Sailboats Fair and Fine: read oldest posts first

Wolftrap Drawings showing both rigs. Top picture is Schooner Wolftrap Sailing

Well we hung around about six weeks and I was offered work and took some of it. A little income makes all the difference. We visited friends and family and in general had a good time. I did some work on the boat that we had planed to do in Fort Lauderdale. I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing though I felt sorry for my wife. All this time Georgene was feeling down. She had a broken arm we had sold our nearly new home and moved on a boat that she couldn't stand up in and September was steady moving on. We were starting to have chilly nights and we couldn't drink the marina water.

About that time my new video camera broke down and we had to send it to Canon to have it fixed. I tried to talk them into lending me one until mine was fixed and they didn't show any interest. I told them what we were doing and offered to buy another one at a price reduced enough that I could sell it and not get hurt to bad. Again they weren't interested. It would be six to eight weeks before we could expect to get it back.

We went back to see Georgene's doctor and they thought we should wait three months while she took therapy. We decided to go in two weeks. They wanted her to sign a release and told us she would never get full use of her arm without professional help with the therapy. She still had some time to wear a sling so we had time to think about it.

This time there were no offers to throw a party . I guess friends and relatives were sick of us and wanted us to go on an get out of town.

The day before we were were to leave to go up the bay we were feeling a little nervouse about one of us breaking something so we didn't do any thing even remotely dangerous.

We moved Wolftrap out to the face dock at the end of the pier. I don't think we slept much that night. We probably would have been as well off sailing up the bay all night. Some time late we went to sleep and it got pretty cool the temperature dropped to the mid thirties and a pretty good layer of fog moved in. About four A.M. We were jolted awake. The work boats were on their way out and the first one rolled us against the dock. We had fenders out they are never exactly right somehow.

I jumped out of bed and said, “Common George lets get going.”
She raised up sleepily and said, “It's dark and we haven't had any coffee or breakfast,”
“Well we can get started and you can make breakfast under way,” I pleaded.
“No, I want my breakfast and I want to go wash up and brush my teeth,” she answered with a fair amount of firmness so thats what we did.
I stewed the whole time and didn't brush my teeth. Now you know that gets'em every time. I felt like I was even.
Finally the sky was getting light but the fog wasn't. There was a breeze holding against the dock but not strong. I went over a piling with a dock line and made it to my forward port cleat. Put the engine in forward and with just a little power she began pulling the stern out. The plow anchor mounted on the Bowsprit skidded across the top of the dock and I let go the dock line and pulled it to me I put her in reverse Wolftrap started backing away. I want to say right here that Wolftrap steered better than any sailboat I have ever owned. She had a balanced rudder with part of the rudder forward of the rudder post. With the engine running in reverse there was none of that thing of her backing to port. She went where you aimed her forward or reverse. I pushed the tiller to starboard and she backed to port and lined up with the channel. We headed out at about three knots through the fog. We could see from one buoy to the next so it was a piece of cake. We cleared the end of the channel and headed outto the channel of the York River. We were aiming for Buoy 22 which would be coming into view if the course I had laid into my Loran was correct. I hoisted the main and trimmed her and she started pulling right away next the forsail was hoisted and finally the jib and we killed the engine. Near silence ensued with only a gental swish, swish, of her bow gliding through small waves and then we could her the bell on buoy 22 . With a hot cup of coffee in the cold damp air and a feeling that God loves the world, we watched the sun sneak through the clearing fog.