First Sail of the Season

So I actually got to go out yesterday on our family boat, a 30ft 1986 Catalina named Surprise, and kick off the sailing season nice and early this year. March 7th is definitely the earliest I've been out for any sailing season.

The crew aboard was my girlfriend Danielle, and my dad with my dad skippering and Danielle & I working the lines. The weather was nice for early March on the Chesapeake (Read as: upper 40's/low 50's with about 5-10 knots of wind). It was a little cold but most definitely worth going out for.

Danielle and I got to the boat around 1300 and enjoyed a nice lunch of subs and beer before I took stock and started to clean up a bit for our sail. My dad had been aboard yesterday and done some teak work on the front hatch boards and the V-berth bulkhead so there was a lot of sawdust in and around the cabin that needed to be cleaned up.

The purpose of this sail (obviously besides enjoying the lovely weather we have been given this weekend) was to move slips. We changed our slip so we could get one with a side entrance since its the same price and much easier to get on and off the boat. Once my dad got to the dock about 1430, we shoved off about 10 mins later.

We hoisted the jib and let her fly by herself for a little bit. We were moving fairly well for just having our headsail up but once we loosed the main we were averaging about 5.5 knots. We sailed circles around a poorly trimmed Island Packet that was taking its time. We zipped around the Magothy for only about 2 hours until it got cold enough to head in and dock Surprise in the new slip.

The one downer of the trip was that our stereo system seems to have crapped out on us. We have a Sony Marine system that does radio/CDs and has an AUX input for ipods, which is tremendously convenient. We have had that head unit for about 3-4 years. However, at some point in the past two weeks it just died.  Anyhow, after the sail, I squeezed into the port-side locker and fiddled with the wires and a volt meter, trying to figure out if the damn thing was getting any power or actually dead (as I feared was the case). It was getting power which is good for our wiring but bad for our little Sony unit. It looks like its just dead. Its a bummer we're going to have to get a new one but on the bright side, I get to learn a little bit about stereo installation in the near future. I really enjoy listening to music while I'm sailing so this is something that is going to have to get fixed in the very near future. This gets priority in the Boat To-Do List. 

A Catalina 30: My camera got stolen recently but I'll get some better pictures up later