Icon's new instrument arch is nearly completed - for now it will be used to mount the following equipment:

• KVH Satcom
• Dual High-Resolution GPS units
• Sternlight
• High-gain Cellular Antenna

Hopefully we will be able to install it this week!

Icon's mast & boom have now been sprayed and the MaxProp has been re-pitched enabling us to reach maximum speed and RPM's....

Now we have to complete our interior projects plus re-build the mast and put it back on the boat.  If all goes well we should be back sailing again in a couple of weeks - say by mid February.  Our first "event" is the Foul Weather Race to Friday Harbor.

Today we started spraying the mast with clear-coat. The mast and boom should be done by next Monday and ready for re-assembly.

Our inside work on Icon is almost done - today we did the final deck painting and touch-up. Next week we will remove the tent, put the lifelines back up and put the boat back in the water on Thursday. The mast & boom are completely stripped and hopefully will be clear coated next week...

We are nearing the end of our winter projects - the decks have been repainted, the bottom pimped, the sail-drive fixed, and the portlights replaced (to say nothing about all our other little projects)...

It looks like we will be back in the water (sans mast) around Jan 21. It will probably we late January before we complete the mast re-finishing task and put the stick back in the boat.

Everything is looking great and we hope that each of these changes will make us even more competitive this coming racing season!

Icon is still in the barn, but the deck work is rapidly nearing completion and we expect to be back in the water early next week. The only hitch might be the saildrive repair - we managed (somehow) to bend the shaft and it will have to be replaced. This appears to be the critical path item at this point.

Once the boat back in the water we will focus our attention on putting the mast back together and other punch-list items which can be done outside!

Icon is still in the barn and we are hard at work taking care of all the items on our punch list - here are a few pictures from the battle.

Icon's mast is now in the shop for a complete refit. Preliminary inspection results don't show anything out of the ordinary...

On December 3 we removed the mast from Icon and moved the boat into the North Harbor Diesel hanger on 30th Avenue in Anacortes. Given the recent cold weather this looks like a brilliant move!

Now that the 2009 has come to a close it is time to take a look and see how we did during the racing season.
2009 Race Results & Analysis

We will be hauling Icon out of the water for the months of December and January. Northern Marine has kindly consented to let us put her inside (with her mast removed) so that we can get our punch-list finished out of what is turning out to be a wet & wild winter!

Icon's last race of the season was the annual Round the County event circumnavigating the San Juan Islands.

The race started in a driving squall with a blistering downwind run from Lydia Shoal to Pt. Lawrence. Both Icon and Braveheart (a turbo TP 52) opted for the starboard end of the line and took off at approximately 20 knots. The wind and rain died on the north side of Orcas in the long reach to Patos Island with BraveHeart slightly ahead. In the beat up Boundary Passage Icond caught Braveheart and managed to beat them to the line and take the gun in an epic tacking duel to Roche Harbor.

On the second day we had a very poor start and made a mistake by going outside. By the time we got back to the beach we were mid-pack and had to work our way through the fleet by short-tacking the beach. We ended up passing everyone (including the Car) and the fight was between Braveheart and us. They took the inside route over Salmon Bank and made some gains - we took the outside route with Flash. We were gaining on Braveheart at Davidson Rock when they set their kite and accelerated away barely under control. We opted for a blast reacher until Kellet Ledge when we set the A3. Our backstay immediately blew and we went into damage control.

Thanks to great driving by Scotter we were able to save the rig and hook up a temporary backstay. We then set the A5 and lumbered on to the finish behind Braveheart. We ended up finishing 4th in our division and 6th overall, plus our race record remained intact by 22 seconds!

A great finish to a wonderful season!

Icon just returned from a fast trip to Princess Louisa Inlet. For those of you who haven't heard about Princess Louisa Inlet - it is one of the most beautiful places on the planet, and can only be accessed by private boat or seaplane.

