Drew and Ellen have been hearing about the boat for years, and yesterday was finally the day.

It was sunny and about 85 degrees. The wind seemed a bit fluky; on the way over, some flags were snapping in a strong breeze and trees were swaying. In other places, it was a pleasant, mild breeze.

It was nice having a third pair of hands aboard for some help. Drew stood by on starbord with a boat hook in case we got too close to Roger. Turns out, it wasn't necessary. Patti gave us a shove to starboard, I turned the wheel before gunning the engine, and we backed up quite mannerly.

We motored out without incident, and raised the main out in the Sound. I decided that we would raise the full main (winds seemed to me to be about 12 knots) and dial back the genny. Drew raised the main, mostly by hand, needing the winch only for the last third. One slight glitch: the reefing line wasn't completely relaxed, so we had to release that while raising the main the whole way.

Once the main was raised, we unrolled some genny. I had to dial it in a bit to reduce the heel for Patti, but we were still moving along at about 5 knots. We also set the traveler to windward to further dump some power. I set the autopilot, and away we went. We sailed a straight course, southwest for about an hour and a half, passing just to the west of the Branford Reef marker. At about 6:45, we reversed course and headed back in. We were sailing closer to the wind, and our speed picked up to about 6 knots. Patti had done it up right with cheese and crackers, wine and beer.

The sailing in both directions was just glorious. I was sitting there in the port corner of the cockpit with a big grin on my face. What an absolute pleasure. Drew took this picture of us as we sailed.

We furled sail outside the harbor and docked without incident in the twilight. Then off to dinner at Lenny's. A great night.