USA-26 One Life J/99

It has been an unreasonably long time since the last post on the blog, and for that I apologize. Here in Seattle we were among the first in the nation to stand down our regular lives in support of our fellow Americans in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

It’s been tough, mentally, to pause all those plans and put the crew, and the boat, on hold. See all those racing dates disappear. Disappointing, but worthwhile. None of our family, crew, or close friends have caught the SARS-CoV-2 virus or those who have had no serious complications. And that’s the direct result of the sacrifices we’ve all made over the last three months here in WA state.

Yesterday afternoon, we finally got some light at the end of the pandemic tunnel. We learned of a new process at the state level for re-opening and we learned our local county (King County) is applying to this process with a plan allowing crewed sailing again. While the application has not been approved, so we shouldn’t count our chickens before they are hatched, I’m optimistic we’ll be able to sail with at least five crew soon.

Boating has been open for a few weeks in our area, though limited to households. Kris and I have been taking advantage of this, out on the boat a number of times as weather and work have allowed. I was even able to take advantage of a light wind day to take her out singlehanded last weekend. I’ll have some videos up soon.

One Life is everything we thought she would be as a double-handed sailboat. In light airs, she’s amazingly adept at holding the breeze and making headway. In heavy airs — even in sustained gusts above 25 knots — she’s as stable as a rock with the J3 and (unreefed) cruising main. With the autopilot (who we’ve nicknamed ‘Fred’), we can get all the maneuvers we’ve needed to do thus far done with a minimum of fuss. And when it is cold out, we just let Fred drive and tuck up under the dodger where it’s nice and comfy.

In case you missed it, J/Composites — the French boatwrights who built One Life — put out a call for stories of people using the J/99 to cruise. I responded and they featured One Life on their blog and social media. It was a nice bit of fame of our beautiful boat.

Thanks for your patience while I’ve been away from posting and welcome to all the folks who’ve ‘followed’ us on Facebook over the past few weeks even though the blog has been quiet. I promise things will get a bit more lively around here.

In the meantime, here are some pictures from our recent sails….

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