Category Archives: Sailing

S/V Who Knows?

Posted on by

The still nameless Ericson 25

Here’s the latest on Andrew’s boat. I know you’ve all been holding your breath for this update, right? Get some popcorn, because this post is mostly movie clips.

We sailed over to Gig Harbor last Friday to pick up the boat and the whole thing was just about perfect. The weather was warm and windy, which is all one can ask for around here on a summer evening.  I dropped Mike and Andrew off on the dock where the still nameless Ericson 25 was waiting, then stood by on Moonrise while they got everything ready for the maiden voyage. I was pleased to have been able to navigate Moonrise in unknown territory, around lots of expensive boats, and get Mike and Andrew off at the right slip without ‘incident’. Whew!

Out in the passage, they raised the sails for the first time on the little Ericson. You’ll notice the main looks a little wonky. No worries, that’s been adjusted since this video was taken. It looks loads better now. Notice the Viking on the main sail! This is pretty cool because Andrew is a student at Western Washington University, home of the Vikings!

We arranged to have a slip in our marina for a couple of months while we figure out where the boat will be stored when Andrew is in Bellingham at school. The Gods were smiling on this whole situation because as a new boat owner Andrew has a lot to learn and we’d like to be the ones to teach him. A temporary slip was found on the dock behind Moonrise. Turns out to be the exact slip we had for Moonrise when we first moved into that marina a few years back. Andrew’s boat is almost directly behind Moonrise, giving him access to everything we have on our boat, and putting us right there if he needs help. Excellent!

Remember those videos you took of your kids when they were babies? Or that your parents took of you, if you happen to be Tate and Dani, or Vlad and Atilla. You know the ones: Watch while little snookums picks his nose!, Watch while little snookums takes his first steps and whacks himself on the table corner. Watch little snookums sleeping.  Okay. Well watch while big snookums takes his own boat out of the slip alone for the first time. (Now he just backs the boat out of the slip, but he was not sure about it the first time. I love how they toddle first, then they run!) I’m filming from Moonrise. Bear with us. We’re being parents here.  There are a lot more video clips where this came from. At least we’ve progressed from watching him sleep and if this video is not more interesting than watching paint dry, it’s at least mercifully short.

As an aside, I sometimes wonder about the number of photos we take of our kids. These statistics tell the tale: number of photos we have of Moonrise under sail after owning her for 4 years: 2, both taken in the last 3 months.   Number of photos of Andrew’s still nameless boat, under sail, after owning her for less than 1 week: 234,490. Hmmm.

The proverbial sunset sail.

It’s been several days of sailing together, teaching Andrew how to anchor out, and watching while he learns to single-hand the boat. We notice he is falling in love with this boat and it makes our collective hearts swell with pride. This part of our cunning plan is working.

Here’s another stunning video of us stealing Andrew’s wind, talking smack about how much faster our boat is than his boat:

 

In yet another indication that this was the right boat for Andrew, today a dinghy pretty much fell out of the sky and into my lap. I awoke this morning and the first thought that popped into my mind was that Andrew was planning to sail up to Seattle to see his sister and he doesn’t yet have a dinghy. Pulling Puddler, our dinghy, would take about a knot off his speed, at least. Plus, we like to have Puddler available ourselves. I wanted a dinghy in decent shape and I didn’t want to spend more than about 50$ for it. So I opened Craigslist over coffee. And there it was, posted less than 1 hour before, probably right as I was waking up. By noon we were putting it into the back of Andrew’s car, and it fit perfectly.

So, aside from some odds and ends, he’s pretty much set in terms of learning how to sail his boat and use it to travel to exotic locations such as Seattle and Bellingham. He’s lining up crew so he won’t be alone at first, which relieves our minds. And what about Mike and me? We’ve been sailing a lot, too. Here’s a quick clip of our sail down to Penrose State Park for the 4th of July. We are not real fans of that holiday and like to get away from the noise and crowds. We were the only boat on our side of the park. Perfect. And we had winds gusting to 25 knots on the way down. More perfect.

And while we were there, we had a little adventure. Or rather, Mike had a little adventure and I watched him. Then I had to buy him a present.

