Saturday June 21, 2014
What a better way to spend boating time than go to a rendezvous of Albin boats. Yes indeed 15 boat of the same brand gives everyone a lot in common. And so we piloted Liquid Therapy to the Albin Owners Rendezvous at the Cambridge Yacht Club in Cambridge, MD yesterday. We started out in Oxford about a 10 mile run and a very nice trip light wind of about 8 knots pretty much behind our path for the less than 2 hour trip. But the wind pickets up causing lots of grief during the docking maneuver at Cambridge Yacht Club. We were put into 50’ slips. That is not fun in a 36’ boat but we have done it a few times before. But this slip was laid out very weird and had a very short finger pier. Still it looked do-able as I backed in almost perfectly. Two people helped at the stern but the forward piling got by without anything around it. So the wind had its way with us blowing the bow had against the finger pier and then a very strange thing occurred. We pivoted at the finger pier and now the stern half of Liquid Therapy was in one slip, the bow in the other slip with NO way to go under engine power. What to do? Nature decided for us to take the next slip near the bulkhead and we cart wheeled around the finger pier now bow into the next slip. I wish I could see a video. But still this new slip had bolt hazards for the dingy and trying to tie it to the dock was impossible as they had no cleats on the dock! Never seen that before. So we were left with our port side tied to pilings and our starboard side with an awkwardly place piling midships the kept us from getting along side the dock that had no pilings or cleats to tie to. Anyhow we are tied not smartly looking as we are crooked in the slip. But safe and as I say, “ANY DOCKING WITHOUT AN INSURANCE CLAIM IS A GOOD DOCKING”