On August 28-29, Icon competed in the 2nd running of the Northern Century. The Northern Century is a grueling yacht race (mostly at night) that runs from Anacortes to Point Roberts, Stuart Island (Turn Point), Hein Bank (in the middle of the Strait of Juan de Fuca) and then home to Anacortes.

The race started at 7:30pm Friday night with two divisions - a double-handed division (we came third in this event last year with Schussboomer), and a fully-crewed division. Icon competed in the fully-crewed division.

The winds were light at the start, but gradually built to 15-20 knots. We ran the A1 and upshifted to the A2 for the run to Pt. Roberts at ~15knots boatspeed. At Point Roberts we changed to the J2 and beat to East Point in moderate winds. At East Point the wind started to go light and we upshifted to the J1 and reached down Boundary Passage. At Turn Point we footed over the the Canadian side of Haro Strait with numerous light spots to avoid.

Just east of Discovery Island we managed to catch the building westerly and put up the A2 and ran down to Hein Bank. At the bank we wrapped a bunch of kelp around the keel and rudder. We should have backed down immediately, but we struggled home with it flapping on the hull.

From Hein Bank we ran our angles to Davidson Rock and then onto the finish off Shannon Point in light winds. We finished at 8:54 am to a nice sunrise with an elapsed time of 13:14:30; narrowly correcting in front of the C&C 110 (like Schussboomer) with a final time of 15:09:30.

Great trip and thanks to Ian/Joy for preparing the boat and the crew for making it go...

We recently completed a nice 4-day trip with a group of other boats to the following stops:

• Sucia Island (Echo Bay)
• Stuart Island (Prevost Harbor)
• Todd Inlet (Buchart Gardens)

The weather the first night was a little blustery, but things calmed down from then on. We had our friends the Siapco's on-board, plus friends on other boats who were travelling with us. At Stuart Island we hiked to the lighthouse. On Saturday we motored over to Bedwell Harbor and cleared customs, then sailed down to Todd Inlet. We had a great fireworks show at Buchart. On Sunday we cleared customs at Roche Harbor, then sailed into the Strait and home to Anacortes.

A great weekend...

Now that Icon is back in cruising mode we took her out for a spin on the 4th of July around Fidalgo Island. Winds were light (unfortunately). Managed to fly the kite back down Guemes Channel. Anchored in Fidalgo Bay and watched the fireworks - a nice relaxing day!

Now that Icon is back from the van isle 360 we have converted her back into cruising mode - this includes putting the interior back into the boat, removing all the racing gear, installing the dodger, etc. Thanks to Ian & Joy for making this happen!

Our plans now are to take the boat on several day trips and weekend cruises. In addition we are planning a trip to Princess Louisa Inlet and Desolation Sound late July or early August. Stay tuned for more updates...

Icon departed Naniamo after the van Isle 360 awards party and motor/sailed to Roche Harbor where we managed to check in before customs closed at 8:00pm (the boats behind us probably didn't make it). We then motored home to Anacortes and tied up shortly before 1:00am...

It was a wonderful trip and it finished well - the inside legs were discouraging as we couldn't get on the podium due to the winds building behind us - but we did very well on the outside legs, so all things worked out well...

Icon had a great run from Victoria to Naniamo - we along with DragonFly held back at the start to avoid the mayhem & crashes (probably a good thing as the wind was up considerably). We quickly passed the fleet on the heels of DragonFly at 16+ knots. We took the inside route to Naniamo (Baynes Channel & Porlier Pass). Managed to sneak ahead of DragonFly near Stuart in a big hole as the rest of the fleet sailed up to us. Near Ganges we caught the new westerly and had a very fast reach up to Porlier - managed to transit before the currents shut the door and finished in Naniamo 12 minutes behind DragonFly...

Ended up with 2nd in our Divison (a really comeback) and 2nd to DragonFly on elapsed time - those guys sailed a great race with many challenges. The entire crew was exhausted...

The run from Ucluelet to Victoria started out with light winds that steadily built as we got closer to Victoria. We (along with Flash and DragonFly) went way offshore again and took the great circle route to Cape Flattery in the fog. The whales were breaching everywhere and it was a magical time.

