The Weather - To Sail or Not to Sail

Apparently it's that time of the year when the weather does not cooperate with our summer plans. Since putting Further in the water three weeks ago, we have only sailed her twice, taken her out one time during the week (winds were over 20 knots and we decided we wanted a bit more practice with calmer winds before sailing her in those conditions, see below for a video that was taken during this outing) and hung out on her, watching movies and crossing things off the to do list, at least three times during fun rain storms. We figured we wouldn't be able to sail everyday this early in the season but if you would have told me we would only have taken her out two times in three weeks because of thunderstorms and abnormally cold weather I wouldn't have believed you.

A fun video of the day we went out but didn't put up the sails - May 17 - ENJOY!

Relaxing on the boat, waiting
for the storms to pass.

Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, we packed up the car with Elaine, our trusty pug, and drove to the boat. We loaded everything onboard just as a torrential downpour began and enjoyed a movie day on the boat. We were lucky enough for the weather to clear up around 5pm and we were able to finish some outside projects before heading out for a few hours and watch the sunset over the city. It was pretty windy and rolly but we were fine.

Sunset sailing

After a successful sail we headed back to the dock a bit after sunset. Let me define what a 'successful sail' means to us... 1. We are both still on the boat (all three including Elaine) and 2. We can fix anything we broke (I would like to mention that nothing we know of broke during this sail). Two for two for the day, YES! While coming back into the harbor we talked through our docking procedures (this is sometime we do every time we dock so both parties know what the other is doing) and I'm proud to mention that we ended up landing the boat perfectly! (To give you a picture of why this is so stressful, our boat is just over 10 feet wide and we have about 15 feet in between the dock and the boat next to us. This doesn't give us a lot of room for error. Imagine every time you come home the streets are ice covered and you need to slide your car to a stop between your neighbors car and your house, without going too far and smashing into your garage.) Coming in smoothly and calmly is BIG for us.

Many things can go wrong with your boat when you are out on the water but that mainly can be limited to you and your boat. Docking, on the other hand, you can cause a lot more damage, not only to yourself and your boat but to all the boats around you. This equals a lot more stress. It is a lot different than parking your car because you have to take into account many other variables that can push your boat around.  Wind is a huge variable, even with no sail up it affects your power and steering response, and moves you way more than expected.  When you apply power in reverse to slow down, the back of the boat kicks out to port due to the prop walk (water being moved by the rotation direction of the prop). On top of these you also have to keep the boat moving fast enough that the rudder is effective, and watch out for the other boats moving around the harbor.  Hopefully these concerns are something we look back on and laugh about, the sooner this part is easier, the better.

Elaine's first sail -
I think she is going to
like sailing!

Celebrating our first night on Further.
This is going to be a FUN summer!

The best part of the sail was that Elaine made it through like a champ! She was a bit freaked out, and always wanted to sit in one of our laps, but overall she toughed it out and even stuck her head into the wind a couple of times. She is a good dog and we think she is going to like being on the boat when she gets her sea legs. Click here to view the rest of our fun photos.

Anyway, we celebrated our successful docking and rang in the first night on the boat with some drinks and food. We decided to sleep on the dinette berth instead of the v-berth (the sleeping quarters that are located in the bow of the boat and shaped like a v, hence v-berth). Can you say slumber party!!!! It was very calming to be rocked to sleep by Further (I'm sure the drinks helped a bit too) and we are happy to report we both slept very well that night. Yet another fear faced, we can sleep comfortably on the boat! I think we will be able to report the boat as a second home next year, all we need to do is spend anther 13 nights on her!