

I think I like looking at this photo: it brings back some memories.

Tokyo Joe's-Bangkok Blues Festival

Unless you are into pain, don't even bother looking at the videos I posted below, however this one is really good, even if it was a different night and the place wasn't really rockin' like it was on Saturday.

You can also go to their myspace site
soidogbluesband and there are a couple of good clips there.

Still, I had my phone out and recorded a couple of cuts:

youtube video by wingssail imagesSoi Dog Blues Band

Yeah, I know, it's horrible quality; I took it with the old cell phone which I got for free in Hong Kong 4 years ago, what did I expect? But maybe you get the idea of what it was like in this club last night. If you click on some of the other clips which YouTube throws up you can get better sound, but it wasn't the same night.

There are four guitars going full blast; fast, hard, loud and lots of fuzz tone.

We loved it.

The guy in the foreground in the black shirt is the harmonica player waiting for his cue.
youtube video by wingsail images

Serious Trouble blues band

Sorry about the poor quality of this clip, I took it with my old cell phone. I know you can't hear a thing or see much, but maybe you get the idea.

These guys were from Kuala Lumpor, Malaysia and they rocked. Other than that we didn't learm much about them.

Think Hendrix, think Alvin Lee, think Jeff Healey, think Stevie Ray Vaughn.

You got it.

Killing Time

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By the Pool

Hearing the birds in the jungle while reading a book by the pool in between dips to cool off: this is relaxing.

Whacking an Old Sail

Doug Christie of Lidgard made this sail for us in, oh, it must have been 1988 so we have had it for a long time. It was the primary racing sail for several years in Seattle, then we used it cruising for a number of years, and we used it again racing in Hong Kong and Singapore and it still did well for us in both countries. At about 20 years old that is pretty good for a laminated racing sail. But maybe we are not done with it yet: I got the idea that we can keep it a little longer if we cut out the worst area of weak cloth (the luff area where the Mylar is not backed by Dacron taffeta and the Mylar has failed completely)and at the same time create a slightly smaller sail for those light air days cruising in Asia when the 150% is just too much trouble.

I drew a long line from the tack to a spot in the leech about 3 meters from the top of the sail. Then I just whacked off all the cloth at the front of the sail, including the head patch and luff tape, along this line. This got rid of the latest hole and most of the bad cloth. I put the curve back in the luff (cutting off a lttle more bad cloth, and then I put the head patch back on and reattached the luff tape. Viola! We now have a 115%, high clew, #2 genoa which will be great for cruising. This whole job was about 8 hours and I did it all on the boat except for marking the lines which I did on the dock. I still need to put on a new spreader patch (only one is required now) and repair a few more weaks spots near the leech, but other than that the sail is ready to use and we can't wait to try it out.

If this works then it is probably the sail we need to have made in Dacron in the future (when this one finally finds it's way to the rubbish bin if it ever does).

Here are some photos of the project.

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Sewing on Deck




Above:Smaller, higher clew
Below: New sail in bold line

Light Air Work

john everingham
Wings, Switchblade, Pheonix

We sailed with these guys all week at the 2008 Phang Nga Bay Regatta

On the Beach

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Fred & Judy

One of our stops on the Phang Nga Bay Regatta was Phi Phi Don Island where we had a nice party on the beach at Erawan Resort

Leading at the Start

john everingham
Wings In Front

We had excellent starts all week. This is day one and we started level with Yasooda(GBR 703R), the 70ft boat just behind us, but we were well ahead of the other boats and we stayed ahead of them most of the day. In the end though Pheonix (JPN 777) beat us to the finish and we settled for second.

One thing to notice is that all of these boats have a lot more people on them than we did. We consider that to be an advantage for us. Maybe we had to work harder, but we were lean and mean. Pierre Judy and I had full concentration and I think it helped.

A Drifter

john everingham
Finishing

We drifted across the line on day 1 while the boats that finished ahead of us motor to the party.

IOR Dinosaurs Battle Downwind

john everingham
Switchblade and Wings

These two old boats are IOR designs, the dinosaurs of sailboat racing, completely obsolete by todays standards. Switchblade, a Farr 43, is an IOR boat of similar vintage as Wings but they were in Racing class and we were in Cruising class. We started together however and raced together all week. They owe us time under IRC and we sailed well against them; beating them in corrected time on most days. Here we are ahead and sailing a lower course while they reach for speed behind us.

