# It Doesn't Get Any Noob-er Than This



## Landwalker

Howdy Folks,

Since there's this handy "Introduce Yourself" section of the forums, figured I'd... well, introduce myself. The short version? I'm the noobest sailing noob who ever noobed.

My wife (30) and I (31) live outside of Portland, Maine. Up until a week ago I had never so much as set foot on a sailboat-not for lack of interest, though, and I finally decided the hell with it and signed us up for a weekend of sailing lessons (the ASA 101 Basic Keelboat class). And we had a blast. Duh.

So now we're in that harrowing purgatory of wanting to buy our first boat but trying to stumble our way through the indecision-paralysis caused by our total lack of all knowledge whatsoever. In the last three days I've read John Vigor's _Twenty Small Sailboats to Take You Anywhere_ (mostly so I could get a quick idea of just "Here are some boats, and here are some things about them, and maybe those are things you will want to consider when looking for your own boat"-we have no delusions that we'll be cruising any further than Bar Harbor at any point in the next few years, let alone, say, Fiji) and I've started on Don Casey's _Complete Illustrated Sailboat Maintenance Manual_ (namely the first section, on inspecting aging sailboats). It still feels like the blind leading himself, though, but hopefully it'll start coming together at some point. We also are hoping to line up another lesson next weekend (happy birthday to me!) to both focus on some tasks we're not really comfortable with yet (read: Docking without breaking everything) and to pick the instructor's brain on boat-shopping.

But in the interim, I figured I'd drop in here, say hi (Hi!), and if I don't get booed off the stage I might starting picking y'all's brains for sailboat purchase ideas as well. When you're as new as I am, every little bit helps, after all.

So, in summary:

Who: A Boring CPA named Walker
Age: 31
Experience: ASA 101 and literally nothing else
Where: Greater Portland / Casco Bay, Maine
Boat: TBD
Nervousness: High

Glad to be here (both the forums and the greater sailing community in general), and hopefully I won't prove too much of a nuissance.

Edit: And since I haven't yet tracked down which of the many subforums would be the most appropriate for a thread on soliciting boat purchase advice, if anyone wants to point me in that direction before I eventually stumble upon it myself, I'd be much obliged.


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## capta

I would begin with a copy of Royce's Sailing Illustrated. It's a great little book written in a fun format that covers just about EVERYTHING you might want to know about sailboats.
If I were you, I'd not be in such a hurry to buy a boat. Sail as many different boats as you can, so what you buy is suited to your needs and not just your eye. Biggest mistake in boat buying is to go for the boat that catches your eye.
Join a yacht/sailing club and sail with the members. Walk the docks of local marinas and trade rides for helping wash or maintain the boats. If you have the time, offer yourselves out as delivery crew and do a bit of traveling under sail. After you've sailed on 15 to 40 different boats, you should have a really good idea of what sort of boat will best suit your needs AND budget. Good luck.


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## RTB

Landwalker said:


> Howdy Folks,


Nice first post. Welcome to Sailnet.

Ralph


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## sailpower

www.southportlandsailingcenter.com/


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## Landwalker

capta said:


> I would begin with a copy of Royce's Sailing Illustrated. It's a great little book written in a fun format that covers just about EVERYTHING you might want to know about sailboats.
> If I were you, I'd not be in such a hurry to buy a boat. Sail as many different boats as you can, so what you buy is suited to your needs and not just your eye. Biggest mistake in boat buying is to go for the boat that catches your eye.
> Join a yacht/sailing club and sail with the members. Walk the docks of local marinas and trade rides for helping wash or maintain the boats. If you have the time, offer yourselves out as delivery crew and do a bit of traveling under sail. After you've sailed on 15 to 40 different boats, you should have a really good idea of what sort of boat will best suit your needs AND budget. Good luck.


Thanks for the book referral-I'll definitely look into it.

The good (I guess?) news is that we aren't hurrying to buy a boat, since we are painfully aware that we don't know what we don't know. Hence the reading, and the couple (so far) of lessons, and hopefully some other avenues of gaining knowledge/experience/half a clue. It's not _easy_ going slow, since, as you point out, sometimes something just looks eye-catchy and you'd like nothing more than to grab it and get out on the water. But between the ignorance and the knowledge that we'll have to turn around and get it in storage within a couple of months at most, we're trying to take a pretty measured approach.

I might take up your suggestion to just bum around marinas and see if anyone will take me along for the day. Unfortunately we're about a 30-minute-each-way drive from the likely candidate marinas, so there's that mental block to overcome, but after next weekend it may be worth investigating. This time of year, neither I nor my wife could justifiably spend even a few non-weekend days helping with boat deliveries due to the seasonality of our work, but if we don't have a boat of our own by _next_ sailing season, I'll definitely look into it.



capta said:


> South Portland Sailing Center [because I can't post links yet, even as part of a quote]


Yep, that's where we took our ASA 101 class last weekend (20th-21st), and where we're hopefully taking some more non-class lessons next (Labor Day) weekend. Kyle was a great instructor for us, and the Pearson Ensign "student driver" boat was a lot of fun even though it wouldn't be the boat for us. I would recommend them to anyone in the greater Portland area looking for lessons.

Edit: Also, I've already spoken to Kyle and offered to crew for him whenever he competes in any races in the area, so that's another small step in the "figure crap out" direction.


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## capecodda

Become a sailor and you'll no longer be a boring CPA, you'll be a sailor who finances his sailing addiction by being a CPA. Your clients will notice an extra lightness in your step and improved attitude which will bring you more business. You will buy a sailboat, then a bigger sailboat as your business flourishes. Life will be good. I promise, and I am always right about these things .

On top of that you live in one of the nicest places to sail on earth. Short season, sure, but that just makes us appreciate it more. Great first post!


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## CalebD

Dont rule out dinghy racing as well as keel boat racing for crewing opportunities to gain more skills. Learning to fly a spinnaker on a dinghy like a Lightning or Flying Scot will translate nicely to a larger keel boat.

There must be 10+ Pearson Ensigns at my club that race 1 design. People frequently need crew. Find out when they race and where they gather before the race.

Do you feel that the Pearson Ensign is too small for you and your SO? For more cabin space boats in the 25' - 30' range should fit the bill.


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## jongleur

Boooo! Just kidding. Great intro.
I agree you will be a sailor who 
finances his hobby as a CPA. I once
had a CPA who was also a surfer.
That combo wasn't great and I now
have a different CPA.
I'd recommend chartering. Lots of
great places to see and many different
types of sailboats to try.
Dinghy sailing is also enlightening.


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## Landwalker

CalebD said:


> There must be 10+ Pearson Ensigns at my club that race 1 design. People frequently need crew. Find out when they race and where they gather before the race.


I definitely will do / am in the process of doing that. Have a list of a couple of people I need to get in contact with about that-hopefully I'll be able to get a couple of races in before the season ends (which is pretty early up in Maine, although it's mid-80s this week so the end is yet to come).



CalebD said:


> Do you feel that the Pearson Ensign is too small for you and your SO? For more cabin space boats in the 25' - 30' range should fit the bill.


