So today we decided we need to take her out ourselves, we have sailed 50+ft monohulls before without any difficulty, but for some reason a 23+ foot beam is more intimidating. Oh plus she is new and ours. . .
We fired up the engines, took time to talk about our dock exit and eventually released the lines. I was able to spin her around in her own length and point her down the channel, first success!! As we motored to the first bridge we realized we’d be quite early for the opening as they open every 30 minutes thought at varying intervals and we have 15 minutes to stand by. It was good practice keeping the boat stationary against the wind and tide, twin engines are great! After we cleared the first bridge we made it to the second w/ little incident, made request and it went up not long after arriving.
Well on the way to the last bridge before the inlet I got a bit lost. Yep, with paper and electronic charts I made a wrong turn, mostly because I was following the guy in front of me who also requested clearance to the bridge we were in route to. Not sure where he was going, but it wasn’t towards the 17th Street bridge. I opened up those Yanmars and tried to make it for the scheduled opening, but was about 2 minutes short. The bridge operator saw us coming and just couldn’t block traffic for that long. More time to practice boat handling!
After waiting 30 minutes the bridge opened and we were off to sail the Atlantic. We motored out to the last buoy and pointed her up to hoist the main. After a few catches on the lazy jacks we had it up w/ one reef in which I didn’t think was necessary in 15-20knots of wind, but it made the wife calmer for the time being. After bearing off we picked up a little speed and unfurled the genoa. We didn’t make as good speed as we did on Thursday, but spent a lot of time playing with the sail trim and learning when speed fell off as we pointed higher and higher.
After sailing for about 2 hours we decided to come in and try our luck at the fuel dock. At the time of arrival the current was conflicting with the breeze and I not yet familiar enough w/ the boat to understand which has more power. I quickly changed my mind on what side we would come to and had to move the fenders. I got a spot at the end of the floating dock and that was pretty uneventful, but then was told I had to move to accommodate a 120ft motor yacht. Now with the difficult conditions I had to dock against pilings??? Palms sweaty and a large audience on the deck eating lunch, damn okay. We released the lines and moved forward, thinking we could nose in, secure the bow line and then back down to bring the stern in. Well it sorta worked, thought the bow line was not taught so we swung back aways, came back and nudged a piling. No damage that a magic eraser couldn’t take care of. Next time we’ll try using a line amidships . . .
So with full tanks we wanted to try out our ground tackle. A 44lb Delta that will likely become our secondary anchor after I choose something a bit larger. We made our way over to Lake Sylvia and it gets quite shallow! Bounced a few times off the bottom, but made it through the channel and found about 10 other cruising boats, mostly catamarans, anchored out. After setting the anchor we watched a boat filming the use of a water jet pack contraption that was later cited by the cops, entertaining.
Now that it was getting late in the day, we pulled in the hook and made our way back to our dock. With no current and little wind it was quite simple to gently put her along side of the pilings w/ fenders already placed. After some moving for and aft we secured her and headed back to our room for the night.