About Me

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Alaska, United States
I am owned by Pauline and Mark Blasky. My hull was built at the Duncan Marine Yard in Taiwan and launched in Dec of 1980. It is a William Garden design based on the Pixie Design and called by Duncan Marine a Freedom 45. They are the fourth owners and have owned me the longest. They have done extensive refitting to me including replacing my entire deck structure and rig. My masts are roughly 10% taller than original and now are made of aluminium as opposed to the original wood ones, which, though pretty, were always problematic. You can read more about me under "MORE ABOUT SARI TIMUR"

January 4, 2016

Still Tacking , Squalls and maybe the death of the EchoMax


Position N  21 d 09.36
        W 065 d 44.46

Time 09:15

Well, if you are plotting our positions you will see we are not that much further south today but are much further east.  No, the wind didn't shift, and we gave up believing in Mr Grib and deciding we'd better take matters into our own hands now while we still have the ability to make some easting.  So we did five major tacks yesterday.  How disheartening when on one tack it shows under two days to go then shifting to nearly four when we tack the other direction.  We have been having line squalls shifting through ever since late yesterday afternoon, some of them packing a mean punch.  One we believe to having sustained gusts of around 50 knots, of course there is no wind instruments so we cannot be sure.  But it wasn't that long ago we were in 47 and this seemed heavier!

Anyway during the last tack at 05:30 this morning we noticed the EchoMax antenna on the top of the mast was leaning precariously and bouncing around.  Obviously whoever installed it didn't use any thread seizing compound and by 08:00 it was completely swinging free, hanging only by its wire.  We have been singing the praises of this piece of equipment since we discovered it on board here.  And since the only AIS is a receiver in the VHF we have been relying on it as another early warning alert.  So we decided to launch a rescue mission.  Mark fashioned a makeshift bosun's chair out of some line and towels and we tried to head up the mast.  There is a good three meter swell out here and over 20 knots of breeze.  Mark got as high as the first spreader and realized he could not hang on so we aborted.  We are hoping that it lasts until we make port but it does bash around a lot so I am afraid it will be a goner by the time we hit calmer seas.  Sorry Mike, we tried!

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