The view from the top of the mast is stunning. Plus, I hold Mike’s life in my hands. Not really. He’s actually very safe:

And now, relax to the soothing visuals of fireworks over Commencement Bay. It’ s much more soothing to watch the video than it was being there with hundreds of boats, some unlit and small, all over the bay. What a circus. I can’t wait for the 4th to be on a weekend again, so we can come home the following day and miss the zoo in the bay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Boat By Any Other Name

Posted on by

S/V ????

The taxes are paid, the boat is registered, and we have insurance for Andrew’s boat. All that remains is finding a local marina more convenient than the one in Gig Harbor where the boat is currently moored. And a name. Andrew is thinking about what to name this vessel since the she doesn’t have a name already.

Naming a boat is a weighty responsibility.  Our first boat, the Saucy Sue, was so named after a linefrom a Black Adder episode. Our family knows all the lines from all the episodes. We are complete Black Adder geeks. The name fit the boat, a diminutive Catalina 27 that was quick and responsive and seemed many times to have a mind of her own. She had’sauciness’ to spare. Mike named that boat as soon as we got her; another boat that had no name at the outset. It seemed like the name really described that boat’s personality,or at least what we projected onto her.

The Sue being extra saucy!

Then there is Moonrise. Our current Cal 34 has been called Moonrise for many years and I never wanted to change it. When I first learned that this was her name, I knew she was the boat for us. It does suit her. The word conjurs up images of peaceful nights, of romance, of the mutability of the feminine. We have always seen Moonrise as a graceful vessel, a little like a woman with southern charm. Images of the moon suit her. The moon also represents emotion, those energies that wax and wane like the moon. She has certainly touched our hearts, bringing both great joy and a feeling of freedom.

Moon rising over S/V Moonrise. How cool is that? We are anchored at Penrose State Park, all alone!

We wonder, sometimes, at the names we see on boats. Many people apparently like to use a double entendre to make some kind of a point in naming their vessel. Sometimes that will cause us to cringe collectively, almost reflexively rolling our eyes. We saw a boat named ‘Miss Isle’. Really? You think maybe she’s fast? Then there was ‘Vitamin Sea’. Okay. There’s a boat in our marina called ‘Our Third Love’. We don’t know what that means. We hope the owners know. Then there is the ubiquitous ‘Luna Sea’. ‘Lun a cy’. Get it? HAHAHAHA! Right. You get the point. I’m sure somewhere there is a book on boat names. Or probably an internet site. Because someone has to make this stuff up and it’s certainly not me.

We recently looked at a lovely Cal39 that is in the running as ‘the boat’ for us. The
boat’s name is ‘Saila V’. Now, ‘C’est la vie’ isn’t ncessarily a bad a name for a boat,
but really? Why couldn’t they have simply used the French expression? It’s not a ‘cutesy’ boat, it’s a lovely boat. Why have a cutesy name? What’s strange is that this expression is generally said with somewhat of a shrug. It’s a dismissive expression and gesture used in response to something negative. You could say ‘shit happens’ and it would mean almost the same thing. When we looked at the boat, I sort of shrugged and felt like ‘meh…’. And it’s a nice boat that is very well kept and has a layout exactly like the one we saw months ago that I’ve frequently wished we had bought! I should have been pretty excited about it. I wonder if the feeling tone of the name had infiltrated this boat. If we buy that boat, the name is going away fast. I’ll have to look at it again and see if it still leaves me with the same feeling.

Compare this with the name ‘Spellbound’, which is the name of the Westerly 39 we looked at up in Anacortes and is reviewed on the boat page. That boat grabbed me right away. I must have been under a spell of some kind because I still like that boat, even though it has many, many more faults than the recent Cal 39, and it is going to need some likely major repairs. Is the name speaking to me more than the actual boat? Maybe in the future I should remain ignorant of the vessel name when looking for the first time because it’s clear that logic plays little part in the feeling one gets about a boat.

So Andrew has run through a number of possibilities in naming his new boat. Right away I thought of ‘Sea Monkey’, a playful name with just a touch of a nod to Poseidon. Just a touch. He thought of ‘Saucy Sue’ because he has such fond memories of that boat and he learned to sail on her. Of course he’s also thought of ‘Mopey Teen’, and ‘Slack Bladder’ (another reference to Black Adder). Imagine hailing someone on the VHF, saying either of those names three times. He is ever the amusing lad. “Mopey Teen, Mopey Teen, Mopey Teen, this is your mother. Do you copy?.”

Andrew at the helm of Saucy Sue in his REAL mopey teen days.

