Sailing.. Take Me Away...

Just a quick update as the memories are fresh in my head. I had another sail this morning at the U.S. Sailing center about a mile down the road from the house. I got a late start for a Friday after some coffee, egg, and toast over some work emails. It's nice to see, and depressing at the same time, that the office can go on just fine without me. As my boss once said a long time ago, no one is irreplaceable. I like to think I'm a little irreplaceable?

Off the bow.

I got to the sailing offices at 11:00 in the morning and spoke with the receptionist. She recognized me from yesterday and was far more pleasant. When I requested a boat to check out, she asked what kind, and I replied, "A Scot". At that point, the executive director came out of his office and discussed the timing: they have 4 Scots. Three were reserved at 2:00 and one was coming in at noon, and one was available. So I was home free! Except for one problem: I was then asked where my crew was, and I said I was singlehandling. He paused for a second and said, "You're going to singlehand a Scot?" I said, "Sure, just the mains'l," making a point to pronounce "mainsail" like sailors do. I then reminded him I was out with an instructor yesterday who cleared me for take off. The director said winds were light at 4 knots. I would need a jib because he "wouldn't want me getting in trouble out there." Now, I'm no sailing expert, but I'm not sure what people who normally charter from him usually do. 5kn is plenty enough to power a 20' 800lb boat. I'm not racing, ya know? The receptionist said it was 10 on the water. At that, I swiped the rental fee for the day and made my way to the life jackets, pulling down the same one I had yesterday. It still fit nicely, which is why I grabbed the same one.

A short time later, after a quick little bump of the boat in front of me at the dock -- I was on the leeward side of the dock with about 20 feet behind me and 15 feet to port to maneuver. My choices were to run aground, hit a piling, or bump the boat in front of me. Coming a-bump! I'm sure the director was watching from his perch shaking his head wondering who the heck he just sent out to his doom. Note there are no motors on these boats so getting off and on the dock is all under sail.






This is what screwing around
looks like. About 6 miles covered.
Fastest speed 8 knots.



Sailing after that was really fun, but the wind predictions were way off. It was more like 15 knots in the middle with whitecaps in the channel. Hard to believe, but the wind was even stronger than yesterday. My senses were confirmed when gusts approaching 19kn were recorded exactly when I was pulling out into the channel. Still, the sailing was exhilirating and the boat's heeling soon became second nature. The back-and-forth line on the right is me having fun on a beam reach. Having just the mains'il was fortuitous as I'm not sure the jib would've done very well. I found it easier to sail by myself than with the skipper yesterday, even with the loss of ballast. The wind rotated from the SE to the SW by the time I was done. Much of the sailing was on a broad reach or close hauled.

After about an hour doing large circles and jibing downwind, ominous clouds loomed on the horizon to the west. There was no forecast for rain but something was definitely headed our way. I was on the other side of the inlet when I saw it and decided to play it safe and headed back to base. Good thing, because about 20 minutes later the rain came with the wind gusting 20+.

All I could think at that moment was I'd earned my sailing merit badge for the inlet on the trip back. A woman on the dock who grabbed my dockline said as much when she noticed I was singlehanded and brought the boat in smoothly with some nice tacking. You can see the long tacks on the left side of the photo above. It was a real struggle! Another guy asked if I really just did do all that without a jib. What is it with people and their jibs? I wouldn't even mention these comments except for the fact I'm not an experienced sailor so I'll take compliments when I can get them.

Flying Scots lined up after being moored.

I lowered the mainsail and cleaned up the boat, grudingly expecting to have to flake the sail and get the boat ready for mooring. I didn't want to do that because I paid for a full day (ending at 6pm) and it was only 2:30. Sensing that why I was taking my time and hanging around on the boat, the director came out and said he'd offer me a free half day any time I wanted since the weather kinda buggered us both. I thanked him immensely - he didn't have to do that - and finished tidying up the boat. I hung around and talked sailing with the nice couple who helped me get into dock and then headed back to the house. It was a good non-beach day and great sailing, though it ended too soon.

It's Here, Sort Of

My kit arrived in Minneapolis yesterday after a circuitous route through  middle America, much like that cross country trip I took in 1990 in my Pontiac Sunbird, with the flip top headlights and 2.0 dual overhead cam. Paul was my best friend then and we had a couple dozen cassette tapes filled with Black Sabbath, Black Flag, The Clash, and more gentle fare like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. I'm really glad there was no such thing as social media back then.

The original shipping schedule had the package arriving on March 19; it arrived in Minneapolis on March 21, so naturally no one could be home to insist that the delivery people drop it off in the garage and not the street. For those who aren't familiar with shipping companies, they will do exactly what the paper says they should do. If the paper says, "Drop box in middle of street and run over 3 times," they would do it. They won't go an inch out of their way. I know this because when I moved some stuff from Florida to Brooklyn, the movers wanted an extra $200 to carry the stuff up 3 steps and into my front yard, rather than leaving it on the sidewalk in Park Slope.

So, that's why someone has to be home to try to encourage them to bring it up the driveway and into the garage, or at least, someone should be home to open the package and drag each lovely sheet of Okoume plywood into shelter. It doesn't help that it's 15 degrees in Minnesota as I type this. I'm not in any rush to have it delivered if someone can't be there to accept it. And by someone, I mean me.. not my wife.

That begs the question as to where I am. I'm in Florida after working in Orlando (sometimes, work is good) the beginning of the week. I then hiked down to Stuart to my father in law's place. He lives in a nice area on the Atlantic Coast and about a mile from a U.S. Sailing outfit. Since I may be spending more time here in Florida, I figured I'd join with the local sailing club but before that I needed to prove that I wouldn't run over any manatees or kids from the camp. I tacked, jibed, hoisted, and docked under supervision. I'm fairly certain no manatees were hurt. Good news! I passed my sailing test and that lets me take any boat out at any time with or without passengers and without anyone from the club. Feeling pretty good about that. That's where I was this morning, sailing a Flying Scot.

A couple things about this boat: it's fun to sail, sensitive to the touch, and completely not my style. It's also about $17,200 new for a full package including sail, rigging/running, and paint. Or, about double PocketShip. More things I didn't like: There's no cabin, I got pretty wet, and there's no way I'd want to take this out for any more than a couple hours. I may be a bit too harsh on this very popular boat. This is a pretty typical, stripped down racer. It's not meant to meander the islands (though it can). The skipper I was with this morning said people put up biminis and anchor out on nice evenings. I guess that'll work but the footwell was blasted dirty and bilge water was mucking up all the lines. It smelled of seaweed. That's not camping; it's swimming. It just wasn't comfortable.

We were out on the St. Lucie River, a sheltered area between the barrier islands and the Florida mainland on the Atlantic Coast, with winds gusting up to 20 knots. They held steady between 10 and 15 most of the day. We only had the mainsail going since the wind was so strong; a jib would've been wasted. It was exhausting, but fun at the same time. This boat can really heel and it's not a coincidence that the dude in the picture is on the edge leaning back. I really can't wait to bring PocketShip down here and give it a go.

But for now, I need to see if they can bring it up into the garage, then wait for a real spring. Now that's depressing. At least I have some Flying Scots down here to keep me company.