Return: 5:00pm
Weather conditions: Partly Cloudy and breezy
Tide: ebb tide
Boat: 30' Catalina
Crew: 4 (Woody, Tom, Paul & Carol)
Okay, it's a stupid title, but I loved using a wheel at the helm instead of a tiller. Don't get me wrong, I love tillers. They're simple and elegant and I feel more connect with what the boat is doing when I use one....
However, they require more free space in the cockpit and even worse, they require you to sit facing 90 degrees away from the direction being steering. After a while, I get tired of torquing around to look ahead. The wheel was very comfortable, and, what can I say, it made me feel authentic.
Picture 1: At first glance, this picture seems pretty lame. However, it illustrates an important fact. Most people think of wide open spaces when they think of sailing, but a good portion of interacting with a boat is spent in small cramp, dark, smelly compartments. Even here in the cockpit, Paul is reduced to crouching over the starter buttons trying to get the motor to turn. He was in this posture for quite a while.
You may be asking yourself "What wheel? Is it a toy boat? Is he sailing his car? Is he mad?" No, Nothing so interesting. Instead, this was a boat the four of us rented. At 30 feet, it was larger than what we usually sail. It's a nice boat with a roomy cabin that would sleep up to 6. It had a head (sailor talk for toilet) that flushes, a sink with running water, a range, stove and cooler. It also had a heater for the dainty sailors. And of course, it had the wheel. We wanted to practice our skills on a larger boat in preparation for the cruising class. Paul has already taken the class and wanted a review.
Picture 2: Most of the waterfront in Gig Harbor is crowded with structures: ramps, docks, sheds, pilings, homes and whatnot. And yet, this little house sits in it's own little world; holding it at bay . It always catches my eye when I leave the harbor.
Hmmm. Now you're probably asking yourself who "we" is. I guess I'm not being very cohesive here. The "we" was the usual "we" as in Tom, Paul, Carol and myself. I should probably come up with a name for our group since we seem to be the core of the sailing club. I'm too tired to do that now though. I should just finish up so I can get to bed instead.
The check-out was a bit of a drag. It ended up taking 2 hours to get the boat out of the slip. The cause? dead batteries. We finally had to call the owner and have him come help us out. And this was with Dave helping. Dave indicated we could take her out longer, but I needed to be home by 5pm to be with the family. We were cut short on time, but other than that, it was a great sail. We had a nice breeze and enjoyed taking turns at the helm, trimming sails and chatting - always plenty of chatting.
Picture 3: This picture caught my eye because it made our lighthouse seem so noble and strong; not the minimal structure that it actually is.
We did have a moment of two of excitement. As we chatted, we noticed another, similarly sized, sailboat off the port bow. We'd seen them earlier, but it appeared to us that they'd purposefully changed their tack in order to pass us by. Clearly this was a challenge, and so we wheeled around and gave chase.
Naturally, we started gaining on them; it wouldn't have been long before they learned their lesson when disaster struck. Someone, and I won't say who... well okay, I will so you don't think it was me. Tom, accidentally kicked an instrument cover out of the cockpit into the water. This happened as we were changing posts. I had just taken the helm when the call went out - "item overboard". Paul did a great job of keeping the item in sight, but I had trouble getting my bearings. By the time, I brought us about to begin the rescue maneuver, we'd lost site of the victim. In our defense, I want to point out that this cover was about 4" x 6" x 1" in size so we're not talking about a large item. However,
this illustrates when such accidents are going to occur - when the crew is preoccupied or there is some disturbance distracting everyone, or the weather is challenging. I'll have to practice some more. In the meantime, we'd lost the "race".Picture 4: What do you get when there's more than one sailboat on the water? A race!
There is a happy ending though. As we were heading back to the harbor, we came across our plastic item floating in the water. This time, Paul was at the helm and he struggled with the rescue as well. In fact, I think he finally cranked up the motor. After several tries, Tom managed to hook it with a pole and drag it aboard. Talk about luck.
Until next time.
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