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

Because we drank it!

I’m sure that, just like David, you’re just dying to find out what happened on Sunday…he had to work but Dave, Holly and I wanted to go out an enjoy some of what was shaping up to be an amazing day. At first, he seemed really surprised I’d feel comfortable going out without him. But until he asked if I was “okay” with doing it, I honestly hadn’t thought about it being a problem. After all, Dave and Holly spent most of Saturday “learning the ropes” and I figured that a threesome who knew a little bit should be just fine only a couple miles offshore. We left the pumpout dock without any problems, motored past where all the tourist boats do the shoreline cruises, and put up the sails. For some reason I thought it would more difficult!

The wind was perfect…we had the genoa almost all the way out, and were moving at a pretty good pace. We hit 6.2 knots a few times! As we headed north, we saw an odd blob in the water. It almost looked like a chair from a distance, but as we sailed closer it turned out to be almost a dozen red balloons! They had been covered by a party supply store bag. We decided to rescue Lake Michigan by getting the balloons out of it, so we dropped the genoa and turned on the engine to circle back around to pick them up. I originally wanted to sail past and swoop them out of the water, but the wind didn’t cooperate. When we got closer, Holly dove off the side of the boat and swam to the balloons but it was more difficult than she expected to swim back to Passage so it turned into a true practice (wo)man overboard drill since I got to throw her the yellow horseshoe buoy we have mounted on Passage’s stern. It carries really far! Unfortunately, Holly was out of reach of the nylon line so I had to reel it in and try again. Success!

We spent some more time swimming off the boat for a while because it was so hot, and realized we were pretty far out so by about 4pm we decided to head back towards the harbor. As is typical in cruising, the wind was coming from the exact same direction we needed to go so we headed almost straight toward shore hoping that we could get tack back south. Unfortunately, the wind wasn’t in our favor heading back in to shore so we didn’t have enough speed to tack through the “no go zone” and ended up floating in circles as we tried to regain wind.

We tried to start the engine, thinking we could just drop the sails and motor south but there wasn’t enough battery power to turn on the blower. We’d been listening to our iPod all day and drained the battery. (As it turns out, Lucky loves “Come Sail Away” by Styx because at a certain point in the song he starts howling along with the synthesizer. Seriously!!!) David had told me that we had to run the blower for several minutes before starting the engine, so I thought that meant we wouldn’t be able to start the engine either. It was a bit nerve wracking to think we had no power and no engine, and after some brainstorming Holly and I both phoned a friend…well, she texted a friend and I called David. Turns out, we “have” to run the blower to carbon monoxide doesn’t build up down below and asphyxiate people. Since no one was below, we could skip that step this time and fire up the engine. It takes much less power to start the engine than run our blower, so the engine started no problem. We were back in business! It was a longer sail than expected, and we didn’t end up getting back until well after 7pm.

I was kind of nervous about getting back to the can, since David and I have struggled with getting this process right…but it was one of the best ones yet! Dave and Holly did a phenomenal job grabbing the whisker poles (yes, we put out two of them each time we leave) and getting the mooring lines on the cleats while I cut the engine. We had a mini celebration on deck because we officially rocked the day! We left the pump out dock without more boat damage, got the sails up, sailed north and back, did a person overboard drill, overcame engine issues (with help), brought the sails down, and picked up the can…and the craziest thing is I was the most experienced sailor on the boat. Now THAT’S scary! I wanted to clean up the boat after two full days of revelry, then pick David up from work. But when we got back to the can, the cover somehow came off the dinghy. So, Dave and Holly wonderfully volunteered to jump in the water and put it back on while I cleaned up below decks. There were some seriously funny antics, but the bottom line is in honor of their harbor heroics (and weekend sailing success), the dinghy will be renamed “Hot Mess.”

Shame on those of you with dirty minds! There were no saucy sailing stories like that happening! There were three of us, quoting Pirates of the Caribbean while new scallywags earned the right to pick a new name for the row boat. THIS WEEKEND ROCKED!!!!

And Dave now TOTALLY has the sailing bug; he’s even shopping on yachtworld…watch out Dave, that’s what I started doing last spring and look what happened!