The boat itself isn't too small, but it doesn't seem like something we could be comfortable overnighting on. I know I'm not going to find a boat with enough headroom for me (at 6'4") and precious few with enough berth-room unless I'm able to break out a six-figure check (which is not a thing currently in my power), but it would be nice to find a boat for us that's got a _little_ more down below than, if I remember what Capt. Kyle called it, a "cuddy cabin" / storage locker. So, yeah, we're pretty much looking around 26±4 feet, depending on what a particular boat can offer.



capedocca said:


> Become a sailor and you'll no longer be a boring CPA, you'll be a sailor who finances his sailing addiction by being a CPA. Your clients will notice an extra lightness in your step and improved attitude which will bring you more business. You will buy a sailboat, then a bigger sailboat as your business flourishes. Life will be good. I promise, and I am always right about these things .


That's what I'm hoping for!* God knows I could use a springier step... Most days I'm more Eeyore than anything else, which just isn't a great place to be. Even _I_ can barely stand being around me these days! 

* Well, I'm _hoping_ to win the lottery, retire, and sail as full-time as I possible can. But so far Maine Lottery isn't upholding their side of that arrangement, so until they manage to process my application for independent wealth, I'm stuck trying the old-fashioned way.


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## Stumble

For now join a sailing club with a boat you can borrow for overnights and buy two lasers, or one V-15. Then sail the snot out of whatever you get. At this point it's all time on the water, it almost doesn't matter what you are on. After you have a good bit of sailing under you then take a look for a weekender.


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## eherlihy

Great first, and subsequent, post. There are a few instructors here, and we are all happy to help. 

Suggest that you may want to take an ASA 104, or 106, somewhere away from your frequent sailing area. You'll still learn a ton, and you'll have an instructor to guide you in the highlights of new area.


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## Tanski

My advice for a first boat is don't break the bank and don't over think it. I can almost guarantee it will NOT end up being the "right" boat for somebody so new to sailing. Everybody has been there unless they are lucky enough to have been on/around boats their entire life.
Find something you can fit in down below, has good bones and newer sails. Everybody is different and what you discover you need down the road will probably not be what you think you need now. That's what the next boat is really for. You learn about so much more than just sailing from your first boat.


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## Landwalker

eherlihy said:


> Suggest that you may want to take an ASA 104, or 106, somewhere away from your frequent sailing area. You'll still learn a ton, and you'll have an instructor to guide you in the highlights of new area.


Yeah, the current longish-term plan (that I haven't told my wife about yet...) is to take ASA 103 next year here in Portland (at South Portland Sailing Center, which was linked earlier), hopefully after getting our own boat so that the lessons can be on _our_ boat... and then find somewhere to take ASA 104 in a year or two once we have the basic experience (and funds) under our belt. SPSC is very small and only currently offers 101 and 103, anyway.

So whenever we _do_ take ASA 104, we'll definitely be taking it somewhere other than our frequent sailing area. I just need to first _get_ a frequent sailing area!
@Stumble - That's a great idea, and one I hadn't even considered because I didn't know it was a thing that existed (see "Don't know what we don't know," above). That's the kind of thing I came here to get told.  I just asked Google about it, and it looks like there's a sailing club in Portland (Sail Maine) that has seasonal memberships and a number of classes that all might fit our bill, as well as racing opportunities. It's probably too late in the season this year to justify signing up for the 420 series races, but it'll definitely be on the table next year (especially as long as we don't have a boat of our own).



Tanski said:


> My advice for a first boat is don't break the bank and don't over think it.


I think that between the two of us we'll be able to cover any sanity gaps (if not knowledge gaps) that might crop up in the course of boat-shopping, so we _should_ be able to get through the process without breaking the bank (assuming we actually get through the process at all).

No promises about not overthinking it, though. We're outstanding overthinkers.


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## krisscross

Whatever you do, make sure you do not burn out the sailing interest in your wife. You will need her support or things could get complicated and unpleasant.
Sailing does not need to be an expensive hobby, but once you buy a boat, it kind of snowballs. And that is why what I said earlier is so important.


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## Stumble

I really hate recommending the C420. It's really a high school trainer, even by college finding the right mix of crew weight can be difficult. If you are over 6' unless your wife is under 5' you will probably be far too big combined for the boat. On the other hand if there is a big fleet, there is a huge advantage to having other people with the same boat close by, even if you don't race much. 

I would take a look and see what other small boats are sailed locally though.


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## Landwalker

Well, our plans to get out on the water this weekend via some private lessons from SPSC fell through due to the staff there going on a cruise of their own during the weekend (and I can't blame them for that, but that doesn't make it a bummer). So now my wife and I are looking at a couple (and there are, as far as we can tell, literally only a couple) of options for renting a boat for the day and going out to tool around Casco Bay. A couple of questions for those with more experience (i.e. "XP > 0") than ourselves:


Neither Allie nor I have ever docked a sailboat, and this is one of our bigger reservations about going out alone. Obviously we're not stupid enough to try to dock under sail at this point, so the question then becomes "Well how hard can it be for two scaredy-cats to dock a powered boat, anyway?" Assuming we're too chicken to do anything quickly and carelessly, is this something we should be able to pull off without causing vast amounts of property damage?

I don't know whether or not SPSC will be able to rent us their Pearson 22 while they're away on Staff Cruise, but assuming they are, here are our three options:
The Pearson 22 that we took our ASA 101 lessons on. Huge cockpit (and we're hoping to have a couple of friends join us), full keeled, and we're as familiar with it as it's possible for us to be with a sailboat. Downsides are the limited availability of a head, the fact that it's docked in a somewhat precarious (to us) tight spot, and (depending on your perspective) the fact that we're already sort-of-a-little-familiar with it and so might not be getting broader boat exposure. Cost would be approximately $37/hour.

Pearson 26 (Portland Yacht Services) - The largest (and probably most expensive) of the three options. Definitely has a head. Outboard cutout on the transom. Cockpit is smaller but not stupid tiny. My main concerns about this are lack of familiarity, cost ($225 for the day-the breakeven point between the 22 and 26 is right around 6 hours of rental use time), and the fin keel / spade rudder arrangement (which might not even matter, but it just seems like it would be more susceptible to lobster trap lines than the full keeled Pearson 22).

Yngling 21 (Portland Yacht Services) - The smallest, cheapest option. $75 for half a day, $150 for a full day. Small cockpit, so it would only be the two of us and no friends. Can't actually see an outboard in the picture provided, which would be an automatic disqualifier (see "We are not docking under sail.") Seems like it would be the most difficult option for us due to its lightness / racing-ness / quasi-dinghy-ness. Does not appear to have any room for a head. Fin keel makes me nervous about lobster traps.


So, given those three options, what are folks thoughts about them as day rentals for two wannabe sailors with about 12 hours on the water each? Cost notwithstanding (and actively irrelevant if we spend at least 6 hours out, which I would like to anyway), my knee-jerk is to give the Pearson 26 a try, but I also don't want to spend all day focused on dodging lobster traps if the fin keel / spade rudder is going to cause any issues with those.


