It was glassy calm on Wednesday morning (November 6th) so we left Buttonshell Cove early and motored the 26 nm across the San Pedro Channel to Newport Beach accompanied by herds of Risso’s and common dolphins. As we passed the community of Corona del Mar alongside the well-protected channel into Newport Harbor, we began to understand why Tricia and Jim on Falcon VII had sent us an email about the area in which they commented with some awe on the predominance of very-high-priced real estate. Some of the waterfront and cliff-top mansions looked amazingly lavish. This was clearly a neighborhood where people bought houses, had them demolished, and erected their own dream-home on the precious lot.

The commercial marinas in Newport Harbor are very expensive so it is usually necessary for visiting boats to use the cheaper moorings and take their dinghy to shore. Since we were having our new sails delivered, we hoped that we might be able to find a marina slip that would not be too pricy for a couple of nights. Luckily for us, it was sufficiently late in the season that there were a few open slips at the reasonably priced Harbor Patrol docks.

The narrow slips were perpendicular to the channel and the swift current crossing the mouth of the slip made it very tricky to line-up Tregoning and power into the slip before the current carried her too far sideways. It took several attempts but Randall eventually succeeded without too much bumping on the side of the floating dock. Tregoning was somewhat longer than the slip so about 8 feet (2 m) of her stern stuck out into the channel but this did not seem to be a problem. We slept very well that night in the perfectly calm conditions until we were awoken by what we call “slappy fish” which are fish that feed on stuff growing on Tregoning’s hull by hitting it quite hard. Or so it sounds from inside where any tapping on the underwater parts of the hull sounds much louder than it would in the air. We had not heard slappy fish since we had been in Hawai‘i so we tried to consider this slight inconvenience as a welcome back to warmer waters.

Being at the Harbor Patrol docks also made it very easy for Josh to find us when he drove down from the Doyle Sailmakers office in San Francisco. There was very little wind on Thursday so it was easy to install the new mainsail and genoa (a.k.a. jib or foresail) and to see that everything fit perfectly and had been made exactly to the specifications that we had agreed upon. As an added bonus, the sailmakers had done some research on the correct logo for our boat. The new mainsail looked resplendent with the Morgan Classic logo in black instead of the incorrect blue Morgan Out-Island “M” symbol that we had before. We were also pleased to own a jib that no longer advertised “Venture Lighting” as, for reasons unknown to us, our old one had done.

We also tested the asymmetrical spinnaker (a.k.a. APC or asymmetric power cruiser) which was a completely new type of light-air, downwind sail for us. We were thankful to have Josh show us how to hoist and douse it quickly using the “sock” which (hopefully) reduces the likelihood of tearing the sail or dumping the whole thing in the water. Our hope is that with its light-weight fabric, we will be able to use this sail in light winds without it collapsing or flapping with each roll of the sea-swell, as tends to happen now with the heavier jib.

Josh was a bit worried that the APC had been made with a slightly different design on it than we had requested. We had picked the design at random from the options that were presented and we would not have known the difference if Josh had not mentioned it. Thus, it was to Josh’s great relief we were not at all disappointed but look forward to our first opportunity to use it. We did not have enough wind or time to go take Tregoning out in the bay to test the sails as Josh had hoped but Randall and I were not too sorry as we were pretty tired having spent all morning rinsing, drying, removing, and rolling-up the old mainsail and jib. We will keep these sails as spares although quite where we will store them remains to be seen…they may have to become oversized cockpit cushions.

Overall we were very pleased with the work from Doyle Sailmakers and with the customer service from Josh. Our options of companies to use had been limited when we wanted to order the sails in San Francisco but pick them up further south. We had also insisted that someone come to measure the boat and discuss our order on Tregoning and be present when we received the sails and no doubt we paid a little more for those services. At just over $13,000, the three sails cost almost as much as the new engine that we had installed in 2011. However, as we head out towards the South Pacific, we considered that the investment in our main wind-powered “engines” was worthwhile and it is comforting to know that we have now have useable back-up sails. Our stop in Newport Beach had been very productive but now that we had accomplished this important task, we were keen to move on to San Diego.