We have been working hard for weeks on this boat, and she looks pretty good (at least on the outside). I have been running the little motor regularly, no problems at all. She is pumping water, looks pretty good. The alternator has not come back from the shop yet, but she has run for an hour or so with no real drain on the batteries (I’m feeling pretty confident). Why not throw the lines and take a short cruise.

Maiden Voyage

The boys and I are excited about finally leaving the dock (my friend Randy at the helm). The plan is to go under the bridge and back, an hour or so trip (shouldn’t be a problem right?).

Here we go!

Wow it is a nice day. The boat is docked in Los Angeles Harbor. Here is a picture of the Vincent Thomas Bridge. It connects San Pedro (where I live) to Terminal Island. The old ship in the picture is the Lane Victory. If you are ever down in the Los Angeles area, you might consider checking it out. It is set up as a floating museum. They also take a couple of short annual cruises to Catalina Island where they act out a mock air battle. The aircraft are vintage. The ships deck guns firing off (propane) in defense of the ship (really cool). You can get more information online as well.

Anyway, back to the story…It is nice to finally be enjoying the boat instead of slaving over it. The sky is blue, temperature perfect; why not go a little further? None of my friends know how to sail, so we all decide to get out of the harbor and throw up the main for a short time.

Beautiful Day

Here is a picture of the hoisted the main.



I am excited about seeing my friends “sailing”. I tried to teach one of them to sail on a sunfish down in Mission Bay, San Diego. The lessons were pretty successful, until an accidental jibe on his “solo” sail (by solo, I mean without me, his 6 year old son was with him). The sail came around so hard the little sunfish capsized (not to mention breaking the eye hook from the mast). This accident was pretty scary. Nobody was injured, and his son enjoyed the excitement of the situation. Maybe this is the reason people need to learn to sail when they are young.



Anyway, getting back to the maiden voyage…. As we continue heading south past the end of the jetty, the wind is blowing from the west. We were on a beam reach. Once we cleared the jetty, we pulled in the sheets and started to head more into the wind (please pardon my lack of nautical terminology- I learned to sail by borrowing a sailing book from the San Pedro library). Beautiful… the boat started to heel (we snapped this picture) and we could feel the power of the wind pull the boat forward.

The Main is up

As I was standing there, smiling for the previous photo, proud as could be (like the king of the world scene in the movie Titanic)... My elation ended with a loud tearing sound (RIP!!!) followed by the mad thrashing of the torn main. The sail tore almost completely in half from leech to luff. I instructed my friend Randy to head directly into the wind and pulled the main down. All the time, wondering what added damage was done to my poor friends fear of sailing. After the ripped main was put away, we started the engine and headed back to our slip. I wanted to do some “damage control” to my friend’s fragile constitution. So, we discussed the situation. I assured everyone that this was not a common occurrence. In dozens of trips on both my old sailboats, I never had a sail rip like this one. As we discussed the “experience” I think they were beginning to buy it. The mood began to lighten. We laughed at the idea of sharing the story with our spouses. As we laughed and talked, Randy began to notice the engine RPM slowing down….

Here we go again!

The engine continued to slow until it finally stopped. Needless to say, the light mood ended at exactly the same time. LA Harbor is a very busy place. Many local sailors have stories of close calls with container ships. As luck would have it, a very nice couple in a little cabin cruiser offered us assistance. After we threw the bow to the cabin cruiser and began the tow back, the mood remained quiet (honestly, I also needed some reassurance at this point). As we arrived at our slip, we thanked our new cabin cruiser friends. We offered some gas money, but they graciously declined having been in our “shoes” once or twice themselves. After we got back to our slip, we did a quick rinse of the hull and deck and practically ran from the dock (thankful the ordeal was over). RECAP- The whole idea of this trip was to reinforce the idea that all our hard work would pay off in the end…. Yeah, that worked!

Did I say “a short trip to help build morale”?????