My first sail in "Wee Blow"

I finally did it. I took the plunge, but I didn't take a plunge. I finally took the little sailing dinghy I built on it's maiden sailing voyage. I was suprised at how challenging it turned out to be. Not just getting it to the water, but all the associated mental hurdles.

First I had to buy a trailer. Since I hadn't planned on needing to use a trailer I wanted to spend as little money as possible on something that would work. I found what I needed at Harbor Freight; a folding trailer that you put together yourself. Compared to other trailers it was cheap, but like I said, I didn't want to buy a trailer in the first place so I had some anxiety about putting down the money. And then I had to put it together.

Thank goodness for pictures because some companies cannot produce useful instructions using English. At one point, the instructions told me to tighten a bolt "smugly". I only had to hope I wouldn't ruin the trailer because I wasn't feeling smug. I managed to get it all together with only 5-10 spare pieces. Not bad.

That was the easy part. The hard part was finding a way to pull the trailer. I am getting a hitch put on our car soon, but I don't have it yet. My neighbor offered to let me use his truck. I don't like borrowing other peoples cars. It's too risky in my opinion. On top of that, I've never owned or pulled a trailer. And, on top of that, I've never launched a boat.

So, without any experience, I was going to take someone elses truck, with my new trailer attached, back it down a boat ramp, unload the boat, and get the truck back up the ramp all by myself. Maybe I'm a wimp, but there it is. I had anxiety. I did a lot of pacing around the kitchen before finally driving off and doing it.

What can I say. It went well. Loading and unloading the boat posed little problem. I was glad there wasn't a lot of activity. That helped a lot.

Now to the sailing. The boat really zips along. IT was a lot of fun. I had a stiff breeze and clear skys which made me comfortable. At one point the rudder came off which was a bit of a fiasco, but I made it back to the dock with the oars and got it back on. At another point, the boom fell off (the lower boom) because one of my knots came loose. Again, I was able to recover. The leeboard and rudder needed extra tightening. Overall, I was very pleased. It was able to sail the various points of sail. I was able to go where I needed to go.

Now I need to get the hitch on so I can go when I want.