Nauticat 43 Tally Ho
Marina Bay Yacht Harbor
SF Bay
Time for an update from my last post. Holy moly a lots happened in two weeks! First, I researched surveyors in the area and opted for the one who would climb the masts to check the
rigging instead of looking through binoculars. Second, I asked my new great friend and previous owner of Tally Ho which yard we should use for the
haul out as he would be driving the boat. Third, I contacted said yard to schedule the
haul out, to which they replied having only two days available in the upcoming two weeks. Yikes! Another call to the
surveyor who was able to make one of the dates which happened to be a Tuesday at 7:30 am to coincide with high tide. 7:30 am in
San Francisco is NOT the time to be driving! Anyway, we met Paul (new great friend) at his marina at 6:00 am (we got up at 4:00 am) and motored to the yard. The haul out went well, the
survey even better. I shadowed the
surveyor the entire time, waiting for a sigh, a groan, a subtle shake of the
head, anything to stop me from doing this idiotic thing called
buying a sailboat! Just kidding..... well....sort of.....He kept saying things looked good, really good. At 2:30, after the sea trial and dockside poking and prodding, he declared Tally Ho a fine vessel and in fine shape! Yikes again! Fast forward to Friday. With a big fat cashiers check in hand, Laura, my lovely wife, and I drove through the traffic again to have a sit down, tell me about the boat again morning with Paul to recap the systems, take copious notes, ask lots of dumb questions and basically absorb as much info as possible as tomorrow we would be driving once again through the traffic to drive OUR BOAT to our new marina. Oh yeah, I forgot the find a slip part. Just insert another 100
phone calls and more $$ going from my wallet into someone else’s back a few sentences. It’s all kinda running together! Well, Saturday the
wind was forcast to be 30 kts, gusts to 40kts. Not the best time to drive, not sail, remember, baby steps....the boat to the new marina. Postponed to Sunday. Wise choice grasshopper! The bay was calm, winds around 5 - 10 kts. Perfect! With keys in hand we jumped aboard, did the correct pre check, fired up the 90hp Ford
Lehman, hauled aboard the
dock lines and motored happily, peacefully, giddily, jumping up and down like little
kids across the bay to Marina Bay Yacht Harbor. I practiced some backing, turning, idling, back & fill maneuvers prior to entering OUR 15’ wide slip with our 13’ 8” wide boat before actually doing it and low and behold, like putting your hand in the pocket of a tight pair of jeans, we slid right in. No show for the
dock neighbors quite yet. So hear I sit, just a few hours removed from a glorious day, reeling in all the emotions and sharing it with you.
Now, back to telling newbies what kind of boat they should buy for their circumnavigation!
Cheers