Officially, this isn't a parting of the "Sailing Lesson" series, but it's in the same spirit. And it has the same comedy (or is that tragedy?) of errors that you have come to expect of me and sailing. Sigh.
It's time to admit what will quickly become obvious. We bought a boat. At this writing, we've actually had possession of her for eight days, and we've sailed in her twice, the first time with the former owner, the last time was yesterday. And that's what we're here to talk about.
Just for reference, the boat we bought is a 22 foot Catalina sailboat, weighing about 2400 lbs. It isn't a light weight. On the other hand, this isn't what one would call a big boat. That's important later.
Now, with a sailboat, there's a bit of work you have to go through to get it ready to sail. It isn't a good idea to just plunk it into the water. When you trailer a sailboat, the mast is stored in the down position. There's not much choice... the top of the mast on our boat sits 25 feet above the top of the boat. In a trailer, that's going to be about 35 feet above the ground. With that height, you don't go under many bridges or trees. So we parked and then proceeded to load the boat with our various belongings and step (raise) the mast.
Surprisingly, that went pretty well. Even with just Stacey and I to do it, it wasn't *that* big of a problem. Not that it was fun, it just wasn't as big a deal as I thought it would be. Once up, it's a matter of tightening a few stays and the mast is ready. I went ahead and rigged the mains'l, which didn't take too long, and since there was plenty of wind, I decided to leave the jib off, at least for now.
The launching was the other part I was really worried about. I'm still not too good at backing up with the boat attached, and there were quite a few people launching their boats. Enough that I went around a couple of times to let others get by. When we finally had a whole side to ourselves, we gave it a try, even though there were people in line.
It wasn't too bad. I got the boat into the water, unhooked it and motored off while Stacey parked the truck and trailer. It must have taken me another ten minutes to get back to the dock to pick up Iain and Stacey. There were quite a few boats milling about, and I'm none too sure about my boating skills, but I did manage it.
There's still a lot of wind, so I decide we'll just motor down to the beach. Iain has been wanting to go swimming, so we'll go do that first. We get there, and I try to drop anchor. The second time it seems to hold. Stacey and Iain are both ready. For some odd reason, we let Iain go first. (Big Mistake #1.) Stacey then went down the ladder. Stacey's scared of deep water, and since my run-in with the CN tower in Toronto*, I can perfectly understand her feelings. She couldn't let go of the boat ladder. Meanwhile, Iain is drifting away from the boat slowly. (He's in no danger, he's got his life jacket on, and we're in a swimming zone.) But he gets scared, and I get scared, so I quickly strip off my shirt and jump in. I forgot to take my glasses off, but they stay on long enough for me to hand them to Stacey and head out to get Iain. I pull him back to the boat. He's fine now, not scared now that he's a bit closer. I take a look for the buoy that marks the swim zone. We're still okay. We play for a bit; Stacey gets used to the fact that her life jacket *will* keep her afloat, Iain just enjoys himself, but we stay close to the back of the boat. I try to keep watch on the buoy. Then Iain floats just out of reach. I swim out to get him. I think that's when the anchor started dragging. All of the sudden the boat was further away than I expected it to be. I kept swimming, getting closer, but it was obvious that the boat was moving. A lot. After what seemed an eternity we were all back at the boat. I climbed up in, and found that we were now at least 100 feet out beyond the buoy that marked the swimming zone.
But we all were in the boat, we were all okay.
It was about then that I realized that the keys I had in my pocket weren't there anymore. They were our set of "boat" keys. Nothing truly critical was there, but the loss is certainly *very* irritating. It contained the keys to the hatch locks, the motor mount lock, and the trailer hitch lock. Of those, the motor mount lock is the worst loss. Fortunately we won't need that key 'till later this year, when we ready the boat for winter. Then I started worrying about how much gas we had. I couldn't check, because it was in a locked compartment. We had been assured by the former owner that we would get a lot of usage on a tank of gas, so I decided not to worry too much.
The keys were supposedly on a floating key ring, so we circled a few of times, hoping to find them, but with no luck. Then Iain needed to use the bathroom. He did not want to use the port-o-potty, which I guess I can understand, so we motored to the marina. We docked at a courtesy dock, and tied up. Iain and Stacey went off to the restrooms, and I laid back, able to rest for a moment. When they came back, I took a quick walk to the truck to prove to myself that the boat keys weren't there -- they weren't -- and we headed back out into the lake. We were going to sail, not motor.
I had rigged the sail, but not raised it, so when we got a decent way out, I pulled the sail up for the first time. The wind was light, and yet enough so that we did move. It was nice to be under wind power. Stacey noticed some clouds off to the west, but I looked at them, and seemed quite a ways off, and when we left, the weather report was still saying the rain would come Sunday, so we sailed a bit more. (Big Mistake #2.)
Not more than ten minutes later, I looked at those clouds again. They were a *lot* closer, very black, and very nasty looking. I immediately told Stacey to take the helm, get the motor started, and get us to the ramp. I went up and took the sail down. I didn't want to have to deal with the problems of the wind taking the sail. Not only did I take it down, I took it off.
