smooth launch

our futures are so bright

Sunday dawned a beautiful and glorious day and we were not going to let anything like home improvements or social interaction get in our way of a good sail.

But first we had to do that thing we'd been procrastinating on: fixing the gooseneck's position on the lower boom. Last time out, the sheet blocks weren't hanging straight down and the mast would groan on tacks. Somewhere along the way, things had shifted.

So, like good pavement sailors, we rigged the boat in the driveway and loosened the goose to let the boom naturally roll into place, and then tightened it.

"Hey, let's just trailer it like this," Mike said as the sail rippled in the breeze.

"You're joking," I said ... hopefully.

"It's only a mile, we'll be fine."

Mike is the master of deadpan. Oh, the laughs we have.

Packed everything up properly and grabbed provisions, and I thought we were ready to go, but Mike, like a true captain, wanted to go over the dock launch contingencies in just about every wind scenario out there. Where would we set up and how would we point the bow if the wind was coming from this direction, that direction, and that other direction? He grabbed the dry erase board off the fridge, drew the docks, and started to chart it all out. I took a piece of scrap wrapper to mimic the sail's actions for the different scenarios.

FINALLY we were ready. A little behind schedule, but schedules are only a suggestion when it comes to sailing.

Off we went to the lake, where we found ourselves in full soccer season and a Huntington's disease walk and breakfast. The wind seemed pretty good - not blustery but enough to keep you moving if you stayed away from the coves.

Windfinder report for Sunday, August 24, 2014. We sailed from 10-noon

We had a new plan for our dock launch, and I think we pulled it off fairly well. The wind was coming from the southeast, but due to some tree lines and hills, it came closer to south-southwest at the dock, which was idea for preferred position on this nearly cleat-less dock.

Instead of grappling with stuff in the water, we half-rigged the boat on the dolly and bungee-corded the sail on the deck, so it wouldn't slip off on the ramp or take a dunk in the water.

This seemed to work out pretty well, although it adds considerable weight to our dolly that needs some repair. It held up, though I held my breath the whole time. Once the boat was in the shallow end of the ramp, Mike grappled with our stubborn rudder. There are no cleats in the shallow end of the dock, just one loner at the very deep. (We plan to sneak some more on ourselves). Then we raised the sail with almost perfection. A bit got snagged on the tiller, so we had to lower, make sure it was all clear, and then we were good to go.

I hopped in the cockpit and Mike walked the boat to the end of our dock, keeping her nose to the wind on our east-west dock. Then as he hopped in and pushed off, I sheeted in, and we were off on a nice reach for about two seconds before we turned downwind and toodled out the open belly of the lake.

Our old, spare camera had a dead battery, so I didn't bring it on board and I didn't want to risk my phone going into the drink, which is too bad. We had just rounded the southeast point when we spotted a swan enjoying his Sunday morning without a care in the world. Since we do not have a motor boat to go out and place sail points for us in the water, we figured a swan would do nicely.

Is it animal cruelty to chase a swan with your sailboat? He can fly away, so isn't it just a form of encouraged exercise?

We were on a close reach, but the bugger kept shifting closer and closer to the wind, but that just made us more determined. It looked like we might catch him too and have to deal with the consequences of an annoyed animal, but he smartly took the air and we let him be. After that, we decided to pick points on shore to aim for and, you know, tack before we rammed the boat on rocks.

<<Looks pointedly at Captain Mike>>

Sometimes the captain should listen to his first mate when she says he's getting too close to the shore and remember when they drained the lake and we saw how many rocks and tree trunks lurked just under the waterline, hmm???

http://www.emirates247.com/

We sailed on, because what else do you do? I forgot to check the hull after we loaded her onto the trailer, so I'll have to check that tonight. Considering we sailed a good hour longer without noticeable differences in the boats performance (fluky cross winds aside), she's probably fine. Or taking on a slow leak, hooray.

Even before our loud-thunking brush with the rocks, we wondered if the boat was hiding water somewhere (we took a peek through the port hole before setting off and everything seemed dry) because the wind seemed stronger than our last outting, but we rarely could get a mild hike going. But to our eyes she did not seem to be lower in the water or listing, so ... maybe we're just awful at gauging wind speeds? Though last time had lots of lulls between short toodles (and random puffs).

The wind was dying down, the sun getting hot, and our tummies hungry, so we headed for shore, which became quite the task as we had to zig-zag through wind shifts to get there. Of course, true to Murphy's Law, by the time we had the sail rolled up and the boat on the trailer, the wind came back with some gusto. However, looking at the report, the gust didn't last long. Oh well, it was time for some BLTs.

Our first turtle

This 4th of July was marked with many firsts: our first sail on our neighborhood lake, our first successful dock launch, our first outing with our brand new sail ... and our first turtle.

 

Yep. We flipped the boat right on over. Since we didn't have the camera on us and were a little busy, you'll have to let the Internet illustrate.

Waving for help or having a dance off?

The funny thing about it all, we weren't sailing at high speeds - we were in irons in a wind hole! Yes, we're that awesome. We'd been getting some nice winds, and although we knew we were toodling into a north cove area, the wind was coming from the south and the water was rippling enough ahead we knew we had plenty of room to tack and scoot back out to the main lake.