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## Justa

Hey Landwalker, I just joined this site as well and have not really introduced myself. Perhaps I will do so in a thread. 

For now, one new guy to another, welcome to sailing! 

Although I am not sure if congratulations or condolences are in order. 

My always Wife, some days First Mate/Admiral (dependent on the day) and I entered the sailing world exactly as you did 3 years ago. 

We did a Cruise and Learn ASA 101 - 103 for a week. 

We are now moving onto our first live aboard.

So be careful what you wish for!! 

l had no idea what we were getting into or that we would be so hopelessly stricken by the affliction called sailing but,,,,, here we are.

Enjoy every second and every challenge!

As for boats,,, I have to agree with all the guys recommending a longer learning curve. 

There is not a sail club out there not looking for rail meat so,

Just show up and have some fun. You will be exposed to so many different ideas on and thoughts about boats its crazy.

Personally, as a first boat we bought a 2009 Macgregor 26M (You can almost hear the collective dismay from the Nay Sayers lol)

That boat took a lot of punishment and, brought our rookie selves back intact every time! Absolutely fantastic first boat (for us).

Forgiving and solid! And when a wind comes up that your not ready for, you can get out of there quick!

Congrats on your new job. I'm sure the CPA thing will be a handy hobby to help raise cruising budget.


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## Landwalker

Justa said:


> Hey Landwalker, I just joined this site as well and have not really introduced myself. Perhaps I will do so in a thread.
> 
> For now, one new guy to another, welcome to sailing!
> 
> Although I am not sure if congratulations or condolences are in order.
> 
> My always Wife, some days First Mate/Admiral (dependent on the day) and I entered the sailing world exactly as you did 3 years ago.
> 
> We did a Cruise and Learn ASA 101 - 103 for a week.
> 
> We are now moving onto our first live aboard.
> 
> So be careful what you wish for!!
> 
> l had no idea what we were getting into or that we would be so hopelessly stricken by the affliction called sailing but,,,,, here we are.


I secretly (well, "secretly") hope for this long-term outcome. My wife has so far not been warm to the live-aboard idea, but obviously that's not a short-term goal anyway. Time will tell!

(Today we were out walking around during lunch, looking through the gates surrounding the handful of docking piers downtown in Portland. After looking at one place, she asked "Where do you want to go next?" So I pointed out towards the mouth of Casco Bay and said "That way, then turn right [south] and go about four months.")



Justa said:


> As for boats,,, I have to agree with all the guys recommending a longer learning curve.
> 
> There is not a sail club out there not looking for rail meat so,
> 
> Just show up and have some fun. You will be exposed to so many different ideas on and thoughts about boats its crazy.


I'm looking into it, but there just aren't many sailing clubs in our area. A number of fancy-schmancy yacht clubs, but Sail Maine (which I mentioned above) was the only "sailing club" I could find, assuming I'm even using the right definition of that term, and they pretty much just traffic in J/22s. Which still is probably not the worst thing, of course.

I threw my name into a hat to crew in a race on Wednesday this week, but haven't heard anything back regarding that yet. In the interim, I think we're leaning towards renting the Pearson 26 for the day this Saturday or (probably) Sunday and tooling around Casco Bay all day. Hopefully in a manner that won't result in us running into any ground or other boats. Or docks. Or countless other things...

(Edit: Just to clarify, the CPA thing isn't new... I've been in accounting for about six years now. The _sailing_ thing is new, though! And it hopefully will finally give my CPA thing something worthwhile to subsidize...)


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## Justa

Don't get discouraged by the Grey Poupon crowd at the marinas and clubs. 

Most of those guys are a bunch of blow hards anyway. 

Bloody nice boats though! 

If you keep poking around asking increasingly intelligent questions, the real sailors will eventually take pity on you and start inviting you out to play.


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## jwing

IF you rent or buy a sailboat with an outboard motor, the easiest way to dock the the boat is to pull her in stern-first with the motor in reverse. Do everything very slowly. Account for wind and current. Coast the last few boatlengths using the motor just for steering. If you need braking force, reverse the motor aggressively.

If you are worried about what other sailors think of that maneuver:

1) Get over it or don't get into sailing; 
2) Understand that other sailors will appreciate that you are coming in a controlled manner that is not threatening their boats.


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## Landwalker

jwing said:


> IF you rent or buy a sailboat with an outboard motor, the easiest way to dock the the boat is to pull her in stern-first with the motor in reverse. Do everything very slowly. Account for wind and current. Coast the last few boatlengths using the motor just for steering. If you need braking force, reverse the motor aggressively.
> 
> If you are worried about what other sailors think of that maneuver:
> 
> 1) Get over it or don't get into sailing;
> 2) Understand that other sailors will appreciate that you are coming in a controlled manner that is not threatening their boats.


Trust me, what other sailors think of either the elegance or hardcore-ness of anything I do is _not_ going to register on the worry-o-meter.  As far as I'm concerned, as long as I don't wreck anything or anybody, and don't ruin anybody else's day out on the water, how suave I look doing it is not something that I'm going to care about. Safety + Good Time + Learning = Only Thing That Matters.

Thanks for the docking suggestion! If the situation allows for it, I'll definitely keep that approach in mind. I've only ever seen people pull in bow-first, so I wouldn't have considered the backing-in approach.


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## jwing

Also: YOU might want to spend more than 6 hours sailing around on a boat, maybe even your wife does, too. However, I haven't met anybody who doesn't sail that enjoys sitting in a small boat for that long. For most people, there has to be a few other things to do than sit on a bench. At least swimming, laying down, eating, drinking. But even then, 6 hours is a long time. If you bring friends, stay close to the boat's home base and be mindful of their moods. Be ready to return them to their car in short notice. Then you can take the boat back out yourselves for the rest of the day and really practice what you learned in class. What lots of non-sailors prefer is a sundowner cruise, or a sail to some destination, get off the boat for activities at the destination, then return to the starting place on the boat.


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## Stumble

If you aren't calling the yacht clubs you are missing out on one of the best resources out there for new sailers. Sure there are some that are very expensive, exclusive, and elitist, but they never let me in so I don't know much about them. The other 95% of yacht clubs are welcoming, generally cheap, and prone to force you to drink bear while trying to convince you to take their boats out sailing. 

I don't know any clubs in your area, but my club costs about $500/year, and with that membership I can use any of the club owned boats as much as I want, seven days a week, including takeing them out for weekends... Out current boat list...

3 sunfish
2 420's
5 Flying Scotts
S2 6.x
Easterly 30
18' Boston Whaler

And we are not unique. Many yacht clubs own boats specifically for their members to use. With rental rates either being free, or just enough to cover the cost of operation.


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## Landwalker

jwing said:


> Also: YOU might want to spend more than 6 hours sailing around on a boat, maybe even your wife does, too. However, I haven't met anybody who doesn't sail that enjoys sitting in a small boat for that long. For most people, there has to be a few other things to do than sit on a bench. At least swimming, laying down, eating, drinking. But even then, 6 hours is a long time. If you bring friends, stay close to the boat's home base and be mindful of their moods. Be ready to return them to their car in short notice. Then you can take the boat back out yourselves for the rest of the day and really practice what you learned in class. What lots of non-sailors prefer is a sundowner cruise, or a sail to some destination, get off the boat for activities at the destination, then return to the starting place on the boat.


