d'oh!

Untying the sail, unaware of the troubles that await.

We are road sailors. The running joke right now is that we just take our boats for a drive.

Tuesday we set out with good intentions and good weather. 70s and a light but good enough breeze to give Old Blue a maiden run.

Well.

Every experience as new boat owners reveals just what newbies we are. It is tremendously easier to just be a sailing club member, grab a boat, and sail it out. The club boats are on dollies, so we just wheel them down to the beach and dunk them. All the rigging is assembled.

Tuesday we learned we don't know how the halyard connects to the upper boom, i.e., how the frig to you connect the sail to the mast and raise it? We searched the boom for some sort of connection, then consulted the Internet. Unfortunately, our cell carrier chose that moment to be very slow (as it tends to do when we are in a rush).

So, we fibbed it by tying the halyard to the end of the upper boom. This is wrong. We realized how wrong when, once we had the boat in the water, we raised the sail. Things looked dubious. We commenced arguing over whether or not to sail, even though we could clearly see the sail wasn't sitting right and the mast had a decidedly perturbed look about it. Trust me, masts have expressions.

I, ever the stubborn worry wart, won the argument. Mike went back to get the trailer. We had an audience of fishermen and mothers going for jogs and walks. As embarrassing as this was, I did notice that a sailboat puts a smile on people's faces. So, that's neat.

We loaded the boat backward (stern to car) to see how that might help with weight distribution. Marginally. We've got to extend the tongue and put some more weight up front. Anyway, once we were up on dry land and weren't trying to hold a boat that wanted TO GET OUT THERE, GUYZ!, we tried to raise the sail, to see if we just sucked in the water (we are used to rigging on a beach).

Nope. Sail & mast were looking at us like Al Borland.

Then there was a little snap and a piece of plastic went flying off the mast cap. Dang. Brought the sail down and inspected the damage. Nothing big but enough that it would have been a bad situation on the water. The eyelet through the mast cap now had a sharp edge that could have cut the halyard rubbing against it. Dismasting could injure us and damage the boat.

So, really, we have floated our boats and taken them on bumpy rides all over the place. I think they will have identity issues before long.