Evanston: maiden voyage
Evanston: maiden voyage
GANNET has made her first voyage. Carol sailed it solo. It was not a very long voyage. Eight boat slips. And it didn’t last very long. That GANNET sailed was unexpected.
When we arrived at the marina yesterday morning, under a lowering sky, I saw GANNET’s distinctive mast from the dock gate and thought it was too close to shore. The boat yard men had put her in slip I-24, not I-32 where she belongs.
The marina is far from full and fortunately the slips between I-24 and 1-32 were vacant. I tied together three lines to bridge the gap, secured one end to a cleat on I-32 and the other to GANNET’s starboard bow line and pushed her back out of the slip, with Carol aboard at the tiller.
There was almost no wind and I planned to pull GANNET to her proper home; but to our surprise the little lightweight boat with her smooth bottom began to gain way ahead of the bare breath of wind against her mast and hull. All I had to do was walk around and pull in the slack as Carol steered into I-32. Pretty nice. And then it began to rain.
A few showers were heavy enough to drive us into the cabin, but mostly I worked in light drizzle and got the boom, solid boom vang, halyards, lifelines, dock lines, fenders and a few other things sorted out.
Before we left I removed the old Mariner outboard from the outboard bracket and found the wood pad on the bracket to be split. This should be easy to replace.
As we left, the sky began to clear.
Sunday, May 22, 2011