The Orientation

We met our instructor, Rick, in the morning. He seems to have been born on the water. He said he started sailing when he was young. After school, he got his captain's license and started sailing tug boats, while he was living on his boat. He said that after the first couple years of marriage, he and his wife decided that the boat was too small for two people and moved to shore. I think he said he lived on his boat for 15 years total. He's a pretty relaxed guy, but extremely knowledgeable.

The boat is fantastic and huge, at least it is huge compared to the J boats I sail on CC Reservoir. It's twice the size of what I'm used to, 43 feet. It is only a year old and has all of the latest technology--a furling main and jib, self tailing winches, a mechanical winch for the main sheet, GPS, "auto pilot", electronic apparent and true wind indicators, etc. Raising the sails is so easy compared to the boats I'm used to, it almost isn't any work at all.

It is hard to say if I learned anything at all today. It was so exciting getting the big boat going it was hard to remember what was new and what was just fun.

Oh, Yeah. We went over the mechanical systems. The engine, generator, water system, sanitary system. And all of the trouble shooting for each system. It was a lot of information to take in and it seemed like it was all crucial. If you don't do X, we crash/sink/suffer.

I'm used to an outboard motor, so this inboard is a big change.

After the systems lesson, we got the underway. Instead of going out directly, we spent an hour driving circles around the marina to see what our turning radius was. Rick taught us about prop walk-the boat's turn to the starboard side when the motor starts initially. We used it to turn the boat more quickly to the starboard.

We set sail for a little bit, but the sun was going down, so we didn't have much time sailing today.

At sunset, we anchored. It was only the second time I've anchored, but it was really easy. I guess on the J boats it is so much more work because we have to haul out the anchor from down below, measure our scope, get the outboard running. In this boat, everything is stored in the bow of the boat with a mechanism to ease it out and pull it up.

Ok. That's all for today.