Sailing

Well, we knew her hull was sound, her engines purred, her pillows were pretty. But we were looking for a boat to sail. We wanted to cruise, which isn’t noodling about under motor power along canals. So it was time to take her out onto the Atlantic Ocean and have her show us her stuff. We needed to know things like…Will her sails unfurl properly? Will her autopilot work? Will she sail nicely? Will she sink?

WW had been teaching me about weather. Each morning we had been in Florida, we would look at the sea and he’d ask me what the wind was. If the wind is blowing at less than 12 nautical miles per hour (12 knots), there are no whitecaps. Between 12 and 20 knots, there are whitecaps, but we like it. Over 20 knots (too many whitecaps), we leave her in a safe harbour and go sightseeing.

This particular day, January 4, 2008, could only be called “borderline”. Willie had told me we probably wouldn’t go out if the winds were this strong. He was not right.

We wended our way along the channels and canals of Fort Lauderdale until we reached the Intracoastal Waterway which would lead us to the sea. After politely asking each bridge tender when he or she thought he or she might possibly consider opening his or her bridge (absolute power corrupts absolutely) and then thanking them a thousand times over, we arrived at the sea. And quite the sea it was.

“What would you say those seas are?” WW asked Mike (the captain).

“Oh, two or three feet, I’d guess,” he said cheerfully. We motored out into the great wide ocean. Jeff worried about the depth until he realized it was being shown in meters, not feet. Then we had a lesson in metric conversion.

The cockpit has two seats, one for the pilot and one for…well, me. I was sitting in my seat trying to look relaxed. The anemometer was showing winds of 19 to 20 knots. The seas were, indeed, two or three feet, except when they were four to six feet, which was often enough to be alarming to the noob (that would be me).

The boat’s sails are on furlers, so they are pulled out rather than being raised. Mike (the broker) was clearly in his element, grinning broadly as he worked on the mainsail outhaul. The main was set, fully and completely. The boat perked right up. She positively bounced.

“Interesting chop,” said Mike (the captain).

“Let’s set the genoa,” said Mike (the broker), a maniacal light in his eyes.

Out came the genoa. Completely. La Dolce Vita pranced. She’d made seven knots under power; wind driven, she was making over eight. Six foot wave? Pshaw! She loved it. I wasn’t having quite as much fun as she was, but it was hard not to feel her joy. At last we jibed and headed back to the endless bridge tenders and the boat’s mooring.

At the end of it all, Jeff the surveyor said he’d been expecting her to be passable at best, given her age. He was delighted to announce that he’d be giving her an “above average” rating. The only thing better is “Bristol” (better than new). For an 18-year-old boat, built in England, sailed to Turkey and, variously, the South Pacific, the States, assorted Caribbean islands, and South and Central American destinations, she had hardly a wrinkle.