CANADA DAY SAIL

Well we made it out to do our first real sail today to celebrate Canada Day.  A few minor blips along the way, like we have no way to get shore power to power the bilge so we had to manually bail.  Not a huge deal though.  We did find out that we seem to have an obscure plug on the boat.  Apparently our plug into which we are supposed to put a pigtail which will convert the shore power to our boat power is comprised of two 12.5 sockets.  By all accounts no-one has ever seen this before and the recommendation is to replace said plug with a new one at a cost of $80 or more and then get a new pigtail to connect to shore power at another cost of $50 or so.  “Boat” keeps going through my mind at this point.  So I am now on the hunt for whatever the above is at hopefully a better price.  Don however tells us that we may be able to re-rig the furler piece that is at the front of the boat.  It appears that at some point someone did attach a furler but then took it off and left half of the mechanism, Don things we may be able to fabricate something to use for that which would be handy instead of rigging the jib everytime we want to go sailing.

So we did get out onto the Lake, the winds were good travelling around 10 knots but coming out of the North West which is apparently unusual for Lake Erie.  It was a fantastic first sail though, blissfully peaceful and pretty easy going.  The winds did whip up later in the day which make tacking and jibing incredibly difficult and strenuous so we did give it a good try and then ended up motoring back to the harbour.  We were pretty pleased with ourselves though we had enough gas to make it back and we had at least attempted the hardest part, although we did get pretty far out there lol……looking forward to the weekend with two solid days of good weather to go again.

Day Four

Well the first sailing weekend is over, not that we can say we actually managed to sail but we got close. We spent most of the day Friday (Day One) moving the boat down to Port Stanley. Saturday we spent cleaning the boat and getting the mast set up. We attached the boom and attempted to attach the mainsail. Turns out we had the boom upside down (who knew it has a right side) which of course we didn’t know, actually nor did several other sailors at the dock. Don came to our rescue though, he may have been wickedly hungover from the previous evenings celebration and had a hard time looking up but he sized up the situation immediately and quickly helped us to right the boom and get the mast attached. We don’t have a boom vang but at least now we know what one is. So the mainsail went up and Don kindly lent Alan (hubby) his kit for adjusting the tension on the cables that hold the mast in place. By the time we finished up with the cleaning and getting that set up it was getting late and we were exhausted so we headed back to town. On Sunday we got up early and headed out again, the plan today was to actually go sailing. I checked the weather on the government website but it seems that strong winds were expected and warnings were posted for Lake Erie…bloody figures eh? So we went up anyways knowing we had some more cleaning to do and getting the last of the mast supports tensioned correctly. We even managed to get the jib up and I was so awestruck I forgot to take bloody pictures, next weekend for sure. It is a pretty jib as well green and white the rest of the folks on the dock were saying how beautiful the sail was they all seemed mighty impressed with it. Mind you so were we. Anita and Sally had come on board to help with the cleaning – to be truthful we didn’t do to much that day just sat around a lot and admired the boat. We did learn a few things though. Did you know that boat is also an acronym…..bring out another thousand…ain’t that the truth. We have ended up spending another 72 bucks for flares, 50 for pfd’s, 30 for miscellaneous stuff like heaving ropes, whistles, first aid kit, flashlights and all the necessary accoutrement of boating. I really want a bimini but apparently a thousand for that so it will wait. I have to make new seat cushion covers because the old ones are perishing. We need a new head the old one is disgusting looking (it’s really just old) but Jamie told us he had a new one for the boat somewhere we will just have to make arrangements to go down and get it. Not that I can figure out how to get my slightly (cough cough) wider than average butt in that teeny tiny little space anyhow….! We couldn’t get the boat plugged into the mains power with the adaptor thingy bob we just couldn’t get it to fit so we have to see about getting another one of those. One of the guys at the dock helped us figure out where to put the battery but we had to drill holes in the attachment of the ground since the end had snapped off. So far so good all is going according to plan. We can’t say enough good things about all the guys at the marina though talk about helpful they do go way above and beyond. A pretty rowdy bunch by the sounds of it, Andy the “stinkboat” owner got so drunk he lost a cooler and more importantly the case of beer that was in it. Shame we missed that party. There are a few live aboards for the summer in our marina which is kinda of cool. Evelyn in particular loved the name of the boat which we are planning on keeping.

We did get the jib set up and ready to go but we were hearing all kinds of rumours about the weather and dark clouds were really moving in fast with some rain. We did hope to get a chance before the storm hit to attempt to make it down the creek to the bridge. Apparently the bridge at Port Stanley opens every half hour exactly so you need to catch it or you have to wait for the next attempt. We did motor down to the bridge but unfortunately just missed it, but we had heard that the coastguard was warning about storms moving it so it was probably just as well. It was a blast going down the creek though. Boat handled really well and though it was a bit tricky manouvering it back into the slip the crew at the marina were all on hand to give us an assist. Man do we owe those folks a beer. So looking forward to July 1st and doing some real sailing. Will keep you posted.

Day One

Well the boat has arrived at Port Stanley and is in the water as we speak.  Hubby has spent from 9am until 7pm getting it moved up from Sarnia Yacht Club to its new home, and then getting it in the water and the mast raised.  From Sarnia, Heritage Marine moved the boat up the highway for us, at a total cost of $480 which we thought was a fantastic price.  According to hubby they did an amazing job, the guy was thorough and really took his time getting the boat tied down and secure.  Once it reached Dave’s marina which is on the opposite side of the creek from the Kanagio Yacht Club, Dave and his crew got it in the water and helped to put the mast up.  The slip we are in is a little tight as Grampian’s tend to be sort of a fattish or wide boat, so Dave is going to move us down a little for more room.

The boat is a 26 foot Grampian, built in 1974, apparently a good year according to Anita our co-owner.  It is called Hers and will remain so we think cause us girls like the name and hubby is quite content with it as well.  Actually I think hubby is in love with the boat so we may have to keep an eye on that.  We have of course spent the last few days buying all the stuff you need for the safety rules along with getting our Boat Operator’s cards so we can at least pretend we know what we are doing.

Jamie and Lorrie who we bought the boat from did apparently shed a tear.  Jamie’s boat is not back yet and he was using Hers for racing down at the club so we hope he gets his back soon.  They were incredibly helpful and have promised to stay in touch.  Jamie is doing us a list of all the things he wanted to do with the boat, little projects, sprucing up ideas and his knowledge of sailing is pretty damned impressive since he has been sailing since he was a little kid.

We also have to register the boat once I get the numbers on the Grampian owners forum.  Pretty cool idea to track down all the Grampians still sailing and it seems like a really good place for information.  Tomorrow we will attempt to sail for the first time and I promise to take my camera to get some pics – I am sort of kicking myself that I didn’t take pics before now but I will add some of the boat that were on the kijiji advertisement which is where we first saw our new family member.