Yeah, I've already talked to them about what they think their tolerance is ("4-6 hours"), and am mentally multiplying that by about 67%. If we can arrange the rental at all, which is no guarantee, I think my wife and I will try to get out early in the morning to sail by ourselves, and then swing back by the docks to pick up our friends early in the afternoon before heading out for the rest of the day. I'll certainly keep "Pick a destination they want to go to to keep them entertained" on the list, as well.



Stumble said:


> If you aren't calling the yacht clubs you are missing out on one of the best resources out there for new sailers. Sure there are some that are very expensive, exclusive, and elitist, but they never let me in so I don't know much about them. The other 95% of yacht clubs are welcoming, generally cheap, and prone to force you to drink bear while trying to convince you to take their boats out sailing.
> 
> I don't know any clubs in your area, but my club costs about $500/year, and with that membership I can use any of the club owned boats as much as I want, seven days a week, including takeing them out for weekends... Out current boat list...
> 
> 3 sunfish
> 2 420's
> 5 Flying Scotts
> S2 6.x
> Easterly 30
> 18' Boston Whaler
> 
> And we are not unique. Many yacht clubs own boats specifically for their members to use. With rental rates either being free, or just enough to cover the cost of operation.


I haven't called any yet, but there aren't many in our area (really only three* within anything close to reasonable distance), and looking over their websites it doesn't look like they had club boats, either. (One looked like it _might_, but only J/24s.) I assume that, if they had a club fleet, they'd mention it (the way that Southern Yacht Club does), and they don't. Wouldn't hurt to call 'em and make sure, of course, so depending on how a couple of things that just came up play out I may do that later this week.

Tangent: Medical problems suck. /Tangent

Even southern Maine just doesn't have the population (or year-round weather, I suppose) to support robust yachting clubs, it seems. But we'll see how the weekend goes and perhaps see what the slim pickings of yacht clubs have to say (even though they seem to have multi-year waiting lists).

* Portland Yacht Club, Centerboard Yacht Club, and Harraseeket Yacht Club


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## reduc

If the racing group you put your name in for crew leaves from one place, I'd think about showing up an hour or so before they leave the docks. Introduce your self and ask if anyone needs crew (or rail meat). If nothing else you can introduce yourself to some folks and let them know your available in the future.

My boat (a cs36t) is in Portland at the moment, I'll be there on the 5th or 6th of September but only for o few days (heading south). This is my first boat that I bought last year. Be happy to show you it and what I looked for (and what I missed) if the timing works out.


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## SHNOOL

jwing said:


> IF you rent or buy a sailboat with an outboard motor, the easiest way to dock the the boat is to pull her in stern-first with the motor in reverse. Do everything very slowly. Account for wind and current. Coast the last few boatlengths using the motor just for steering. If you need braking force, reverse the motor aggressively.


I dunno about that. I'm sorry but my boat backs like garbage under outboard, so did my last 3 boats... that would be an S2 7.9, a Capri 25, a Capri 22, and a Capri 14.2. So I'd wager MOST outboard boats don't backup well or at least not better than they go forward. That's 3 boats with transom hung rudders and one with a rudder post.

An outboard boat DOES have one great advantage, the outboard usually SPINS! So hard turns including turning IN PLACE are possible (tiller hard over and outboard hard over too, and gun it). if you happen to also have an outboard with Fwd Neutral AND Reverse, you have pretty much the easiest boat to control on the water (lock the tilt in place).

Sorry didn't want to hijack, but I thought it was an important thing to observe.

Welcome noob.. and frankly we're all noobs in various stages of experience at it.


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## Landwalker

reduc said:


> If the racing group you put your name in for crew leaves from one place, I'd think about showing up an hour or so before they leave the docks. Introduce your self and ask if anyone needs crew (or rail meat). If nothing else you can introduce yourself to some folks and let them know your available in the future.
> 
> My boat (a cs36t) is in Portland at the moment, I'll be there on the 5th or 6th of September but only for o few days (heading south). This is my first boat that I bought last year. Be happy to show you it and what I looked for (and what I missed) if the timing works out.


That would be awesome, Jeff. We'll definitely be around then (no Labor Day weekend trips away for us), so if you're willing to entertain a couple of super-ignorant newbies for a short while, we'd be thrilled. And if you decide you'd rather not put up with us, I'd completely understand that, too, so there's certainly no pressure.



SHNOOL said:


> Welcome noob.. and frankly we're all noobs in various stages of experience at it.


That's similar to what I told my wife years back when I was trying to get her to learn golf. She was frustrated by being so bad at it (and for those who haven't tried, golf is tough to learn). I told her, "Look, there isn't anybody in the world who's good at golf, there are just people who are professionally less bad at it than other people."


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## Justa

Just a little comment about what SHNOOL about outboards and backing into a slip.

I have only had the one boat with an outboard, the Macgregor M26 and I have to say it backed up fine. It was turning or steering the thing in reverse that was a problem. Swung that bow around like a sledge hammer! That particular boat, at least the one I had, was smooth as golden bow in,,,, a bloody hazard in reverse! lol

Not to say the many other models out there are not just fine.

My suggestion about docking is to take a little time out on the water, away from all obstructions, and do some backing and tight radius maneuvering in whatever you rent and every time you go out. See what the different boats handle like with short bursts in both reverse and forward. How far does the stern kick over on a flush of throttle etc. Try to do some steerage just using the motor at center, not using rudder or turning the motor at all. A couple fenders, a bit of cheap rope and a few milk jugs full of water and you can build yourself a quick obstacle course to practice in. And it is a lot of fun! A lot less stress nailing a fender out in the open than the bow of buddy's boat in the marina, or the dock, or the,,,,,,

Not to mention doing a few good old fashioned MOB drills!! They can be harder than you might think and lets face it, the real thing never happens when your ready for it!

Practice reefing in light winds is good too. Time yourself and see the improvement every time you do it. When the day comes that you need to reef fast (and it will) it will be just another natural part of sailing.

And yes, we are all noobs as you say SHNOOL and, the day I stop learning new things every time I go near a boat, is the day,,,, well you know.


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## eherlihy

I will say that the school that I teach for in Rhode Island spends a LOT of time in ASA 103 on bow-in docking; along a dock, along a short finger, in a slip, port side to, starboard side to. Students also learn how to back and do a standing turn in the bay, then in the harbor, and finally in a narrow fairway. When I teach 103, I have the students run aground in mud, and then learn how to get off.


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## SeaDubya

Landwalker said:


> I've read John Vigor's _Twenty Small Sailboats to Take You Anywhere_


Welcome!

