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Sail Your Boat When You Want To Sail
Not just when you have time to get the boat ready
Imagine This:
You have just a short weekend to sail.
You drive to your boat
You board your boat
It is ready to sail
Food, Drinks, Fuel, Batteries, Sails, Propane Engine Check
It even smells nice not all musty.
We cover from Milford to New London CT
You want to sail but do not want to do all the work. We make sure your boat is ready to sail any time of day or night 24 x 7. Over 20 years of experience with sailboats and managing skilled workers.
Enjoy Sailing
Skip The Work
Scenarios
Your going to be out of town for two weeks but you want to go sailing the day you get back for the weekend. And worst of all it is the first sail of the year, the yard just put your boat in the water. We check and test everything right down to stocking the refrigerator and programming waypoints on the new GPS. All you have to do is step on the boat and go.
The yard is going to AllGrip your deck you are about to loose your slot with the yard painter because the mechanics are too busy. We find someone to remove the hardware so you get your slot.
You get back late from a weekend sail and have to immediately leave to make it back in time for work. We will clean up the boat that Monday and make everything ship shape.
You come back from a nice sail but notice a couple of things that broke or were lost during your trip. We replace them before your next sail.
You want to go on an extended cruse but need crew. We will do the interviewing for you. You just approve with a final meet and greet.
You don’t trust the yard to do some work but are not quite up to doing the job yourself. We will work with you, side by side, so you have an extra hand but still know the job is done right.
Enjoy Sailing
Skip The Work
So we were comming into the dock and!!!
We we had sailed all night and mid morning we were anticipating breakfast and a shower at the yacht club at City Island. “Hugh” is as at the helm I’m on the deck ready to secure the boat to the dock. The dock we were aiming for is several hundred feet long. At the very end closest to us was a yacht and at the other end was a beautiful expensive looking power boat with probably a couple hundred feet between them. Piece of cake. All we have to do is miss the first boat come along the dock and stop any place. We come in a little faster than I would like, I’m calling out to reduce speed but we have lots of room I’m not worried. I step off the boat onto the dock holding the bow line. There are cleats every 15 feet or so but I’m walking a brisk pace to keep up with the boat. I don’t want to cleat off the bow as that would cause the bow crash into the dock we were going a bit too fast for that. I’m calling for reverse now. The boat is not slowing so I call for more power in reverse. The boat speeds up, I’m now jogging and that beautiful powerboat is only about three boat lengths away. I shout something like “Are you sure you are in reverse”. “Hugh” shouts something like “I think so”.
So I have four choices.
Run for cover while “Hugh’s” boat hits the powerboat.
Cleat of the line and rip off the bow cleat or the dock cleat or worse.
Try to get “Hugh” to kill the engine fast enough to do any good. (I really didn’t have enough time to cocommunicate that and let the boat slow down enough to matter)
I pick choice three and push the bow out as hard as I can and hop on the boat as we just miss the power boat and do 180 degree turn. We head out for the outer harbor and some open space because we seem to have a runaway engine.
Once in deep water we shut off the engine and I look around.
Did you guess what the problem was? The linkage between the transmission gear shift in the cockpit and the shift lever on the transmission fell apart.
I was able to pin it together with a vicegrips until we docked.
Lesson: Check the transmission everytime you start the engine.
Always have a vicegrips in the toolbox.
Excuses to not go sailing
- There is no wind
- There is too much wind
- Rain
- It is too hot
- It is too cold
- It’s too late
And there are many more excuses.
Let me tell you a story. This afternoon I had planned on going sailing. Before leaving I checked the weather forecast. NOAA called for 5 to 7 knots. I checked my special tree, the one that moves in the slightest breeze, nothing. It was planned, I had a friend at the dock ready to go. We went and the wind was perfect. Perfect tide, perfect wind from the perfect direction.
It would have been really easy to skip it as there still was no wind at the dock the whole time.
Over 30 years ago I worked as a union carpenter. I learned a valuable lesson about life from the job foreman on my first job. No matter what the weather we were to get in full dress including tool belt, helmet, Carharts and boots and meet at the work trailer at 8AM. At that time the boss would make the call. Sometimes we waited at the trailer for a half hour and be sent home. Most of the time however it would clear enough for us to work most of the day. If we individually tried to make the call from our bed at 7AM we would probably never have finished the building we were working on.
I find that I go out more if I just go and have a backup plan.
- For example if I’m afraid of light wind that is a good time to calibrate the compass or check the anchor.
- If I’m afraid of heavy wind I reef at the dock and give it go. I’ll come back in if it’s too bumpy I’m not crazy but sometimes its not as bad as it looks.
- Too hot is seldom a a real problem, it’s always cooler on the water.
- Too cold is never a problem. We went out January 1st and had a great time. You can always dress warmer and come in earlier.
Make sure you invite others. You will go sailing to not dissapoint your guests.
It’s a blessing to have a boat so you might as well use it.