I haven't been here much but I wrote about my test sail elsewhere (Facebook) and wanted to share here! "Today" was May 23rd
Today was a day of firsts and accomplishments long awaited. It started small.
Yesterday I finished sewing my second cockpit line bag and mounted it. And I finished rigging my main sail gatherer in a workable way for the first time. So I was ready for a test sail. Well, almost. I needed to put away tools, materials, and general leftover crap that needed to go away or overboard. that had been out for months while I’d been doing these projects.
So I spent the morning putting things away, cleaning, and generally making the boat look better down below than it has in a long time. Morning grew into afternoon. This was actually a bigger deal than it sounded like, and was very satisfying. I took a maybe half an hour to mount my wifi router on the bulkhead, a little project I’d wanted to do for years. I grabbed a quick bite of something, then by 5pm I was ready to go on my test sail.
This is a big deal. I’ve been working on projects to get my sails and rig ready for about five months out of the last year. It is three years to the day since the last time Flutterby has been underway with her sails up. It has been a long long time coming.
I started by making sure my sails were ready. I raised three panels of my mizzen sail; all good. I remembered that I wanted to change how the downhaul-parrels on the main sail were rigged, so I hoisted it up three panels, re-tied one, hoisted two more, re-tied the second, and hoisted it almost all the way up and re-tied the third. While I was doing that, I had to remove various old sail ties so that it went up properly. This wasn’t a big deal—I’d done this at anchor before several times. I left the sheets loose so the sail just weathervaned as the Flutterby hunted at anchor. Then to keep things quiet, I dropped several reefs into the main as well, leaving three or four panels up.
Then I decided to do something new. I’ve never sailed off the anchor before. I pulled the sheet in tight, put on my gloves, and went forward to pull in the chain as it went slack when she tacked around the anchor. After a couple tacks I went back and eased the main sheet a bit, thinking it would give me more time to haul in before it came up short again. Not sure if it helped or not, but the next thing I knew, I had a pile of muddy chain on deck and saw the anchor with a big scoop of mud. I got the chain locked down quickly and ran back to the cockpit start sailing, leaving muddy smears and glove prints in a few places.
And I was sailing. I didn’t have a lot of sail up, it was probably blowing 10~15 and my sails were rather reefed. I was going slowly. I was trying to make sure I didn’t hit the fishing pier a few hundred yards away. Or anything else. I was trying to raise both sails a bit more so I’d make more progress. I realized that I would probably point better if I put the centerboard down.
Did I mention I’ve never sailed Flutterby solo before? Yep, another first.
Then, I started to get nervous about not being able to tack easily away from the fishing pier, so I cranked the engine, and got myself going and on the other tack. Sometimes it is really nice to have an auxiliary! Once I made it through, I turned the engine off again, and started sailing North through the mooring field and anchorage, and up the waterway toward the railroad bridge. I did raise the sails, getting six panels up in both sails. (Well, more-or-less) This was sailing on a close reach most of the time. The sailing was starting to feel good as I relaxed a bit. I was underway. I had good tunes on the stereo. I had time to snap a couple pictures of the sails or pics that clearly showed I was sailing. This is what I was doing all this for!
I decided to turn around, so I tacked away from town, and soon started easing the sheets until I was on a broad reach, sometimes almost a run. I wove through the mooring field, saw a few boats, but didn’t see many people out or looking. Again…this is what sailing is about, and even better when the wind is behind me. As I came back by where I’d been anchored before, I had to harden up again to make it under the A. Max Brewer bridge. Somebody on a large powerboat towing a small powerboat coming the other way looked really interested in me, and waved and gave what I think was a thumbs up in the distance. Through the bridge, I turned straight downwind toward the spot I was planning to anchor for the night, near a dinghy dock I could use…So I decided sorta gratuitously to gybe the mizzen so I could run wing and wing for a bit. I went by a couple anchored sailboats then. And then I was running out of water so I had to turn away a bit and gybe the mizzen back over.
I kept on going South for a bit more. It was getting to the golden hour, approaching sunset. Still a very gentle 10~15 knots of breeze. A nice warm evening, not too hot. I dodged through some shallow spoil areas on the chart going back out toward the waterway, and had to harden up for a bit, then eased the sheets again. Another ten minutes I decided to turn around. It was a close reach all the way back to the anchorage. As I went by one of the anchored boats, I noticed that somebody was up on deck obviously taking pictures of me as I sailed by. So of course, I decided to come fairly close, figuring maybe I’d ask for the pictures later.
I realized that the sun was behind me, which would probably make the sails glow, but the boat would be dark, so I thought I could go past them, tack one more time, and then I could go around them on the other side, with the low sun shining on me. After that I was going to drop first the mizzen, then see how she sailed for a bit with just the main up, and then drop that too, crank the engine, and go a bit closer to shore to drop my anchor for the night. I had it all planned out, complete with different light for the photos!
As I was tacking, I heard a noise. This was yet another first—I’d never heard that noise before. It was a bit of a gritching groaning noise, not scary loud. It didn’t sound good though. I had a bad feeling about it….and I lifted up the cockpit grate to see that my fear was correct—the steering cable had parted! Yes, sailing with no way to control the rudder was a first for me too! I confirmed that letting go the halyards gets the sails down fast, so I wasn’t going to drift as quickly. Next I found out exactly how fast I could dump all the crap in the port lazarette out into the cockpit until I could get the emergency tiller out and installed. Yes, that is quick too! And with a way to steer, I cranked the engine again, and started to calm down a bit as I motored to where I wanted to anchor.
At least dropping anchor is something I’ve got lots of experience doing, including doing it alone. After that I dropped the dinghy into the water and rowed up to say hello to the people I’d sailed by earlier—I figured it was a chance to get pictures of Fluttery under sail, which is rare…and that I could share the story with them—they are sailors so they understand what losing steering means, and also can probably appreciate what doing a test sail for the first time after three years without sailing means too. That and they might have wondered what the crash reef was about. Or maybe they didn’t think much of it. So I had a nice chat with them for a while, and saw mars rise from their cockpit.
This is a notable day for sure!