If you liked Vigor's book, I can't recommend _The Seaworthy Offshore Sailboat_ written by him enough. That way you can look out for features that will allow you to venture further if you ever feel so inclined. And if you are looking to buy...look at TONS of boats, even if you're not sure they are a good fit. A lot can be learned by looking at a boat you don't think will work for you. Many a folk have bought a boat they thought they would never own (ask a cat owner....)

As for us, we went head-first noob and bought our first sailboat never even having sailed before and just taught ourselves as we went; no classes either. Year and a half later we're living aboard in the Sea of Cortez Mexico with our two kids. (99% of the people on this forum will recommend NOT taking this route)

So do whatever feels right, safe, and comfortable. And ask questions if you have them. Lots of knowledgeable people on here...even noobs know stuff


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## Landwalker

SeaDubya said:


> Welcome!
> 
> If you liked Vigor's book, I can't recommend _The Seaworthy Offshore Sailboat_ written by him enough. That way you can look out for features that will allow you to venture further if you ever feel so inclined. And if you are looking to buy...look at TONS of boats, even if you're not sure they are a good fit. A lot can be learned by looking at a boat you don't think will work for you. Many a folk have bought a boat they thought they would never own (ask a cat owner....)
> 
> As for us, we went head-first noob and bought our first sailboat never even having sailed before and just taught ourselves as we went; no classes either. Year and a half later we're living aboard in the Sea of Cortez Mexico with our two kids. (99% of the people on this forum will recommend NOT taking this route)
> 
> So do whatever feels right, safe, and comfortable. And ask questions if you have them. Lots of knowledgeable people on here...even noobs know stuff


I'll certainly add _The Seaworthy Offshore Sailboat_ to the reading list. Even if we do manage to get our hands on a boat remotely soon (looking less likely due to some surprise health situations  ), I'm sure we won't be venturing far off-shore any time in the short horizon, but it's always helpful and interesting to hear that side of it as well so that when the day comes, we'll have already been thinking about what it entails for a while.

As much as I (vicariously) approve of the jump-then-look approach y'all took, we won't be able to pull it off-but in the interim, I plan to take your advice and try to get my eyes on and in as many boats as I can. Maybe if we're feeling crazy we'll even go look at a cat one day!

(But no trimarans. We aren't going to wander _that_ far outside our aesthetic comfort zone...)


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## Stumble

Stilletto 24
Reynolds 21

So many good cheap cats out there... There is no good reason to buy a movable toxic lead dump


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## Bleemus

Head down to the Portland Yacht Club, find out what night they do their beer can series and show up and ask to crew and watch, listen and learn. And don't buy a boat till you have sailed on at least twenty different ones. Nuff said. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Landwalker

Well, the good news is that I was able to hop on a boat last night for the season's last race in the CYC Wednesday Night racing series. The neutral news is that it was the same boat that we took our ASA 101 lessons on (the 22' Pearson Ensign), so while I had a good time, I didn't get to add another boat to my "experience" list. The bad news was that the wind was absolutely dead. The "course" was a simple down-and-back, starting near Fort Gorges and making the turn past Cushing Island on the way to Portland Head Light. The the current was against us the whole way out, and what extremely little wind was to be had was also right in our face. It completely died I think we spent about 15 minutes just trying to get past a Walker Bay tied to a mooring off Cushing Island at one point.

To add insult to injury, we were going to have to make the turn with the buoy to port... but because of the current and non-wind, nobody could even _get_ on that side of the buoy.

We retired after around 90 minutes, having managed to get perhaps 3/4 of the way to the turning buoy. The whole time we were out there, I only saw two boats (a J/27, I think, and one other) manage to even make the turn, and their spinnakers looked like limp socks when they raised them. The results of the night aren't up, but I'll be shocked if more than those two boats finished out of all of the fleets. The whole fleet of J/22s almost got stuck out there with no outboards and no running lights and had to be escorted back to the dock in the dark by another boat.

But! I still had a great time, and I learned a bit (starting with "current sucks, light wind sucks"). I probably could've learned a bit more if I'd spent time pestering the skipper why we were doing certain things (e.g. manipulating the draft location of the mainsail, messing about with the traveler, sitting on the leeward side instead of windward side, etc.), but he was staying pretty busy alternately swearing at the conditions and laughing hysterically at the other boats floundering around just as impotently.

Next item on the agenda: Finding a rental for this Sunday. It's looking more and more like it'll be that same Pearson Ensign, because I can't get a callback from Portland Yacht Services about the 26' Pearson they have (the one time I talked to a guy, he said it was having some sail work done, and he'd have to call me back after he checked to see if it'd be ready by then. Still waiting for that call...) But sailing the same boat is still better than sailing no boat, so if that's what it comes down to, hopefully Allie and I can get out there and flop around for a while without doing anything destructively stupid like trying to sail in between Great Diamond and Little Diamond.


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## Pendragon35

capta said:


> I would begin with a copy of Royce's Sailing Illustrated. It's a great little book written in a fun format that covers just about EVERYTHING you might want to know about sailboats.
> If I were you, I'd not be in such a hurry to buy a boat. Sail as many different boats as you can, so what you buy is suited to your needs and not just your eye. Biggest mistake in boat buying is to go for the boat that catches your eye.
> Join a yacht/sailing club and sail with the members. Walk the docks of local marinas and trade rides for helping wash or maintain the boats. If you have the time, offer yourselves out as delivery crew and do a bit of traveling under sail. After you've sailed on 15 to 40 different boats, you should have a really good idea of what sort of boat will best suit your needs AND budget. Good luck.


This is great advice. Royce's has been through several editions. I learned to sail from one more than 40 years ago on a Sunfish. I wanted to go sailing, I always had, I grew up on tales of sailors but no one I knew sailed. We lived on a lake in Michigan; I convinced my parents to buy me a boat and off I went. Today I have an Alberg 35 (built about the same time I was learning to sail in 1965!) and I still keep a copy of Royce's on board.


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## Justa

Last time I posted here I meant to list a couple of books that were of great interest, and helped me in my understanding a bit.

All available on Amazon.ca

Buy, Outfit, and Sail by Cap'n Fatty Goodlander

Chasing the Horizon by Cap'n Fatty Goodllander

Fatty will leave you in fits but also has a lifetime of knowledge to share.

The Cost Conscious Cruiser by Lin Pardey

Voyaging on a Small Income by Annie Hill

Inspecting the Aging Sailboat (The International Marine Sailboat Library) by Don Casey

Sailboat Electrical Systems: Improvement, Wiring, and Repair: Improvement, Wiring and Repair (IM Sailboat Library) by Don Casey

There so many books out there worth reading but, these are a good fun start.

Take as it comes and enjoy it all

Norm


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## Landwalker

Thanks for the recommended reading, Justa. I'll add them to the list. Even already read _Inspecting the Aging Sailboat_-and I'll probably need to read it three more times before I get a good sense of everything (or even most of the things) Casey discusses. I think that Casey's _Complete Illustrated Sailboat Maintenance Manual_ (which I have) also includes the book on Electrical Systems you mentioned.

