First Sail on 'Her Idea' and a Marina Legend . . . Sort of . . .

[zopi]

We took the boat out today, mostly because I was antsy to sail her..took the wife and girlfriend along..life is good. Of course we are unpowered as yet..really need a kicker..we sailed her out of the marina..which blew some peoples minds..whatdo they think the old sailing ships did? anyway,
took her out an up the James river, to just about whites shoal and dropped the lunch hook..made some whatchagot stew for lunch, and had a nice swim while the wife had a nap..she really has this sailing ting down to a science..my job is to do pretty much all the boat crap and hers is to make sure the port berth is secure for sea..we were becalmed for two or three hours..tried to whistle her up, but no dice, the wind gods just weren't with me..must make a suitable offering..conch salad or something..wind finally came back up about 3:30 or so,
and we started tacking back to the marina..frickin' disaster there..made decent time back downriver considering my boat has a nasty bottom..like sailing on velcro..what really sucked was that the wind was blowing right out of the east..ok, short tack to the quay wall and walk her in if I have to..tacked to within fifty yards and the wind started shifting back and forth about four points..I couldn't tack fast enough to stay ahead of it...frustrating.
some guys from the marina finally motored out to haul my unpowered butt back in..took some grief there..but when I told them I had sailed out..blew their minds..how'd you do that..sigh. the guy who towed me could only get me to the head of my pier..so I warped the boat around..they all expected me to leave her there until tomorrow..nah...stern line tended by the little adorable one while the wife watched the marina dwellers poke fun at me..guess they didn't think it would work...cast a long bow line from finger pier to finger pier and warped her right on into her berth...slick as could be..which helped my sore ego from having to be towed...all in all a great day. The wife who hated sailboats and used to be automatically seasick, was becoming a pretty good hand on the helm and young Em was becoming winch grinder deluxe..and me, who went out nervous as hell this morning, came back with alot more confidence in my (rusty) skills, and the boat itself, who needs some more love. Good shakedown cruise. she needs some ballast, obviously, after the diesel was removed, she is a bit tender..holy crap the weather helm...wear you out..so I have some ballasting to work out, and
I need a new bank of batteries and some power making toys..maybe rake the mast a bit to try to take a bite out of the weather helm.

The wife wants a windvane..