I had to add this story from one of our first shakedown sails to Catalina with Justin who works at West Marine - It was quite an experience and yes I'm still sailing, can you believe it!!!! hee hee
Fall 2009
Well it was sorta like the “I love Lucy” show with me as Lucy and Scott as Ricky.
Poor Justin was there for the ride, hoping for a fun weekend and getting an “exciting” but not so fun one.
Left late in afternoon, strong winds and got dark.
Hatch covers wouldn’t screw shut, we had never really needed to use them and DUH, they didn’t work. Rusted shut etc. OMG, and here we are going sailing anyway, well you know my thoughts.
Engine wasn’t in gear when engine turned off and sailing, supposed to be in gear.
Refrigerator fan area I had stuffed with paper towels so pans wouldn’t move around and almost killed new refrigerator by overheating it. So I heard about how I almost cost us $1,700. I know it was dumb of me, and now I know, there is so much to think about when sailing. YIKES, and under pressure things get all screwed up, I’ve made up lists of everything and will be much better at this the next time.
Engine started smoking badly and we thought there was a fire, smoke detectors going off. Engine hatch which is salon floor didn’t have hook and fell back almost smashing Scott (since we’ve installed a nice hook/latch for safety while sailing!!!!!) This is where I almost lost it, when the hatch fell, I said “This is assanine!!!! My god, we don’t even have a latch or lights in the engine room either.
Flashlights didn’t work and there were no lights in engine compartment to see if there was a fire. Finally we found a headlamp that worked. RIDICULOUS, (you can tell I was totally pissed off during most of this and sick to boot)
I was puking and crawling around on the deck, without a life vest or safety line or even a jacket, I had hypothermia, and what’s worse was I didn’t care…. trying to help as I could. I wanted to cry but couldn’t I was just numb and helpless and a bit terrified.
We didn’t have a PA/Horn, so thank god there wasn’t fog, our air horn can only last so long with the air cans.
We had to dig for Spotlight and it kept coming out of the cigarette lighter DC plug, took 2 people to use it. Since we’ve bought a cord extension.
Very Poor visibility, windows were hazy as I hadn’t had time to buff them out again. BIG JOB in itself.
Compass on Helm wasn’t lit at night, bulb?
Terribly hard to take the sail down. Since we’ve bought some sailcoat to lube it up with.
Took a mooring ball in White’s at Catalina, Stan helped us and this was good for first night rather than anchoring. THANK GOD for Stan and Marks advice and that Scott took it.
I broke the toilet gasket by not opening thru hull before pumping. Bummer, brand new toilet too.
Water coming in the stern anchor locker
Leak from packing around shaft, bilge going almost continuously, since fixed, poor Scott did a great job on this nasty but essential task!!!
When we got to Avalon and was letting Anchor down almost sunk dinghy as the rope to dinghy got under the anchor where it was tied too close to bow. Had to move first. Then dinghy got loose and we had to chase it down and reanchor.
Dinghy broke away, wasn’t tied sufficiently while anchoring and we had moved it. Had to motor around Avalon and chase it. Scott was saying “My God we look like a bunch of amateurs to Justin and I”. I said “so what, I don’t care what anybody thinks, I don’t know these people and WE ARE AMETEURS anyway!!!!!”
Oil leak, lost pressure – since fixed, big job and cleaning up nasty oil in bilge. Sending unit was spraying and another plug was leaking. UGH, 3 day nasty cleanup and refill.
Anchoring was an adventure, finally got better as we used the handheld VHF to communicate to each other.
People got too close to us at Avalon and we had to move at night and sail back down to White’s again and reanchor there in the dark. This was not fun bringing up the dinghy in the wavy dark night. We forgot to raise the stairs and were dragging them in the water for awhile. UGH
Getting a funnel to use to put oil in engine from dinghy Justin fell in water and lost sandal and had to paddle with one paddle as one of the oar locks was missing to get it and then come back all wet, poor guy. If we had to use dinghy as lifeboat we would have been screwed with one oar lock OMG!!!!! Am I paranoid or what, I just think it is silly not to have things ready BEFORE YOU GO OUT.
Hard to get the sails up, very high winds.
Hard to bring sails down, 20+ knot winds and track isn’t greased well. Furling rope got loose after we HAND PULLED it in (hmmm, we have a wench, lest we forgot), and had to be HAND PULLED in again. Boy are we something now.
Main sail lost one of the reef lines and was a mess. Flapping away in high winds.
It was hard docking in high winds and we almost hit a boat coming into our slip, also lost a bumper and had to retrieve it on shore in marina because it wasn’t tied properly. I didn’t even know how/where to tie bumpers. DUH, hmm practice actual sailing is definitely needed hands on by ME to say the least.
Water leaks had to be fixed.
Toilet gasket had to be fixed.
Many new items on list and things to practice.
I am proud that I learned to manually handle the Helm in high winds and read the wind direction compass etc. It isn’t easy and you have to be on top of it every second or you can rip the sails/mast/boom off as it will swing the wrong way, very dangerous.
HIGHLIGHT was wonderful lunch made by Stan and Heather who were there. What a blessing, I was still weak and ate with gusto as I finally felt well enough to eat something and it was heaven, thanks guys!!!!! I was so weak.