He won’t know until he sails her what the name should be, but maybe you readers already have ideas. What would you name a boat like this little Ericson 25? These boats are described as fast, tender, pointing well, sailing like a boat much larger than they are. Sounds like they are little boats with big hearts. What would you name her?

The Need for Speed When Performing Boat Yoga, and a Cunning Little Cruiser!

Posted on by

You think a Cal 34 cannot go fast? HA! Double Ha!

Another fine weekend of Pacific Northwest sailing. On Saturday we headed over to Oro Bay on Anderson Island. There was a little boat moored there that we wanted to take a look at for our son, Andrew. More on that later.

The wind was whipping about 15 knots as we headed out of the marina, taking full advantage of the incoming tide as we swept under the Narrows Bridge. Sailing around here means always being very aware of what the tide is doing and when, since any sailor up here knows that if you try to sail against the tide in the narrows, you will sail backwards.

This time we had about 2-3 knots of current with us, and great wind to boot, so naturally there was time for a little boat yoga. Boat yoga is good for all parts of a person and really takes the edge off those long wheel-slave sessions when the only auto pilots on board are named Mike and Melissa. That’s right, folks, there is nothing like a few yoga poses while heeled at 25 degrees to make what could otherwise be a tiring time at the wheel simply fly by.

Thankfulness. Hold pose for at least 30 seconds while you give thanks for the wind and your saucy boat.

 

The Wind Tunnel. Sailing for long periods on a broad reach in plenty of wind allows tension to build up in the body. Use this pose to discharge that tension, sending the energy back up into the wind from whence it came. Brace foot firmly. Blow out through your mouth, like the wind.

The Compass. Become the needle on your compass, pointing toward the horizon. Strike pose swinging arm through all four of the major directions, keeping arm straight. Pivot at the hips. Brace feet and be careful! Alternatively, you can pretend you are singing into a microphone with one hand, point to your audience with the other. Your choice.

After a refreshing yoga session, it’s time to change helmsmen and sail through some tidal rips. May as well turn off the sound on your computer because I still don’t have the hang of talking during a video clip when there is a lot of wind.

The anchorage at Oro Bay is really protected and quiet. We anchored in about 16 feet of water, feeling completely protected from the wind. An interesting feature of this anchorage is this old ferry. Someone brought this thing over from the east coast, thinking they would somehow restore it and take over the ferry service over on Ketron Island, just next door. Why do people think they can salvage huge things like this? It’s pretty cool, but I cannot imagine how much money it would take to get something like this up and running.

The old ferry from Ocean City, which is probably in New Jersey. Just now it has two travel trailers parked in it, and plenty of sea life parked ON it.

So, now we can satisfy the question on everyone’s minds: Why are these people looking for a boat for their son? The answer is simple: we are insane. Let’s just get it onto the table right now. We have lost our minds somewhere in the wind. Sure, there are nice logical answers like ‘We want Andrew to learn about working on boats.’, ‘Andrew needs a project to work on.’, or ‘It would be cheap housing during college.’

But those answers are probably not the real reason. Probably the real reason is that young men need adventures in order to become solid men. We prefer that Andrew’s adventures not be in the form of either going to war, or playing like he is going to war in front of the video screen. Andrew had a grand adventure traveling through Europe on his own between highschool and college. It crystalized something in him that has helped him be successful in college. Adventures do that. We’d like to see that kind of development continue so that he can become even more self-sufficient and make choices about how he lives his life that might be a little outside the box. He’s enough like me that I worry he will get bored with life if he enters the world of work, never to have time to himself again until retirement.  We see this as part of his education, part of his growing-up. And if we get to live a little vicariously through him, well, what are kids for? I guess like most parents, we want better for our kids than we had for ourselves, and we want them to know they don’t have to do things the way we did them.

So we sailed out to Anderson Island to look at this little Westerly Cirrus, a 22 foot sailboat that could take Andrew just about anywhere.

The Westerly Cirrus

This little boat is salty as heck, but it needs some work because it’s been sitting there for a long time. The price is right, but does Andrew want to take it on? Like us, he’d rather sail than work on a boat, but it wouldn’t take much to make this boat sail-able. And the sails are in good condition, as is the standing rigging. I’ll review this boat on the boat reviews page.

Here’s a final video of our sail back. We ran our engine for about 1/2 hour the entire weekend. Great Pacific Northwest sailing!

Moonrise, out.