S/V Passage - Refitting a Classic (& Building Our Skills) Before Cutting the Docklines

We finally did it! We got passage out of the yacht yard and up to Monroe Harbor for the summer!!! On Friday we got a bit of a late start but made it to the boat in mid-morning to put the finishing touches on Passage before taking off. After the startling realization last weekend that what we thought was a mizzen was actually a cockpit cover, I did some online research and actually managed to find a used mizzen that’s a really close fit for Passage’s dimensions. David called them Monday morning to order and we had it by Thursday; I was pretty impressed!

We brought some other fun stuff to the boat-books, non technical entertainment, all the brass and lighting I cleaned, sailing snacks, and clothes/bedding to make Passage more homey. The prize of all the additions was David’s boat guitar…a used ¾ guitar he found for a steal after class at the Old Town School of Folk Music’s store. We also filled one of our 5-gallon diesel jugs…just in case, and I did some final cleaning of the lockers we didn’t get to during our big cleaning session the prior week.

There were two bridges to cross under, and the yacht yard called them for us. Another sailboat left at the same time we did, which gave us a leader to follow as first timers in so many aspects on that first trip. Sadly, there was very little wind so while we tried to raise our sails and turn off the engine it was not meant to be on our first trip. We ended up motorsailing all the way up to Monroe Harbor, and realized our windmeter doesn’t work properly. David found the technical issue, and after vacation will look into fixing it so it’s easier for us to keep Passage at the proper angle for optimum sailing this summer. Even though he hated the engine more than we did Lucky did really well on the trip, and even made a little puppy bed for himself as we headed

We arrived at our mooring buoy in the early evening, and we realized we had no idea how to attach Passage to the “can” since they don’t include mooring lines. Those were thankfully included with the boat, so we spent multiple passes past the buoy trying different tactics…two of which included David narrowly avoiding turning buoy catching attempts into man overboard drills. If he hadn’t been such a quick thinker and wrapped his legs around the lifelines as he slid forward, we would not have been joking with each other about it over dinner that night!

We finally got one of the dock lines looped through the buoy ring and swapped it for the mooring lines, then installed a few lights before calling the tender service to take us and one antsy puppy ashore for a very late dinner at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company on Navy Pier. Lucky loved it there because he was a hit; it seemed like every passerby wanted to pet his adorable mug! After dinner, we went back to Passage to spend the night and made friends with our tender driver-Marcus-who told us the ways of the harbor…including that boaters who treat their tender captains well (small $ tips or a beer periodically) get picked up faster. We’ve already started putting that into practice!

We sat on the foredeck drinking wine and enjoying the novelty of seeing the skyline from the water again. It’s been so long since we’ve been able to enjoy Chicago from the lake! David and I both slept really well that night, except for a few times when the wind died completely and Passage ran into the mooring buoy with a loud THUMP! We talked to Marcus about that the next morning and he told us about a can cover the marina sells for $100, but there has got to be a cheaper but quality way to prevent that from happening since their solution seems to be a 50-gallon drum lined at the top with foam. Must research this…