GroupWBench

We have grown comfortable enough with the Still Unnamed Boat to invite a couple of non-sailing people along for an afternoon out. We brought Jessie and Andrea, the rest of the security team from work out for a "team building" afternoon. We've been working hard for the last eight weeks or so and a nice afternoon out like this was to be a nice reward for all of us.

The wind was up, but I figured that we've been doing so well getting SUB in and out that we'd make it look simple. Hubris is not a pretty thing. I had Ivy hold us in place a moment after I put it in reverse to try to minimize the prop walk. When first put the boat in reverse it tries to kick the back of the boat off to the left real hard. I figured with the wind blowing from right to left we needed to minimize the tendency to cut over like that. It worked pretty well - too well, actually. I backed out and started turning the wrong way. The wind caught us and sped the turn up.

Quick thinking skipper that I am, I executed my bail out plan. I put the transmission into forward and tried to push back into our slip. At this point the fiasco began. We kept drifting across the fairway. By the time I figured out that I hadn't made it into forward and we were drifting in neutral Ivy, Andrea, and Jessie were busy fending us off the boats on the far side of the fairway. At that point, every time we got the front clear it pushed the back in. Every time we got the back clear the front was into the boats.

The crown jewel of the event was when Ivy was pushing us off of a boat up front and lost her balance. She right dropped over the side with a splash. Fortunately, a Texas lake in October isn't nearly as cold as a lake up north. Ivy climbed onto the swim deck of one of the boats we were trying not to bounce off of and got to the pier where she managed to eventually get us pointed so that I could back into the fairway cleanly. She scrambled up on the bow and I backed all the way out as if it was the plan all along. I looked around and didn't see my pride in my mad boat handling skills floating in the fairway…it must have dropped to the bottom like a rock.

We sailed out and actually had a great time under sail. The wind was up and we kept things conservative. I figured we had scared the non-sailors enough with the fiasco in the marina. We didn't need to go racing along with a rail in the water.

Coming in, I had enough leftover anxiety over the hash I had made of getting out that I practiced the manuever over by the barrier tires once just to reassure myself that I could do it. We came in and just as we started into the slip, the wind came up and started pushing us a bit wide. I powered up and pushed us into the slip, just kissing the pad on the left side on the way in. At that point, I was ready to consider anything that didn't involve careening out of control down the fairway a big win.

While it has been said that hubris is a great renewable resource, I'm gonna try to keep it in check for a while. Hopefully, this event will fall into the category of "once bitten, twice shy" rather than a hiccup to be forgotten.