2026 - Friends and Family.
April 11th: The weather finally gets warm enough so that I can varnish all the wood. Harry helped tape off the coaming tops.
April 20th: With the help of my father-in-law driving the skid steer and my own father, we lifted ORION off her old trailer and put her on a new one I just purchased.
Thankfully, the new EZ Loader trailer, while slightly bigger, still fits in the boatshed.
May 1st: While I always hope for an April launch date, I couldn't quite make it this year. Almost!
June 6th: After a couple of solo sails in the Niantic River, I took my father out to sail in the Bay.
It was a picture perfect day; the weather was gorgeous and the wind was just right.
June 25th: I sailed with my son, Harry, to the annual WoodenBoat Show held at Mystic Seaport. Here he is motoring down the Niantic River channel.
We stopped on the way at Flat Hammock near Fisher's Island to swim a little bit - boy, was it cold!
We anchored in the anchorage above the Seaport and enjoyed dinner ashore and a peaceful night's sleep.
It started to rain in the early morning, but thankfully it didn't last all day as it was forecasted.
We saw some absolutely stunning wooden boats, of course. A lot of eye candy!
We sailed most of the time, but the wind shut off near New London, so we motored the rest of the way home. Click for the online photo album of our trip.
July 5th: ORION was photographed in front of fireworks going off across the river in Waterford.
July 18th: I took my family out to watch the annual Celebrate East Lyme fireworks off McCook's beach. This year was particularly spectacular.
July 31st: Nineteen Mariners gathered at the Niantic River launch ramp for the start of the 2026 Mariner National Rendezvous.
We had great wind sailing all the way there. What a neat sight to see so many Mariners sailing at one time.
I even had a chance to fly my spinnaker for the first time in a while. ORION took off as soon as it was flying.
Our floating docks were waiting for us, and they managed to squeeze everybody in together in the south basin.
We had a pizza party Friday night, enjoyed a great day on Saturday, and returned to Niantic on Sunday.
August 14th: I took Harry and a few of his friends sailing to celebrate Harry's upcoming birthday.
We sailed around Millstone Point to Jordan Cove where we anchored in shallow water and went swimming. Everybody had a fun time.
August 27th: I took my buddy Chris out for an afternoon sail. We had a fine time although the wind was pretty light.
We sailed by the Niantic Bay Yacht Club where there are a number of nice boats, including this beautifully-kept catboat.
September 10th: I took my father and some friends, the Eberles, out into the Bay for a morning sail. It was windy enough that I had to reef the main.
We sailed by the Yacht Club and checked out the boats as I had done with Chris.
The wind eased enough that I could have shaken out the reef, but I didn't bother.
I dropped them off at the Niantic River Boat Launch a couple of hours later. We had a blast!