Sailing Adventures: Storms on the Horizon

It has been a rainy Summer. And that’s okay because it’s going to yield a great berry season. That said – we didn’t anticipate the thunderstorm that hit us during this adventure.

We created a new trailer strap and fixed the mast of the boat – and were confident that things were ship shape. Though it gave us problems last time, we decided to give the Lily Pond boat launch another try. We set up right in front of the launch where it was most clear (and tried to tuck off to the side so everyone else had room). We also improved a mast-raising process by using the main sheet block and tackle.

Hooking up the block and tackle

On the water, as I was connecting up the rudder and tiller – I dropped the lock nut into the depths below. And the rudder’s cotter pin was missing. Luckily we loaded a bunch of spares on the boat today, and I was able to crush a pin around the bolt to hold the rudder in place.

The wind was against us, but we set a goal to make it out to the breakers completely under sail.

The wind was pretty light, and it was going to take a lot of tacks to get to the breakers. It was so light, in fact, that on a few instances we had trouble tacking, and had to come about entirely.

The McClain Lighthouse was so far away!

We made decent progress, and all of the motor boats that were coming and going were pretty considerate of us. Then we started hearing thunder.

We didn’t quite make it to the breakers, figuring it best to err on the side of caution. The rain just started to hit as we made it to the docks. We had trouble getting the boat properly aligned, and opted to wait out the storm in the car with the boat tied up.

The downpour was pretty relentless for about 5 minutes

Eventually we were able to get out of the water – and the rain held off while we took the boat apart. This time I kept all of stays tensioned – so the setup next time should go even quicker.

Though we didn’t quite make it to our goal, it was a successful sail with no major mistakes.

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