So tomorrow my wife and I were able to secure the rental of the 22' Pearson Ensign for the day. (Still haven't managed to get on any other boat yet, though not for lack of trying... it'll come in time.) Planning to sail from pretty much 10:30 to about 6:30, with a break for a picnic lunch on Great Diamond Island. Weather checks out good, and it doesn't look like Hermine is going to be up here to give us any trouble-current forecast is low 70s with about 8 knots of wind. This'll be our first time out on a boat without our instructor, so we're probably a healthy mix of nervous and excited. Or at least I'm a healthy mix of nervous and excited. Wife has not indicated how much excitement is mixed in with her nervousness, but I'm sure once we get off the dock, get the sails up, and prove to ourselves that we're unlikely to wreck anything, we'll be much less anxious about it all.


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## jongleur

Well, remember, when you get out there
be alert.
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We need more lerts.


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## Justa

jongleur,,,,,,,,

Do you not feel even the slightest shame for that one?


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## jongleur

Well, Landwalker, do you have anything to report?


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## Landwalker

jongleur said:


> Well, Landwalker, do you have anything to report?


Unfortunately, we ran into a cruise ship and sank.

...

...

Wait, that's not what happened.

Sunday sailing went great! It was the first time my wife and I were on the boat without an instructor, so there was some nervousness, but we did just fine (as far as we could tell, and nobody was around to tell us otherwise).

We left the dock around 10:40 AM. The location of the dock is such that you have to go a good distance straight out of the harbor before you get into the bay. (In this map, we were leaving from South Portland Sailing Center, heading NE out of the harbor.) Unfortunately, that morning had 1) fairly light wind that was 2) coming _straight down the harbor_, and 3) coincided with the current also coming straight down the harbor. Since I'm a stubborn bastard, we tried to tack our way out anyway. By about 12:05 PM, we had managed to _almost_ reach the Maine State Pier at the end of the harbor.

So, lesson learned #1: If the wind isn't favorable, motor out of the damn harbor.

We were supposed to pick up some friends from the dock around 1:30, so we turned around and motored back to the dock just to have some extra time to eat lunch on the boat and avail ourselves of toilet facilities.

Lesson #2: A boat with a cuddy cabin and a portable head is not very accommodating to a dude who is 6'4". I managed to do it, but man, there were contortions.

We ended up hoping in the truck and driving down the road a bit to stop by a McDonald's to take advantage of their restroom, then met up with our friends and got back on the boat around 1:40 PM.

At this point, Allie and I had wised up and we motored out of the harbor. Once we were in the bay, we had plenty of wind to do a good chunk of sailing. We sailed northeast (by this point the wind had moved so it was coming from the SE instead of NE), most of the way to Clapboard Island, then looped around towards the inland side of Long Island, headed SW through Diamond Pass (between Great Diamond and Peaks Island), looped around House Island on the west side, then tacked our way up the channel to Portland Head Light. Once we reached that, we turned around, jibed our way back down to Fort Gorges, dodged the cruise ship that was leaving the harbor just as we were arriving, and then took down the sails and motored back down the harbor to the dock, which we got to around 6:00 PM or so.

Needless to say we probably weren't setting any speed records out there, and we spent the whole time with a 100% jib instead of any fancy genoa or anything like that, but (by our standards) we got a lot of sailing in and covered plenty of area. I spent the whole time looking at the chart every few minutes to make sure we weren't anywhere with any opportunity for an underwater rock encounter, and was successful (or at least not unsuccessful) in avoiding any trouble spots. Our friends had a great time out, we had a great time sailing, and we got slightly more comfortable with the notion of being out on the water without a supervisor.

I think it was good that we were out on the 22' Pearson Ensign. Even though we want to get experience with other boats, for our first unsupervised outing it was good to have a boat that we had a little bit of familiarity with in terms of where everything was and all that.

I may get the chance to go out again on Friday with a friend who has a Pearson 28, so I'm looking forward to that opportunity. I'd still like to see if we can rent that 26' Pearson from Portland Yacht Services before the season is over, just to see another boat, but they haven't been terribly responsive. Just have to keep trying, I guess.


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## jongleur

Excellent report! That's what this
forum is about. Great to hear about
your wonderful day!
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So sorry you got hit and sank.


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## Justa

Sounds like you will soon out grow your handle Landwalker!

By all accounts you had a fantastic day on the water with your wife and friends.

I'm no racer so, to me, you had the perfect day!

I am Jealous in the extreme!

I am sure Friday, if you get to go out, will be awesome also.

Thanks for the log report.


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## Donna_F

Landwalker said:


> ...Unfortunately we're about a 30-minute-each-way drive from the likely candidate marinas, so there's that mental block to overcome, ....


Thirty minutes is nothing. We're two hours away from our boat and we had a dock neighbor who drove to the Chesapeake each Thursday from Ohio.

I would LOVE to be 30 minutes away.

Welcome to sailing and best of luck.


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## Landwalker

Donna_F said:


> Thirty minutes is nothing. We're two hours away from our boat and we had a dock neighbor who drove to the Chesapeake each Thursday from Ohio.
> 
> I would LOVE to be 30 minutes away.
> 
> Welcome to sailing and best of luck.


My main issue isn't so much "I'm 30 minutes from the water," it's "I'm 30 minutes from finding out if I can even get out on the water or not." I'd take a two-hour drive to a boat I know I'll be able to get out on over a 30-minute drive to the _possibility_ of getting out.

Fortunately, I'm (slowly) chatting up people about it and trying to weasel my way into invites.


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## Donna_F

Landwalker said:


> ...
> 
> Fortunately, I'm (slowly) chatting up people about it and trying to weasel my way into invites.


Well, be very, very careful. We took a new-to-sailing Sailnetter out for a few hours of sailing last month and a few weeks later he bought a boat.


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## Landwalker

Donna_F said:


> Well, be very, very careful. We took a new-to-sailing Sailnetter out for a few hours of sailing last month and a few weeks later he bought a boat.


Unfortunately for me (and fortunately for our bank accounts), our household Minister of Finance (i.e. my wife) is pulling the purse strings tight on that one.

The rationale that we agreed on (to my chagrin, this was actually originally _my idea_) was that, given the ongoing costs of having a boat (between basic maintenance, docking/mooring/club fees, haul-out/winter storage/spring haul-in, etc.), it would be no more expensive for us to just rent a boat for a whole day, one day per weekend, for something like 20-25 weeks. Given that it isn't like we're missing an opportunity to build equity in a boat, the way one argues when it comes to renting vs. owning a home, it made sense for us to stick to renting until we had enough basic competence and primitive understanding to have an idea of how to start shopping for a boat.

So now we have to find rental opportunities and/or tag-a-long opportunities until we reach that point. I'm still crossing my fingers for "buy a boat next June."

The other part of the boat purchase timeline is that we (read: I) want us to take the ASA 103 basic coastal cruising course, but we (read: we) don't want to invest a ton of additional resources into "new material" lessons until we actually have a boat of our own to take the lessons on-the idea being to learn the new material on the boat where we'd actually use the material, and in the process learn any quirks about how that new material interacts with our particular boat.

The tl;dr version of this post is [Generic Internal Struggle of Pragmatism vs. Desire].


