Monday, July 23, 2012

A Good Weekend For Sailing

SHIP'S LOG:

If you totally ignore Friday, the weekend was pretty good. Yes, I know that Friday is not part of the weekend, at least technecally, but for most people the weekend begins on Friday and ends on Monday. In this particular case, for sailing there was just Saturday and Sunday and both were pretty spectacular - windwise.

There is something so very nice about raising sails, scudding across the wind, with a rail down and nothing in front of you but water. I got the chance to do several miles long runs with the sails set perfectly and a light hand on the helm. Except for the occasional reef, rock, island, shoreline, drifting fisherman, blind power-boater or not-paying-attention sailor, all was bliss.

Sunday night, back at TYC, a 125 foot sailboat from somewhere in Europe showed up and anchored in the River off the Queen Merry. It was magnificent! It was huge! It was wide. I can not imagine how much it cost but it probably went for well over $7 million. It was sort of "scarey" to even think about being at the helm of that craft under sail.  Someone came out on deck early Monday morning, probably one of the paid crew, and they looked "tiny." People often remark that they are "amazed" that I sail my 39 foot boat all by myself. My boat would probably make a nice "tender" for that super yacht!