Light Air Sailing

john everingham
Wings Leads Pheonix

Light air, calm water; this was a fun day. We led Pheonix and most of the other boats but ended in second place.

MaDuZi & Wings

john everingham
MaDuZi & Wings

On most days we were able to stay ahead of the 53ft MaDuZi

Choong Lat Anchorage

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Ragin Cajun

Ragin Cajun passes the anchored multihull fleet in Choong Lat anchorage. I felt that this is the most beautiful anchorage in Phang Nga Bay, maybe the most beautiful we've been in ever.

This boat typifies the variety of yachts which complete in the Phang Nga Bay Regatta: there were six classes from Racing to Multihull and the fleet included a One Design class for Firefly 850 cats, a Sunsail chartboat class, and two cruising classes. We sailed in Cruising A, under IRC ratings, and started with the Racing Class. It was fun.

Concentration

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Fred & Pierre

Light air sailing takes concentration; we had it.

Resting Up

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Phoenix

We thought it was a hard race to Choong Lat but apparently Neils'crew on Phoenix also thought so. Immediately after arriving in Choong Lat they all collapsed on the deck and didn't move for an hour or so.

We went swimming.

Phoenix, an X-3/4 ton racer was the lightest and raciest boat in the fleet, sailed by a top crew, and they somewhow found their way into the cruising division. We tried hard but we could never beat them.

Longtail fishermen

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Light Air

Day one was a shifty light air beat across the flats to Choong Lat. Here we lead Switchblade and only Yasooda is ahead of us. The shifts and holes ahead gave everyone opportunities; for a while we led the fleet, but in the end we were forth to finish overall, 2nd in class. It was encouraging though as it showed us that we could definately sail boat for boat with all the racing fleet even with our cruising gear and only three of us. The other boats were stripped out and had full crews.

Reaching

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Big A

On day three we had a good wind angle and a nice breeze to give us an exciting spinnaker reach down to Phi Phi Island. After great start we were in front until the spinnaker set then the big boats all powered up and roared ahead; it was a waterline day. We held off Horst Lakits' Big A for as long as we could, finally with the finish line in sight and our time saved, I waved him by and they sailed over us and off into the distance.

Really great racing.

View Astern

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Passing Phi Phi

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Pheonix and Scame

On the last day the fleet sailed downwind to Phuket Island passing Phraya Nak Island (part of the Phi Phi group) in the distance. It looks calm and easy in this photo but the light winds (10 knots) and choppy seas tossed the boats around and made spinnaker trimming a nightmare.

As always we were focused on Pheonix, the X-boat 3/4 tonner in the background with the white spinnaker, who hounded us every day and beat us on corrected time. Tough competition.

The bigger boat in the photo is Scame, Daniel and Janine Ballian's beautiful 1971 72 foot, Italian built, wood cutter. The Ballians have been sailing Scame, under French flag, for 30 years.

Committee Boat

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Seraph


Tom Howard's beautiful Thai registered 1908 schooner Seraph served as committee boat for the regatta. Each time I saw this boat it took me back in time 100 years to when yachts were made of timber and had a beauty and grace which modern yachts, even the gold platers, do not replicate.

Ao Nang

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We sailed to Krabi Province and anchored at Ao Nang. This tourist town is pleasant, nice resturants, and stores, and no cheap sex trade bars like some of the other parts of Thailand.

In the background of this photo you can see the Chicken Islands, named that because they look like a bunch of chickens to some.

Krabi Town

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Krabi Town

About 40 minutes by road, or an equal distance up the river, lies Krabi Town, a far cry from the tourist communities like Ao Nang. We have a good lunch here and found some nice fruit and veggies at a market.

Plying the Waters

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Water Taxi

In the Phuket Area most of the water traffic is in these wooden long tail boats; they are ubiquitous. I rather liked them and I never tired of watching them cruise around with the propellor shooting out a roostertail behind. The problem is that they are noisy and the ones in Krabi are the worst: They have four cyl automobile engines and no mufflers, plus, the drivers run them at full throddle which makes them sound particularly obnoxious.

Back Breaking Work

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Jellyfish landed

In Krabi Province we saw hundreds of fishing boats netting these large jellyfish. We heard variously that these creatures are eaten in China or used in cosmetics in Japan.

Either way, the work looked brutal: each jellyfish was about the size of a basketball, and about as heavy as the seawater they are filled with. The man in the bow spots the jellyfish, directs the driver towards it, dips the net in under the floating jellyfish then lifts it into the boat.