Magnificant Saturday and Handrails
31 August 2015
On Saturday, August 29, Bill and Delores came out for sail #2 with Patti and me. Winds looked to be about 12 knots or so, so I put a reef in the main at the dock. Temp was about 80 with low humidity; in short, a perfect sailing afternoon.
We left the dock about 3:30, and headed out into some very choppy water in the inner and outer harbors. The wind was coming straight up the harbor/river, and the tide was going out, so with the rocks and all things were choppy and confused. I assured everyone that things would smooth out in the Sound and as we got further from the rocks.
Indeed they did. We raised sail in the harbor, then sailed out to the Sound via the southeast passage past the rocks. In order to keep us sailing without too much heeling, I rolled out the genny to about a 100% jib size. We sailed at 3.5 to 4 knots. Soooo nice. After about an hour, we headed sort of northwest. As we approached the harbor mouth, I saw on the chart an area of shallow water. We were heading right for it. As soon as we got there on the chart, we heard the centerboard scrape on the bottom. I quickly reversed course and raised the board. Turns out it was the same place I nearly ran aground on earlier. After sailing southwest for a few minutes, we returned to our northwest course, having gone around the shallow water. I unrolled the rest of the genny as the wind had been decreasing for about an hour at that point. Much better sailing. I even thought about shaking out the reef in the main, but since we were on our way back in at that point, I didn't bother.
We sailed into the outer harbor where we struck the sails and motored in. I had forgotten that we needed gas, so I was stingy with the throttle and sailed as long as possible before we turned the engine on. We started the trip with less than a quarter tank, and now we had even less. It was enough.
Back at the dock, I put the boat away while the rest of the crew set up a barbeque at a picnic table. We had beer, wine, turkey burgers, hot dogs, tomatoes, and homemade cole slaw as the sun set. No bugs, light breeze. Just perfect.
And now, a word about the handrails. As I mentioned before, Ed felt bad that the work they charged me for didn't fix the stuck bolts, so he took the bolts out completely for me, gratis. I bought new bolts, washers and nuts, and Patti agreed to come help me put the rails on on Sunday, August 30. It was hotter and more humid on Sunday. We got to the boat at about 3:30, and we had the rails on by 5! Success! Patti was topside with the screwdriver and I was below with the ratchet. My idea to put the bolts on with needle nose pliers held closed with a rubber band worked great. I only lost 4 or 5 nuts in the process. But I couldn't get the washers to stay on. I did manage to use some of the old washers, but I don't feel too bad about the lack of new ones; the new ones I bought were very small and wouldn't really change the load spread much. The old ones were bigger. Not sure how Oday got them through the liner as they were almost the same size as the liner holes. Anyway, some of the old ones were still stuck to the inner hull or were sticky enough on their own to be reused. The rest? Good enough. Lesson learned. And it only took three months to get the rails back on. Yeesh. Oh, and one of the deck hatch hinges broke. Gotta find a new one. And don't forget to buy gas.