Hello all,
We finally got Ceto out of the boatyard and into her slip at a different
harbor. The sail itself took about five hours, and we had all five of us (me,
husband and kids - 13, 11 and 3 years old) with us. Kids had never sailed
before, husband had once twenty-five years ago or something, (but has tons of
powerboat/professional fish guiding experience), and I hadn't sailed in twenty
years...
We came out of the boatyard's dock in gorgeous sunshine, about a 15 knot
breeze, cruising under power through the scattering of rocky islands, planning
to raise the sails when out in the channel, where we would have some room to
fuss with the unfamiliar systems. We were all chatting when the engine
unceremoniously died. As we drifted between three islands, my husband called
out, "Get the sails up, Danelle...and I hope you know what you're doing!"
Well, that jump-started my heart. I struggled with the makeshift sail tie
(yes, one long tie - I hadn't made up real sail ties yet), got the halyards
mixed up, frantically jammed the bolt rope into the track, and started hauling.
That was when I realized that this bolt rope thing is a whole different game
than the track system our boats had used that my family had sailed. Here we
were, floating helplessly into these rocks, and the stupid thing kept jamming.
I got it up halfway, just enough for the wind to drift us into a dock that was,
incredibly luckily for us, right downwind. A private house sits up on the
island, and we floated in, tied up, got the engine going again and started back
into the channel. We got our courage up again (my non-sailing family was a bit
rattled, of course), enjoying our rare sunny, warm, breezy day, and raised both
the main and jib. The wind was swirling a bit, so we were on a beam reach,
broad reach, then wing-and-wing, then becalmed right as we passed my inlaw's
beach house, where I of course, wanted to be sailing gloriously past. ha. We
got sort of relaxed in the becalming, but should have been more alert, as it
was only a switch in wind
direction!
I was messing with the centerboard trunk, where we hadn't fixed the large
ragged hole where the line comes up yet, and it was blurping (is that a word?)
about a quarter cup of saltwater into the cabin every few minutes. It was
disturbing, along with the sloshing of the water in the cockpit from the drains
with definitely need one-way sea cocks installed! Anyway, distracted by light,
swirling winds, sloshing water, a sleepy and cranky 3-year-old, I took the helm
from my husband, all of us just sort of spacing out...then of course a 20 knot
gust swung around and knocked us down hard. My poor husband was sitting on
the lee side, stern, and the water came sluicing over the toe rail about six
inches from his rear, and then I pinned him there by my sudden, instinctual
shove of the tiller leeward in a desperate attempt to round up. It had been so
long since I'd sailed, and never had sailed such a small boat, I'd forgotten to
pop the mainsheet in a
knockdown...even though I'd just lectured the family about it an hour earlier.
My poor family was so freaked out, and I was even a bit shaken, because this
was an old boat we'd never had out before - not enough time to establish trust
in a boat, for sure.
All that went through my mind was "I KNOW I read that no M17 has capsized
before." The rest of the sail was *awesome*! We stuffed a shirt sleeve into
the CB trunk, the three-year-old fell asleep, we sailed long gorgeous tacks
into our harbor, we saw humpback whales, got sun soaked (a wonderful thing in a
place that gets thirteen FEET of rain annually!), and fell totally in love with
our M 17! On our second sail, my husband was having so much fun I couldn't
wrest the tiller from him! (His excuse was, that I am "so much better at the
sails, so I could do that..." ha) I've been practicing docking, and have been
so amazed at the responsive, quick handling compared to the large sailboats I
grew up on, and the smaller power boats I've run, that float around like corks.
The outboard has run perfectly since - it had been sitting in the former
owner's garage for awhile, and our initial test run must not have worked the
clogs through the system well enough.
So, how can I raise that mainsail without it jamming so badly, from the
cockpit? I've been raising it from the deck, one-handedly while un-jamming
with the other hand.
Danelle Landis
"Ceto" M-17 #378
Ketchikan, AK
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