Well, our first cruise is over. All alive and accounted for, no new dings in the boat, all is well. We were out for a total of three days of sailing. We had a whole bunch of different weather, sun, rain, wind, calm and lots of beautiful cloud formations. We anchored three times, the first two very successfully, the last time, not so successful. It (of course) was in a harbor full of boats and rich Susie Q in her 55 foot motor yacht had her head hung out the portal watching our every move. I discovered that backing up a 39 foot boat that has a skeg hung rudder is difficult, we didn’t hit anyone and I managed not to yell out loud, although there was a lot of very angry loud whispers. I decided that I needed to practice backing up so when we left that anchorage this morning I practiced. I still couldn’t make the boat go where I wanted to.
I did manage to get some pictures of Cat’s Paw IV under sail today. I zipped around in the dinghy while Barry sailed on. We were right where all the big ferries go just after they go through Active Pass on their way from Tswassen (sp?) to Victoria. I think I got some good shots. I will have to download them tomorrow.
I have caught a bit of a cold so was feeling a bit under the weather today, so I went below to have a nap. Barry was sailing, then I heard him put on the engine and then about 10 or 15 minutes later Barry is hollering to me to wake up. So I got up and went to see what he wanted. He says he has lost steering, there had been a rather load clunk just before he hollered at me. I go up and sure enough, you thrilled the wheel around and nothing, it just went round and round and was no longer connected to anything. Barry says he has to go down below to see if he can fix it, meanwhile I am trying to figure out where we are, the main is up and we are being blown towards a big red bouy that looks cemented in, YECH!! Barry is stripping off his rain gear and preparing to try and figure out what went wrong when I said, didn’t we have a emergency tiller. Sure enough, we found the emergency tiller and Barry, being the observant careful guy that he is, new exactly where we had to attach it and voila, disaster averted,
We took the main down and motored the rest of the way home and got safely back to our slip. Then we called someone to come down to the boat tomorrow and look at the steering if Barry can’t get it fixed by the afternoon. Oh, the joys of owning a 20 year old boat. but heh, its better than no boat, WAY BETTER. We don’t plan on going anywhere for the next few days and our daughter Trish and her better half, Graeme are supposed to come to visit soon. He is an electrician so we will put him to work as soon as he arrives.
I did manage to get some pictures of Cat’s Paw IV under sail today. I zipped around in the dinghy while Barry sailed on. We were right where all the big ferries go just after they go through Active Pass on their way from Tswassen (sp?) to Victoria. I think I got some good shots. I will have to download them tomorrow.
I have caught a bit of a cold so was feeling a bit under the weather today, so I went below to have a nap. Barry was sailing, then I heard him put on the engine and then about 10 or 15 minutes later Barry is hollering to me to wake up. So I got up and went to see what he wanted. He says he has lost steering, there had been a rather load clunk just before he hollered at me. I go up and sure enough, you thrilled the wheel around and nothing, it just went round and round and was no longer connected to anything. Barry says he has to go down below to see if he can fix it, meanwhile I am trying to figure out where we are, the main is up and we are being blown towards a big red bouy that looks cemented in, YECH!! Barry is stripping off his rain gear and preparing to try and figure out what went wrong when I said, didn’t we have a emergency tiller. Sure enough, we found the emergency tiller and Barry, being the observant careful guy that he is, new exactly where we had to attach it and voila, disaster averted,
We took the main down and motored the rest of the way home and got safely back to our slip. Then we called someone to come down to the boat tomorrow and look at the steering if Barry can’t get it fixed by the afternoon. Oh, the joys of owning a 20 year old boat. but heh, its better than no boat, WAY BETTER. We don’t plan on going anywhere for the next few days and our daughter Trish and her better half, Graeme are supposed to come to visit soon. He is an electrician so we will put him to work as soon as he arrives.
