GENOA!

I didn’t think we were going to sail this weekend either. The forecast for wind was close to zero MPH from the North, temperature in the 80s. Saturday, we had gone to the Mariner’s Museum in Newport News to see the propeller of the Monitor. This historic propeller had been recently rescued from the Atlantic and was soaking in a big tank. You can see it in person, but don’t touch the water. I also like to look over their small boat collection, boats of all kinds from all over the world. I find them fascinating. A lifeboat with the name "Titanic" on the bow sits with the others in the shed. There’s no sign saying not to touch. That one makes you think.

Sunday, July 15, 2001, late morning. I’m reading. Rhonda suddenly wanted to know why we even have a boat if we aren’t going to go sailing. Well, the "no wind" thing didn’t work; the "house is a mess" thing didn’t work; the "didn’t we agree to do some other things this weekend?" thing didn’t work. I gave up. We had halyards to replace and cleats to add. Also, we finally got an anchor adequate for more serious conditions than quick lunches something we can sleep on. Needed to stow that somewhere in the boat. We could just go and do some necessary work. Yeah. Everything we have been neglecting could just keep waiting. A moment of fear is normal when succumbing to an addiction. I overcame it and off we went.

We chatted with some neighbors at the dock who were just back from a week of cruising around. We were impressed. Just a few hours of sailing still seem like a lot of sailing to us but experience is already making it easier. Some day we will cruise, but we still work way too hard just messing about. Today we had come to relax and work on the boat. We took some pictures. We looked at the jellyfish. We decided to go sailing, putting off our business with the new halyards, anchor and cleats. Those things could wait a little longer. Because there was so little wind we decided to try something new. Only three sails came with the boat and the one we hadn’t tried was a big, crinkly 150 genoa. Did I say crinkly? It was like hanking on a giant potato chip bag.

The wind was so light that raising the sails was a snap. The water was absolutely beautiful, the clouds were absolutely beautiful, and the boat sailed absolutely beautifully. We didn’t get far at all, in fact it was our most compact little voyage ever, even counting Lake Anna. I doubt we even got a mile from the marina. This time the process of simply sailing held our attention as we experimented with the new sail. Actually getting anywhere was out of the question. (Even more so than usual!) The only other sailboats we saw were motoring back in, having apparently given up on tacking against a light and unreliable contrary breeze. We found it perfect for Rhonda’s reaches back and forth across the river. I think we did half a dozen crossings, getting nowhere more or less slowly. The genoa allowed us to sail almost normally in light air that would not have moved the boat much at all with the working jib. It had a kind of miraculous feel to it. It was a very comfortable hour or two scooting around on the still water and waiting for the next breeze a couple of times when it died down to nothing.

When we were done I took the Genoa down and stowed it down the front hatch while Rhonda sailed on the main alone. Then when the main was down she motored us in. We had a short cruise to the first marker for our creek, I stood up by the mast looking at all the peaceful water around us. I found that I could also stand right up front holding onto the forestay without pulling the outboard’s intake out of the water back on the other end of the boat. Normally the troughs between the waves would dip too low for the motor to get any water, but it was flat calm. I felt like a happy ghost floating through the sky. Rhonda asked why I was standing up there like that; she should get her life jacket on and try it sometime. It was great.

We never did put up those new halyards, or add those new cleats, but we did leave the new anchor stowed below, but we didn’t put the chain and rode on it yet. Those things could wait for another day. While packing to go we found that we had forgotten to take along our yellow ditch bag, which had our emergency signals, first aid kit, VHF radio, GPS, and boat’s papers in it. It was still in the pickup. A moment of fear is normal after doing something stupid. We had learned something important that day; we should never forget to take that bag along. It was probably the most important thing we learned all day, and a very important thing to learn, too. Good, I’m actually glad it happened. Yeah. Now we can remember today with no regrets.

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