By the time I finished, not more than five minutes later, we could see that the storm was going to be upon us within minutes. We were close to the boat ramp, but everybody else had the same idea, and everybody else had a power boat with a lot more power than we had. I couldn't seem to get to the dock. Every time I got close, some power boat would cut me off.
I was getting scared. The clouds had turned the sky black, the winds were getting worse and worse, and we were in the middle of the lake. I made a decision -- the only right decision I think I could've made. I gunned the motor, using every bit of the 9.9 horsepower I had and we made for the marina and one of the courtesy docks.
It had been my experience that once in the bay of the marina, the winds would calm down some. Perhaps they did. But they were so high they pushed us away from the marina, even as I tried to get to it. I couldn't turn the boat around and get it into position -- every time I tried, we either ran aground on the opposite shore, or I risked running into a moored boat. Finally I managed to get us into the dock by backing in. Once there several very nice people helped us get our boat tied down in a spot just large enough for our boat. We only have two tie down lines, and one of those was caught in the wing keel. We ended up using our anchor line to secure the boat. It was just before 9:00.
For a while it looked like the storm might pass us to the south. We waited at the marina until it started to rain, then we waited in the truck. We even took the truck and trailer and went out to Subway for some food, then came back. I kept hoping that we'd be able to pull the boat before we went home. At just before midnight, I gave up and we went home. I did *not* want to leave the boat. It was extenuating circumstances, yes, but still I didn't like the idea of leaving our boat tied to a dock that clearly said "One hour limit. No overnight docking." But we left anyway, intending to return early the next morning.
It was the best decision, and I based it on several things. First, there was lightning all around us, and it didn't seem to be slowing or stopping. I didn't like the idea of being all alone with a mast 30 feet above ground in the middle of a lake. It sounded like a perfect time to get hit by lightning. Secondly, even without the lightning, it was dangerous. The wind had calmed, but if something happened and I went overboard, there was little chance of rescue, even with my life jacket. I could probably get to shore okay. Probably, almost certainly, even. But it wasn't worth the chance. Lastly, the blasted rope was caught in the keel, and I needed to free it. I knew I'd feel better if we did that in the day. (What I didn't believe at the time was that derigging the boat would be a problem at night. I was wrong. I'm very glad we waited.)
When we reached the house, I checked the weather channel. The worst seemed to be east of us (and going east), but our area (and the lake's area) was still under a severe thunderstorm watch until 3:00 AM.
Cut to 8:00 the next morning. We're at the lake. I walk over from the parking lot to the boat. She seems to be fine. I check to make sure the keel is all the way down, then hop onto the dock and grab the caught line. One good hard tug and it's free. I start untieing the boat, then grab a passerby to help me shove off. We get the boat headed straight out from the marina, and I motor out slowly. There is no wind, and the boat is simple to control, not like the night before when I had to fight to get her to go where I wanted -- no, where I *needed*-- her to go. A few minutes later Stacey has the boat by a line at the bow and I back the truck down the ramp. And a few minutes after that we're parked, derigging the boat.
Lowering the mast was going to be the hard part, and we both knew it. And we were both scared of it. Things were going great, until the mast weight got too much for the mast step and it broke. Not so much we can't use the boat, but it did break. And it scared us more than anything else.
And then we took the boat back to its storage spot and went home.
Like you believe that it was that easy. All seemed to be well. I got the boat backed into its spot with a fair amount of ease -- I seem to be getting the hang of backing with a trailer. I remembered to unhook the safety chains before unhitching the boat, I unhooked the light wires, unhitched the trailer, then stood on the bumper of my truck to get the trailer off the ball. It went like a charm.
Then the front of the trailer slowly started to rise. It got up to about five feet while I contemplated what my boat would look like if the back end hit ground, then I grabbed it. For a split second I wasn't sure if anything was going to happen, then it started to come down. I was able to lower it to the ground somewhat gently, and we cranked the front trailer wheel down a bit and put a bracing board we carry under the engine mount at the back of the boat. Safe once more, we hoped.
This is fun, right?
Okay, it is fun. But next year we're storing in a place where we don't have to raise and lower the mast each time we want to sail.
*The CN Tower. For those who don't know, Stacey, Iain, and I went to Toronto earlier this year for a few days. In Toronto, there is a tourist attraction called The CN Tower. Essentially just a "space needle" type tower, with the exception that it has the highest public viewing platform in the world. At the lower of its two levels -- about 1100 feet or 103 stories -- there is a glass floor. This floor looks straight down to ground level outside of the building. We have some pictures of Stacey and Iain sitting on the floor that were difficult for me to take because I had to look down to take them. It took me a good fifteen minutes and two sessions of trying before I could bring myself to walk out over the glass floor. It was one of the most difficult things I've done, mentally. I seem to have become a lot more phobic about heights than I once was. (Not that heights were ever easy for me, but things like this do seem worse.) Anyway, the point is, I understood why Stacey was having such a hard time with the water.
Different phobias for different folks...