GroupWBench

We have had three great sailing experiences recently…and I've managed to not post a thing about them. I guess it is time to do a little catching up.

We went to Florida and chartered a smallish boat for three days. We lived aboard and sailed out into Tampa Bay each day. It was a very good experience. The boat was a 31' Hunter. That is only six feet longer than our Macgregor 25, but in terms of volume it was a night and day difference. It is like going from a VW bug to a small bus. I could stand up and actually move around. The boat had two bedrooms, a real kitchen, and functional bathroom. (I'm still fighting the good fight against needless sailerspeak) It had roller furling on the main and jib, which was something new for us to deal with. It also had air conditioning and a nice bimini so that we were pretty comfortable when we were out sailing as well as in the marina.

The first two days of sailing were in very light winds, so we didn't cover an great distances, but it let us get out and get comfortable with the larger boat.The roller furling mainsail was interesting and I'm glad we had the light winds to get used to it. It was a lot simpler than the wrestling match that we sometimes have on our boat. We had to work a fair amount to use what wind there was, so we ended  up doing a fair amount of tacking back and forth. We came in a little early on the first afternoon when we saw a bit of a squall moving in towards the marina. We managed to get in and tied up just as the first raindrops were falling.

The marina had solid concrete docks. A careless driver could really chew up a bunch of fiberglass on them in a hurry. Heck a moment of mistake and a careful driver could chew up just as much fiberglass. The charter company doesn't let customers park the boats out of understandable self defense. I was just as glad that they were the ones doing it. The flip side of that is that I had to ease the boat straight in at the concrete dock so that the the guy from the charter company could step aboard. Once he was on the boat I had to back off without swinging the nose into anything.  I was pretty tense the first time we did that. I really didn't like aiming the boat at the end of the big hard dock like that. Fortunately, it went fine every time. I guess I've managed to learn a little bit about handling a boat.

The last day had pretty good wind and we sailed from down to the big bridge and back up to the marina in St. Petersburg and back. Ivy drove much of the time and proved she probably does a better job than I do of keeping the boat on a nice steady course.

Living on the boat was nice, too. We didn't do any fancy cooking, but we had nice meals and were very comfortable. We mostly hung around on the boat and watched some shows on NetFlix for entertainment, although we did spend a little time at the hotel that owns the mariina and watched a little bit of football one day. We also got to use the hotel gym for showers, which was nice. Showering in the little bathroom would have been a bit tough. It was about the size of a phone booth, but shorter. I'm not sure I wouldn't have wacked my head and elbows pretty good.

All in all, it was a nice trip. I'm glad we did it, and I'm pretty sure that we will be comfortable handling a larger boat next time. We both said this would have been a lot more fun with some friends. We''ll have to find some buddies to go with next time.

Our next sailing experience was back on Canyon Lake. We took my sister out on her first sail ever. The winds were great and we went from the marina to the dam and back. Getting to the dam was a bit of work because the winds were coming from that direction, but we worked our way there easily enough. It was just a very nice day to be out on the empty lake (it was a weekday afternoon). The temperatures had dropped to the low 90s so it was pretty comfortable. I think Missy enjoyed the sailing. I know we enjoyed having her out with us.

Then, last Sunday, Ivy and I went out on the lake and got to sail in heavier wind than we've been out in all summer. It was good for us to be out and not chasing every breath of moving air. The boat handled just fine and Ivy is becoming a master at keeping the sails trimmed for us. It is a real blast to catch a strong gust of air and feel the boat start zooming down the lake. We managed to cover the length and breadth of the lake in less time than it usually takes to get down to the dam.

I'll get some pictures from our trips up soon.