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## Donna_F

That all sounds very wise.


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## Justa

Landwalker said:


> I'm (slowly) chatting up people about it and trying to weasel my way into invites.


That's what I'm talking about Landwalker!

There are very few boat owners out there that do not jump at the chance to talk about their boat and, even fewer that don't want to go sailing sailing so,,,, make friends!

As for hours away from the boat, don't even get me started!


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## Landwalker

Weekend mini-update:

I was able to get out for a couple of hours on a Pearson 28 owned (and skippered) by a former coworker of mine. Unfortunately, my wife couldn't make it due to a prior commitment with her mother (by which I mean, pedicure day), so it was just the two of us... Fortunately, my friend is a pretty experienced sailor who's familiar with the area, because it was (by my standards) a very blustery day-15-20 knots plus gusts.

We started out with a reef in the mainsail and the foresail rolled out to only about 100% (my first experience with a roller-furler), but it didn't take long for us to wind that foresail in quite a bit. By the end of the sail (just a long, distorted loop around Clapboard Island), we had the foresail down to just a little triangle. Putting a second reef in the main might have been advisable just for comfort, but my friend broke her collarbone a couple of months ago and is not a large person to begin with, so her ability to manhandle anything on the boat was limited (and I had no prior experience with reefing at all, let alone reefing while underway).

Things I learned:


You can hear people say "Twice as much wind is four times as much power" all day, but until you're actually _in_ twice as much wind (which I was and then some, as all previous sailing had been in the 6-9 knots range), you don't _really_ appreciate what four times as much power feels like.

It's a good thing Lauren was familiar with the area, because 1) Clapboard island is surrounded by rocks and ledges, and 2) Turns out that my under-strength prescription sunglasses don't do a great job for me when it comes to spotting close-to-waterline ledges, day markers, and green buoys. I'll need to get that prescription updated, and maybe invest in some low-magnification binoculars to help me pick out markers in areas I'm not familiar with.

Lauren's Pearson 28 has two mainsheets and no traveler, which was new to me. It made me appreciate the single mainsheet setup on the Ensign a lot. Although we hadn't done much, traveler-wise, in our lessons on the Ensign, wrestling with both mainsheets in the conditions we were in was not a treat. Something to keep in mind on future boat-shopping adventures.

I wish I'd taken a picture of how Lauren tied up to the mooring buoy, because to my mooring-unfamiliar eyes it _looked_ ridiculous. Some of it made perfect sense to me, but some of it just seemed weird (specifically, using a separate, thin line to "fasten" the mooring lines to the bow cleat in what appeared to be a crazy convoluted fashion)-it might've been totally normal, but to the novice observer, all I was thinking was "It's a good thing one is probably never going to have to perform a fast, sudden de-mooring, because that'll take forever to undo..."


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## jwing

Wind power varies as a cube of wind velocity. Therefore, when the wind velocity doubles, the power increases by a factor of 8!

When the wind velocity increases by 30%, the power is more than doubled, and when the wind speed increases by 60%, the power is quadrupled.


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## Landwalker

jwing said:


> Wind power varies as a cube of wind velocity. Therefore, when the wind velocity doubles, the power increases by a factor of 8!
> 
> When the wind velocity increases by 30%, the power is more than doubled, and when the wind speed increases by 60%, the power is quadrupled.


Well, that certainly explains a lot! >_<

The last couple of weeks I was always seeing people saying things like reefing at 15 knots and taking down sails and so forth and couldn't help but think, "I know these people know what they're doing and I'm sure they have a good reason for it that's grounded in experience, but that seems kind of extreme, doesn't it?"

No. No it doesn't. Shut up, past me.


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## GMC

I was curious about your mooring line observation, above. It sounds like you are suggesting that she cleated the thinner pick up line and not the thicker pendant/pendent (that will have a loop). If she did that, that would be odd. As you probably know, the thinner pick up line is tied on one end to the pendent and the other end is tied to any type of light bouy (on one end of the spectrum, a plastic milk jug - on the other a nice lobster bouy type float with a wand sticking up). The idea with the thinner line, is that it is easier to catch with the boat hook and that it is easier to pull up thicker pendent with your hands than with a boat hook. Once the thicker pendent is aboard, its loop gets thrown over the center, beefier cleat. At that point, the thinner line and its bouy is aboard and it serves no purpose. You could cleat it. Some people throw it back overboard. I hang it from a lifeline hoping the bouy scares birds away. Anyway, that is the basic setup. Many harbors have their own systems that can be interestingly different. Cuttyhunk type mooring has no pendent and no light line. Westport, Ma, you bring the mooring bouy aboard. Anyway, the initial system I describe should allow you to get off your mooring quickly, by just taking loop off cleat and tossing the whole kit and caboodle overboard. Any other type system, should not take much more time than that.


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## Landwalker

Oh, another mini-update I almost let slip past:

I met up with Jeff (username reduc) late last week after the weather allowed him to finally take the ferry over from Nova Scotia, and he was generous enough to show me around his Canadian Sailcraft CS36T while he spent a couple of days moored here in Portland. Some takeaways:


36 feet is a surprisingly large amount of boat. Heck, even 28 feet (from Lauren's Pearson, above) is a surprisingly large amount of boat. Boats are surprisingly large.

Being handy is very helpful. I'm not handy _yet_, so I definitely don't want to end up in a "I'm going to rewire the boat" situation right off the bat. Small projects? Perfect way to get started. Major projects? Maybe something best saved until I have some real experience under my belt.

Single-handing _looks_ like a pain in the butt, but it also looks like something that, once you can do it, would be very satisfying. This was also a mini-takeaway from my afternoon sail with my friend above, because neither her husband nor son is into sailing, so she spends a lot of time handling it herself. It's obvious that there's just a lot to deal with all at once, especially on a larger boat. It's also obvious that it's something that both Allie and I will need to practice, especially once we have our own boat-you never know when one of us will take an unscheduled, surprise swimming adventure, and that is definitely not the preferred time to get one's first experience with single-handing anything.

Jeff was very friendly and very patient with my general noobish ignorance, for which I am immensely grateful. He went over a ton of other stuff with me that I wish I could recount here, but it'll be some time yet before I'm even competent or knowledgeable enough to describe everything we talked about.

When putting into a port you're not familiar with, make sure you check Google Maps (or equivalent) to know where things are (especially relative to wherever you moor/anchor/dock). It's only about a mile from the dock to the nearest grocery store, but it's literally uphill both ways. I know if I were putting into port, that's something I'd want to know ahead of time.


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## GMC

One other thing that you may know by now, but if you are just doing day sailing for the forseeable future and you can solve bathroom access issues, I'd sail that Ensign all day long over any larger boat. If you are cruising and moving into overnight, that's another matter, but the Ensign is a great, great sailboat.


