I'm going on an international diesel hybrid race (OK... tall ship race)

[Tango Charlie]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

"Red at night, sailor's delight..."

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

...We won't make the finish line before the official midnight race closing, but we'll keep sailing ...

Does this mean a DQ?

[MetroMPG]

And it was a nice day for sailing after that pic.

Not a DQ, just more math for the race committee...

[MetroMPG]

Read it & weep:

1. Spirit of Bermuda
2. Pride of Baltimore II
3. Virginia
4. Papa I
5. Mist of Avalon

We had a blast.

Waiting out the tail end of Ike (30-40 knots of wind today) before setting out tonight to near Lunenburg, Nova Scotia where the Mist is going for some maintenance work. Then it's back to our regulary scheduled lives.

[Sugar Pie]

Safe trip down the south shore of NS

[MetroMPG]

Yesterday at noon we arrived in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.

If you want to spy on us while we're here, you can use this remote control web cam by logging in with the username "bluenosegolf" (note I could only make this work in Explorer, not Firefox):

Bluenose Golf course web cam

In the camera image, you can see our transom to the left of Bluenose II's, and to the right of the Theresa O'Connor museum schooner (which you see broadside). Pride of Balitimore II is to the left of Theresa.

We're near the end of the trip, but not quite finished yet! The destination ship yard is a little further south, but with Lunenburg's "September Classic" race happening tomorrow, we decided to stop and join in on the fun.

Cloe is off recruiting local crew for the afternoon-long race from the harbour, around Cross Island, and back again:



This will be the first year tall ships have participated. We're up against two of the American boats that were in the PEI race: Pride & Virginia.

The September Classic is known to have a pretty "relaxed" atmosphere, with impromptu rules. No handicap ratings!

More updates coming...

[MetroMPG]

Here's a panorama of a portion of the Lunenburg harbour this morning, stitched together from the web cam:

[tasdrouille]

Nice panorama. Is that Lunenburg on the south shore of NS? That's a good distance from PEI. Did you go through the strait of Canso or around Cape Breton Island? I drove the Cabot trail between Port Hawkesbury and Sidney a couple years back, beautiful place.

When are you planning to be back?

[MetroMPG]

Yup, Lunenburg is south of Halifax, and we went through the Strait of Canso after PEI.

I'll be back in Ontario on Monday.

[MetroMPG]

Headed for home.

From diesel/wind hybrid in a much faster gas/electric hybrid...

[MetroMPG]

So, the voyage is over. Back in Ontario. Back on land (which continues to rock, gently.)

The Mist of Avalon is tucked away at Snyder's Shipyard for recaulking and winter rest. A couple of guys were pounding away at the hull, digging out the old oakum before we'd even left the yard.

But I've skipped a few days, so I'll step back to one memorable day and evening, to be less foggy about it: the highlight of this adventure was without question Lunenburg's "September Classic". Classic as in a good sized fleet of wooden vessels of all ages, shapes & sizes (but tending toward "old" and "schooner") which converge on this Canadian maritime mecca for an annual race & shenanigans.

Long story short: A hastily assembled bunch of young sailors/enthusiasts unavoidably snagged at the skippers meeting like so many lobster pots on the rudder crewed the Mighty Mist (...and they quickly and competently had the ship tacking at the level of performance art within three or four turns).

Winds were light. 2nd over the starting line among the 3 big boats. (We need practice jibing in a timely fashion, but we're getting better - in PEI we were 5th out of 5 boats across the start. One more race under our belt and we'd be vying for the best start, without doubt). First at the start is about all we can hope for: DFL in the entire fleet in a dead & dying wind by the end of the race (but only because the two other boats we were able to overtake quit - QUIT! - before the wind stopped completely).

But it seems the sailing race wasn't really the point of the event (though the skipper *was* bestowed with the Giant Brass Nut trophy for irrational determination or something like that - "We may not be fast, but we're slow!").

No - FAR more preparation actually went into the storied "tiki torch dory race from hell" after the BBQ and sailing event. Long story shorter: Cap'n George and still-hasn't-climbed-the-mainmast Darin were seen flailing about the course in the ship's dory, breaking oars and spectacularly, repeatedly failing to keep clear of other vessels.

No hope for us, but senior Mist of Avalon crewmember Cloe in her own dory avoided the mayhem and delivered her torch-bearer to a commanding first place finish for her second year running! Congratulations, Cloe.

There was highly entertaining speechifying & awards-giving, rum, good food, great music, comraderie, etc, and rum. And a warm feeling in the gut which I interpreted as a desire to do it all over again next year. Or maybe it was just the rum.