You can see the added sheet-tail hangers in this pic
Monday, September 12th, 2011Sailing on Tuesday, if the current plan holds up… Continue reading
Sailing on Tuesday, if the current plan holds up… Continue reading
The boat is ready to sail… Continue reading
Still no pictures, sorry, but by the end of the day last Friday I was just too tired to take pictures. But I did get a lot done:
We went down to the marina for a couple of hours today, and things are looking good.
The new battery seems to do the job; the engine fired right up and ran fine (as long as the the engine cover was open; it will still choke on its own exhaust unless the cover is open or the boat is underway).
We bent the mizzen, so now we just… Continue reading
Here is a rough but accurate diagram (click to enlarge) of the Centennial’s electrical system.
The A/B/Both/Off selector can connect or disconnect the two batteries (A, engine, and B, house) to the switch panel.
Set to ‘A’, the engine battery would run everything, and would also be the only battery connected (for… Continue reading
This is the battery that is supposed to start the engine. It had died and gotten so badly corroded that it has lost its connection to the boat’s charging system (the wires just corroded right through and separated).
It will need to be replaced before the engine will start, and it will need its… Continue reading
Centennial is back in the water. July 3rd, 2011. We’re all kinda tired, but the thing is done… Continue reading

We left her, the last time we were here, with the halyards and lazy-jacks loose and less than ship-shape. I went back on Saturday …
Ah, well. We didn’t get the boat in the water…. Continue reading
As you can see, the tornados that menaced this corner of Ohio mercifully skipped Meinke’s Marina.
I had thought that villains had taken two of the steering wheel handles, but we found the missing ones today in the footwell. Somebody unscrewed them, but at least they left them there for us.
There’s a red wing blackbird nest under the… Continue reading
The mice had gotten to the Loy’s lovely mainsail cover, but they had some extra Sunbrella™ that matched them stashed away. I was able to sew some patches on with my trusty Kenmore 1946 Zig-Zag sewing machine. Not exactly beautiful, but it does the trick… Continue reading
‘Sailing the Centennial’ is a pretty wonkish little piece on, well, sailing the Centennial. More informational than entertaining, but I’ll update it as I learn more… Continue reading | 1 Comment
I put up a page of ideas for people who sail in the ‘Pages’ area (links to the right, or here). It’s a ‘Page’ because I plan on updating it as new stuff occurs to me. Enjoy?… Continue reading
We got down to the marina on Sunday and were able to button the Centennial up for the winter.
The Loys had provided a nice tent sort of thing to cover the cockpit. It should keep snow and rain from causing too much trouble for us.
Barely pictured in the right of the above image is the… Continue reading
Here’s a pic of my budget GPS Chartplotter. $300 from eBay. It runs Windows 2K on a ruggedized Pentium III 500 tablet computer left over from some Department of Fish and Wildlife survey or another. (It’s a WalkAbout HH [Hammer Head] 3, FWIW.)
It has a GPS receiver and runs SeaClear GPS chartplotter software well enough. I… Continue reading
Centennial spent all of its prior life on a mooring, which made shore power hook-ups semi-irrelevant. Slips (with power included) are remarkably affordable and convenient at Meinke’s on Lake Erie, so I added shore power. Pretty cheaply, I must add.
The inlet you see above was less than $60 from eBay, and the inside bits were all off-the-shelf… Continue reading
Jo and I went down to Meinke’s on Friday night. We checked out my wiring job (all the lights work correctly!) and sacked out on board.
This morning (Saturday) we got up, made breakfast, and motored out onto Lake Erie and hoisted sail. We were able to do all the things we tried. Neat-O!
We sailed up… Continue reading | 2 Comments
Click the above if you want to show Centennial Pride at the Stop&Shop. Or wherever it is that you buy your necessities. All profits go to CafePress… Continue reading | 3 Comments
We got the last sail — the main — on today, and we took a crack at hooking up the mast-head lights (won’t know if that worked until we are down there in the dark, but it feels correct).
Sailing next weekend? Looks like it… Continue reading
There was light wind — and that right on the Centennial’s nose — so I was able to get the Mizzen put on (‘bent’) today. The lazy-jacks seemed to work OK, and the sail cover was easy to get on.
Don’t know if I’ll be sailing on Saturday, but we’re darn close… Continue reading