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## Landwalker

GMC said:


> I was curious about your mooring line observation, above. It sounds like you are suggesting that she cleated the thinner pick up line and not the thicker pendant/pendent (that will have a loop). If she did that, that would be odd. As you probably know, the thinner pick up line is tied on one end to the pendent and the other end is tied to any type of light bouy (on one end of the spectrum, a plastic milk jug - on the other a nice lobster bouy type float with a wand sticking up). The idea with the thinner line, is that it is easier to catch with the boat hook and that it is easier to pull up thicker pendent with your hands than with a boat hook. Once the thicker pendent is aboard, its loop gets thrown over the center, beefier cleat. At that point, the thinner line and its bouy is aboard and it serves no purpose. You could cleat it. Some people throw it back overboard. I hang it from a lifeline hoping the bouy scares birds away. Anyway, that is the basic setup. Many harbors have their own systems that can be interestingly different. Cuttyhunk type mooring has no pendent and no light line. Westport, Ma, you bring the mooring bouy aboard. Anyway, the initial system I describe should allow you to get off your mooring quickly, by just taking loop off cleat and tossing the whole kit and caboodle overboard. Any other type system, should not take much more time than that.


So, I'll try to describe this as best I can, which won't be very good. Also, it's dangerous to start any sailing-related sentence being spoken to me with "As you probably know." 

The pendant lines (thank you, I couldn't remember what they were called-my ASA 101 class didn't really cover mooring, just docking) _did_ go around the cleat. But they're very thick (especially relative to the cleat), so it looked like they might be too bulky to really get on there as cleanly as Lauren wanted them to be. So after hooking them over the cleat, she then used a thinner, free line (by which I mean, a line that wasn't attached to anything else, i.e. _not_ the pickup line) to basically tie down the pendant lines to the cleat so that they couldn't work themselves loose. Basically, the pendant lines were hooked over the cleat, and then tied to the cleat with a separate line in what my untrained eyes would have considered something akin to a rat's nest. I'll have to ask her about it the next time I'm on board and/or take a picture of it.

The pickup line and its attached lobster-trap-esque buoy were hauled on board, and the pickup line itself just got hitched around one of the stanchions.

After all of _that_ was done, she also tied _another line_ whose name I forget, but which was itself attached to the boat more center-wards (it might've been tied around the base of the mast), through one or possibly both of the loops on the pendant lines-not to affix them to the cleat any more than they already were, but to make sure they were still attached to _something_ on the boat (and vice versa) in the even that they wiggled off the cleat itself. That part, at least, made sense to me as a reasonable safety precaution.


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## Landwalker

GMC said:


> One other thing that you may know by now, but if you are just doing day sailing for the forseeable future and you can solve bathroom access issues, I'd sail that Ensign all day long over any larger boat. If you are cruising and moving into overnight, that's another matter, but the Ensign is a great, great sailboat.


Makeshift head space aside, I do really like the Ensign for day-sailing. I love the full keel, since I don't have to be as paranoid about lobster traps with that (Lauren was very concerned about lobster traps yesterday, and apparently has "hooked" a couple of them in the past, resulting in an emergency stop to disentangle). It's easy to handle (as far as I can tell, at least), it doesn't have a lot of hokey complicated arrangements or systems on it. It's just a very solid boat for beginner sailing, and I'd happily suggest it to anyone looking for a boat for such a purpose.


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## GMC

She knows her boat, and sounds like she doesn't trust that cleat (both in terms of its size to hold the loop and perhaps has concerns about the backing plate). Maybe that's her regular way or maybe she had some concern with Hermine rolling around. Interesting.


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## Landwalker

GMC said:


> She knows her boat, and sounds like she doesn't trust that cleat (both in terms of its size to hold the loop and perhaps has concerns about the backing plate). Maybe that's her regular way or maybe she had some concern with Hermine rolling around. Interesting.


Of that I have no doubt. I'm sure she had a good reason for all of it, and it's always useful for a novice to see a non-novice doing anything because it makes you think about _why_ that non-novice is doing something a particular way.

One more piece of boating-related news (man, I thought last week was a slow sailing week, but every time I look back at it I remember one more thing)-Allie's uncle (who lives down in... not-Maine. Connecticut, maybe?) is apparently interested in selling his O'Day 27. No idea what kind of condition it's in, but hey, a possible lead.


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## jwing

Landwalker said:


> ... I'm sure she had a good reason for all of it, and it's always useful for a novice to see a non-novice doing anything because it makes you think about _why_ that non-novice is doing something a particular way...


There are many ways to do things and many reasons for doing them the way that people do. However, just because somebody has more experience does not mean that they do things the best way, or even in a way that is not unassailably wrong. I've seen this many times in all areas in which I have knowledge. In fact, many incorrect ways have been passed from "expert" to novice, and eventually the novice is seen as an expert and the cycle repeats. That leads to people not knowing why they do things a certain way other than, "That's how I've always done it."

That is why novices should not rely on one source of knowledge, and should always be actively learning. With so much information and expertise available in books and online, there is no excuse to be ill-informed. Study several sources, then use experimentation and your judgment to apply what you've learned to your own situation.


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## Landwalker

It doesn't look like we'll be going sailing this weekend (unless I get a last-minute invite...), but on Wednesday I was able to get out again for some evening racing, and boy, what a difference from my first, windless outing!

Wind (per the results posted) was 10-20 kts NNW (as opposed to 0-5 kts while tacking _into the current_ in my first outing). As usual, the skipper was my sailing school instructor, and we were on the Pearson Ensign (along with the founder of the sailing school and another of the school's former and more experienced students). We were _flying_, and I got my first taste of real (well, real casual/beer can) sail racing-lots of wind, lots of heel, and lots of shouting (mostly on other boats-Capt. Kyle is a lot more even-keeled in his command, pun intended). And since the course was mostly at the mouth of the Portland harbor, a good bit of chop as well due to wake being kicked up by ferries running in and out nearby.

It still blows my mind how close together the boats sail during the race. It seems like skippers have to be as attentive about avoiding collisions sometimes as they do about their point of sail. At one point, there were three of us packed together pretty tightly, all on a port tack, with our boat (_Tremolino_ furthest to leeward (I think?). Kyle tacked quickly, and the other two boats seemed pretty caught off guard-the boat further up had to scramble to get out of our (now starboard-tack) way, and you could hear the chaos on their decks as we flew just behind their stern (the guys in the boat slightly further back were easily able to avoid everything and appeared to find the whole situation hilarious-as did Kyle).

As sail races (seem to) go, it was a photo finish after everything was adjusted for time. _Tremolino_ nevertheless squeaked out a wet and wild victory, edging a Ranger 23 by less than 2.2 seconds (they beat us on gross time by about 31 seconds, but we got 33 seconds of handicap on them). Third was taken by a C&C 35 Mk1, which I'm pretty sure was the boat we threw into a panic with our surprise tack (although that might've been the Catalina 30 that ended up in fourth-I'm not able to visually differentiate between boat builds the way experienced sailors can).

The whole race was over in less than 20 minutes, which was a far cry from the 100-some-odd minutes we spent languishing in the current two weeks previously before retiring without having even reached the turn.

All in all, a fantastic time. I don't know that I'd ever run my own boat in a race (I'm not that competitive), but crewing is an absolute blast.


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## jongleur

Great recap.


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