End of the Race - In the Basin

This past Friday, August 7th, we took part in the Clipper Cup race with our boat Amadeus. The Clipper Cup is a sailing race that starts in Muskegon, Michigan and ends between the pier heads in Port Washington, Wisconsin...about 70 miles across Lake Michigan. We had good wind all day and quite a ride 'cross the lake. This is a shot of our boat with the chute up that was taken by a friend with her cell phone from another boat.

We had a slip for our boat in Port Washington but we were back in the marina's basin where a large number of the boats were rafted up post completing the race. This sketch was done while sitting in the cockpit of our boat and is of several of the racing boats that were rafted up in the basin. The best part of the race for me was having our entire family on board as crew for the crossing.

Scow Race

Over the past weekend White Lake, where our boat lives in the summer, was host to a national scow racing event. The race draws large numbers of boats and crews and is fun to watch. I made this sketch while race watching on a hill by the White Lake Yacht Club.

Amadeus Abroad

My wife and I are just returned from spending the month of July cruising on our boat Amadeus. This is her. She's a Catalina 355...pretty close to 36 feet long. The picture was taken in Manistee, Mi close to the end of the trip. As with outings on our previous boat, the watercolors were on board. We started this year traveling from our home port Whitehall, Mi. From there we headed north along the east shore of Lake Michigan, finally arriving in Frankfort, Mi.

Frankfort was the jump point for a run across Lake Michigan to Sturgeon Bay, Wi. About 10 miles offshore from Frankfort I did this sketch of day break and the dunes and clouds off our stern.  A freighter passed behind providing a nice accent to complete the piece.

The hop from Frankfort to Sturgeon Bay is 50 miles across Lake Michigan. Takes a while to cover the distance traveling at 7 knots.
I pretty much did a sketch or two everyplace we traveled. I'll be posting those too.

Still on the Hard

Sailing season here in Michigan has been off to a slow start. To much cold and rainy weather kept a lot of the boats in our marina out of the water. This weekend, though, the boats are pretty much back in their slips and out of the parking lot...all except for Ghost Wheel. Ghost Wheel is still waiting for her owners to give her a spring bath, give her a coat of wax, put her sails on, and get her back in the water...maybe next week.

Interestingly, Ghost Wheel, a Contessa 32 that I sketched yesterday afternoon, once survived a horrific open ocean race in the UK and was found by her present owners living in the Caribbean.