We managed to get to the freshening breeze first and so legged out on everyone except DragonFly who beat us to Victoria. Ended up finishing first (way ahead) in the early morning, down about 7 minutes on Dragon Fly...

If we can win first on the leg to Naniamo we could get a podium position if some of the other boats fade a little...game on!

The Race from Winter Harbor to Ucluelet was unfortunately cancelled since only a few boats were able to finish - this really hurt our standings as we would have easily earned a second place plus put about 20 hours on DragonFly in the elapsed time standings...

We will have to put the hammer down on the next leg to Victoria to gain some points...

Icon safely arrive in Ucluelet at 16:04 today after a 138 mile drifter from Winter Harbor. We had an okay start (we were over early but quickly re-crossed the line) and then the wind shut off. It seemed to take hours to get around the Brooks Pennisula.

We took a risk and went way offshore (approximately 20-30 miles). We were so far out that we couldn't contact Tofino Coast Guard Radio for our required check in appointments. The winds were okay and built the next morning as we headed back to the beach.

We were the first to arrive in Ucluelet, so we will get another white flag and will pull off a significant lead in the elapsed time contest. As far as the corrected time finish results we will have to see...

We have been quiet the last few days - busy sailing and getting the boat ready for going around Cape Scott. But first an update...

After a frustrating couple of days with the wind building from the back and bringing the fleet down to us we had an upwind leg and managed to get a bullet. Today's leg was from Comox to Campbell River. Ian drove another great start and we accelerated past the fleet into a freshing northwester. We paced Flash over to the Sunshine coast when they tacked back - we followed them back, but then sent Karl aloft and decided to head back to east in a very high risk move to stay in pressure. The wind amazingly gave a 180 degree lift and we were able to lay Cape Mudge without tacking and without getting swept into Desolation Sound.

The results are not in yet, but we probably corrected to second - a big help from our poor performance from the last two days!

More to come...

Icon arrive safely in Naniamo late last night after a long motor from Anacortes. We lucked out with a nice spot at the head of the dock. We just went through the coast guard safety inspection this morning and off-loaded all the extra gear into the crew van. The weather is really warm with not much wind...

This afternoon we have a skippers meeting followed by a welcome reception. The winds are supposed to be SE 15-20 tomorrow which will make the first leg very short...

More tomorrow...

Icon will be leaving Anacortes for Naniamo on Thursday June 4, 2009 around 13:00 - just as soon as some of our crew arrives in from the airport. We will motor/sail to Nanaimo and hope to arrive there by 10:00pm. We plan on clearing customs in either Bedwell Harbor or in Naniamo.

The crew van should arrive in Naniamo several hours before we do... Our Spot transciever will be active whenever we are on the move, so you can follow us if you desire...

We are in the midst of preparing Icon for the 2009 van Isle 360.

In case you haven't heard about the van Isle 360 - it is a 10-stage event circumnavigating Vancouver Island. The race starts and ends in Naniamo and has a well deserved reputation as being one of the most difficult yet rewarding races in North America.

In order to facilitate communication we have installed a new KVH Fleetbroadband system on Icon so that we can exchange e-mail, post blog entries, and check weather. You can also call us at the following telephone number...

011-870-773-151-714

We will have the phone on throughout the event...

The crew of Icon had a great time at Swiftsure with eleven boats participating from the Anacortes Yacht Club. As expected there was adverse current in light winds at the start with a wild dash to make it through the Race before the door was slammed shut.

As many of you know we have a computer onboard Icon and that we use B&G Deckman and Nobeltec Admiral for navigation.  While these two products have their own merits, unfortunately they are not integrated with our Furuno NavNet 3D glass helm at each wheel station - as a result the navigator down below does not have access to real-time radar, sounder, route information and AIS targets.

Icon was splashed today (May 20) after having her hull pimped to perfection plus some minor propeller repairs to fix the damage when we hit a log during our record "Round Whidbey" run.  With a little more work she should be ready to rock during Swiftsure.