Had a Saturday clear on the schedule to go get the new boat wet on the local lake (Jordan Lake, NC). It was a little cold but I was eager to get it on the water as you can imagine. All-in-all it was a nice day to put the sails up and find a little sheltered cove to drop anchor for lunch. The day was not without mishap and heartbreak, however.



I wanted to maximize our time on the water since we were going through the pain of rigging and trailering just for the day, but we got to the lake a little later than I had hoped. I didn't want to show up as early as sunrise because it was so cold, I was hoping for about 9, which ended up being about 10:30 since the boat ramp we usually go to was closed for the season.







I started rigging everything up as I have done a few times in my yard since I got it home, trying to take my time and even take a few short breaks to sit back and make sure I was doing it all right. This all went fine intially, and then I had a huge scare and my heart dropped when, after raising the mast the first inch off of the aft stand, it swung uncontrollably to starboard and made it as far as the end of the stern pulpit before my wife caught it and lifted it back onto the stand. I had left the baby stays just lying on top of the cabin... talk about being angry at myself, wow, all I could think about was how bad that could have gone and how could I have forgotten the stays... More on this later. I took a breath and moved on, put the baby stays on and then noticed that the gin pole mount had gotten a bit wobbly after that incident so I put another line from the top of the gin pole down to the hand rail to help keep the gin pole itself centered. On the way up this time, lets say with the mast about 5 feet up off the stand, I look down and see the entire threaded hole base for the baby stay on the port side coming right up out of the boat! In a mad panic I ran to push on the starboard side to relieve the tension on it and let the mast back down slowly and carefully. No picture of it ripping out obviously, but here is the aftermath:











You can see where someone previously had tried to repair the two forward screw holes, but I imagine they didn't try very hard. You can't really tell in the picture but the base got a decent bend in it as well from the 2 aft screws still holding solid. I was pretty pissed at this point, I might have slammed a door or two and yelled a 4 letter word a few times. I just sat and stared at it with my wife for a good 20 minutes, pretty defeated at the fact that I was going to have to pack it all up and go home after all this. After all the sitting and staring we decided to accept some risk and ran a long line to the ground on the port side for her to hold the mast from putting any tension on the port side baby stay and very slowly and carefully got it raised up. Whew... Pretty uneventful launching after that point, and with that whole incident behind us we focused on what we came out for in the first place...





Aint she pretty? (the boat too)



The 2GM20F with it's 175hrs fired right up and we were off. We headed off to the other end of the lake to check out what looked like a nice secluded anchorage on the chart, just motoring. I was eager to try out the autopilot (ST4000+) and uhh... I think it needs a little tuning, it seemed to hold course pretty well as long as there wasn't much to do, but then eventually it would wander 30+ degrees off course, turn hard over and never recover. I'm sure there are some settings that would remedy this. We made it to the anchorage and I started checking things out. When dropping the anchor the rode got caught on what I found to be an excessively long bolt in the anchor locker that bolts down, I'm assuming, the windlass itself. Add it to the list of things to work out. I let out a ton of rode, not really knowing how much as I hadn't marked or measured it, but we didn't drag or anything even though the wind kept shifting and swinging us around. Cold and gloomy day though it was, we enjoyed a bit of hanging out at anchor for some lunch.









Cold, but happy





With the miserable weather, we would have killed for some hot food or hot coffee, we settled for cold beer. I think a stove for the galley is in order.



After a bit we pulled up anchor, looked at the clock, and decided a couple hours with the sails up was in order. I was a little nervous to hoist the main and unfurl the genoa with the wind as strong as it was (like 9kts gusting 15), but with my wife at the helm motoring into wind it was easy as could be, no dramas.



After killing the motor the serenity of being under sail alone was simply magical, I looked at my wife and I could tell she had the same thought, both of us grinning ear-to-ear.





Speed transducer paddle not spinning I think. I pulled out the GPS on my phone and we were doing about 4-4.5kts pointing high. Better than I thought we would do.









I think we were reaching a little more here.



At this point, watching the sun get low and seeing nobody else on the lake we really had to talk ourselves out of just staying out there all night, even us unprepared for that as we were. We set course for the boat ramp and scooted along with next to 0 wind on the beam and putted along at about 2kts, happy to be going slow because it would mean more time out there.







Made it to the boat ramp crowded with fishing boats, learned about prop walk first-hand, and got a little wet trying to get the boat hooked up on the trailer. We knew it was probably going to get dark on us fast, but we also had a precarious situation to deal with lowering the mast. I chose a spot in the parking lot that should have put us balanced or if not then at least with starboard slightly uphill to help keep weight off of that port-side baby stay. I very carefully and nervously lowered the mast without issue with the sun still up, then relaxed - hard part over. Now, think back to the baby stays not being hooked up incident from earlier... I go to pull the pin from the mast step and find that one of the tabs from the cast aluminum step and the mast base are both broken. I can't say for sure if it was broken from the start or if it finally gave way when lowering it, but I can't believe the little bit from the mast base would have hung around all day, but it could have been trapped until the mast came down (I do have the little piece, just not pictured).



(Pictures are from the next day in my yard)















Over the next half hour I went from disbelief, to anger, to realizing it was my own fault, to being thankful that it didn't give up completely and fall and hurt someone. Knowing the boat was out of commission until I figured out a fix for not only the baby stay base but also now my shattered mast step had me fairly devastated as my wife can attest to. I frustratedly threw together the rest of the trailer rigging, drove home, parked in the yard and left it until the next day.



So that's the story. Mistakes were made lol, but in the end it really was a beautiful day for a first sail on the new boat. Now I've got to see what I can do about acquiring and installing some replacement pieces. I think I've got a decent idea for re-enforcing and fixing the baby stay base. I'm about to email Seaward and Sparcraft, the mast OEM, with my fingers crossed.



Thanks for reading! Suggestions and feedback welcome and appreciated.