Saturday June 13th started out as a dreary day. The day started with no wind and a slight drizzle. We had made plans the night before with Craig and Michelle Heinze to go on our maiden voyage with Mezzaluna.

We met a 10:00 at the boat and the weather began to improve. We had a couple of tasks to do first. Last weekend when Katie and I were trying to put the main sail up, the cars that run up the track in the mast were catching on a joint in the track. We had to go up the mast to get a screw in so the sail could go up. Katie put on her spider woman suit and up she went. The picture shown of Jeff and Craig is from while Katie was up the mast. We tried the sail and got some progress but had to crank Craig up later. The 2 halves of the track were not sitting flush. Once that was done the sails were ready to go. We finished hooking up the new head and picked up and headed out.

The winds were real light and often you couldn't see them on the water. We backed out of the slip and headed out. The sun was coming out and the temps were going up. Not all too bad for the first sail. Light winds allow you to play around with alot of stuff.

Once the sails were up the motor went off and we were sailing. Craig and Michelle brought some champagne and we had a celebration. Life is grand with when shard with good friends. Carson Was along for the trip. At first he just wanted to play with his games but once we started sailing he was good a put them away. He had lots of fun. We got him to go out on the bow sprit. We sailed by the Dennis Sullivan and eventually got North as far as the water plant on the north end of Bradford Beach. You can see a picture in the gallery of that.

Coming back in we noticed that the engine temperature on the gauge was getting hot. Couldn't figure it out at the time. The engine was spitting out cold water so we know the raw water pump was working fine.The winds had picked up a bit so we just sailed most of the way in. We started up the motor and headed in to the slip, hoping the engine would make it before heating up. Little did we know that trouble was about to arrive. Lets see it was June 13th, hmmm.

As we rounded the corner to head in towards our slip I backed off the throttle and thought I had put it in neutral. Of course a 29,000 pound boat will glide a long way. We were going slow but I wanted to slow down some more. I put it in reverse, or so I thought, and gave it some throttle. We excellerated forward. Opps whats going on. I went past the slip and now was committed to something else which I didn't know yet. I tried reverse again and now we are moving too fast and no room to turn around. I killed the engine because I realized I didn't even have neutral. We coasted and I found an empty slip I thought, with a prayer I could fit into, I didn't know what I wanted to ram into but figured a turn into a slip instead of going forward into the dock straight ahead would give me a better chance of stopping our forward momentum. Fortunately Michelle found a line on the post and Craig had crawled out on the front of the bow sprit. Michelle and Katie pulled on the line they found and Craig started fending off the bow as I steered and then threw a stern mooring line around the post. We stopped with 4 feet to go before hitting the dock. No damage, not even a touch. Thanks guys for the great job.

The day ended with a sigh of relief and a couple of rounds of Mount Gay and Tonics. We ended up hungry and found that they had a good Prime rib special at the club dining room. Overall a great day.

Today, Sunday we went down to the boat and found and corrected the problems. Overheating was caused by a leak in the coolant lines, a clamp was loose and a gasket failed. The shifting problem turned out to be a clamp on the outer sheath of the shifting cable had loosened and the cable was not functioning right. Everything is fixed except the gasket which I get tomorrow. The boat is back in its slip and all is well with the world again.

You know, life is about the stories you live to tell. We have another one now. Queens cup is coming up and I am planning to sail that, I wonder what stories that could bring up?