As we were exploring, we passed some push-pedal kayakers, who took our pictures. After we cleared them, we decided to tack. 

And then the wind died. As we were trying to crank things around and catch any baby puffs to get us out of there, I suddenly became rudder dyslexic. Then a bigger puff came up - we were on the wrong side of the boat, the rudder was cranked wrong, and we rolled right over.

It seemed to happen fast, yet we still had enough time to say, "oh crap, here we go!"

The boat was floating sideways for about two seconds, then rolled right over, daggerboard in the air. By the way, there were probably 30-some people in full view of our sailing prowess. 

Mike climbed up onto the hull to get enough leverage on the daggerboard (we're short), and I swam around to the other side and started lifting up on the mast. We were up in less than two minutes and cackling madly. We climbed back in and realized neither of us had lost our sunglasses. High five! All of our gear was still attached. The only thing missing was a shoe, which I could see floating nearby. So, we sailed right over, scooped it up, and carried on our merry way (laughing, of course).

"I'm so glad we did that," Mike declared as we got back into the groove of long East-West reaches, hiking in 10-15 mph winds (according to the Windfinder report). We haven't tipped on accident; in our first sailing lesson, we did a purposeful capsize and righted the boat from its side, all under supervision and without a full-on turtle. That was three seasons ago. Turns out, it wasn't a big deal. Of course, things can go wrong in any accident, like the boom whacking you hard in the head, getting trapped under the boat, etc. But it's not an "unknown" factor now.

We sailed for awhile longer to let the sail (and ourselves) dry out. The kayakers had caught up to the Stingray family sailing on the west end of the lake and must've told them what happened, because as we passed one another, the dad yelled, "Get a little wet?" 

It was such a lovely sail, all things considered, and we left in high spirits. Which gets to the start and end portion of our sailing: docking (sorry, I went with the climatic moment first).

Once upon a time, we tried to launch from a fishing dock, and there were some issues. Woody remembers it well, so I'm sure he was giving us the hairy eyeball Friday when we rolled him into the water and tied him to the dock (which seems to be lacking in cleats, btw). So, instead of hopping back on the horse, so to speak, we simply stuck to beach launches. Unfortunately, there's nowhere to beach rig our boat on the lake a block from our house, so we had to buck up and get over it. 

When the boat is beached, it doesn't move. You can put the sail up easily. You're also not blocking anyone on the ramp or dock, so you don't feel the pressure and rush and then make lots of mistakes because you're rushing andomgeveryoneswatchingandgettingimpatienteeeek!

Whew.

To get ourselves in order, we read this step-by-step guide to rigging and launching from the dock. YouTube videos hadn't been helpful, because they'd only show coming from the water, or they'd skip leaving the dock or leave out where we thought a helpful tip should be. I'm sure we were just over thinking it all.

Random shot of the lake from the west bridge.  She's over her banks.

We got the boat in and tied off on the leeward side of the dock. Daggerboard in. Check. Rudder on ... Ha. See, when we sold Blue, we swapped rudders, because Woody's seemed to pop out more than we liked, and Blue's seemed to fit more snugly in the bracket. We made sure Woody's rudder fit fine into Blue without slippage, too. Now we're regretting that decision, because Woody's pin doesn't slip in easily, and the rudder still pops out on occasion, making it really difficult to fix things in the water. :-\ Might call the sellers and see if they want to swap rudders and double check that theirs is working properly. Or we jerry rig a way to keep the bottom part of the rudder bracket in place.

The next snag was the halyard. The better one went with Blue, because it was already on her spars and it seemed unnecessary to swap that out. Woody's is grubby and slightly too thick to smoothly go through the mast cap's hole, a problem exacerbated by the frayed ends. After struggling on the dock, we decided to just go ahead and get a new one. 

The wind was coming up, along with the waves, and the ramp was getting busier, so the boat was swinging out, and half the time we were just trying to keep the sail from taking a bath. So, then I was on the dock holding the boat parallel while Mike got things in order, prepared to gently let the boat swing out and go into irons as the sail came up. We thought we had the halyard cleared and the spars situated correctly, but as we started to raise it, the halyard was caught under something. We swapped places, and I double checked the order of spars, got the halyard cleared, and then swore a bit as I tried to re-thread it. Mike finally got it in, and then we raised our pretty new sail (complete with window!), and I cleated off.

Sailing from the dock was smooth as could be, because once we pushed off from the (east-west) dock, we were in a perfect reach across south winds for several yards and then turned north for a run to get out into the wide part of the lake. Coming in was a little tricky, however, because the winds were southeast, so it took some strategic tacking, but we made it in with little fanfare.

Which means ... BEST HOUSE PURCHASE EVER!!! Yes, we don't have our third car garage or the huge yard, but Mike's going to build a garage hoist and mowing is a breeze. We're a mile's drive from the dock, which will make weeknight sailing so much easier than driving all the way across the city to the sail club. We'll still sail there, of course (they have other boats we can play with, too), but this proximity will just encourage us more.

Flooded underpass on west side of lake