Practice Driving
13 June 2007 | New Bern
Matt
We took the boat out into the Neuse River to practice driving it as we had all of one hour's experience with a wheel vs. a tiller in our Cal 25. It was quite fun doing circles and stopping the boat. Backing up was a different story. One time I was able to back through a 90 degree turn and line up the back stay on an antenna on shore. As I got close and started to fine tune the backing the boat spun around the other way 180 degress.
We did raise the sails just to practice and see what we had. When we went back into the slip the wind and current had come up and the boat would not back up. Finally I ended up perpendicular to the slip and if not for the help of the captain in the boat next door I would be still out there. We eventually got the boat into the slip bow first vs. aft first when we took it out. A tropical storm was coming up the coast with 20-30 knots predicted. Having the boat in the slip a differnt way required the adjusting of all the dock lines and I put out every bumper I could find.