My O’Day 22 Sailboat Blog

My friend Mike’s birthday is today the 15th so I wanted to give him a little shout out to wish him a happy birthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIKE!

Last weekend he came into town from Orange County, CA to hang out with us and a do a little sailing. Our buddies Sal and Rodigo also came along for an afternoon sail. If you re familar with sailboats in the 22 ft range, 4 people is manageable but a little crowded. Even though these 3 guys are pretty average in stature, their individual personalities are large than life. Especially when they are all together in a little sailboat cockpit.

I had the boat slipped Friday night knowing that the boys were coming into town. It’s usually nice to be able to walk up to a slip and just sail away when people are coming from out of town. Also a little less hassle for me to not have to show people how to get the boat on and off the trailer. We brought along some refreshments along and motored out of the slip as usual on a sunny Saturday afternoon. It was a beautiful day and the winds have picked up just a bit so I decided to use the smaller jib again just like last weekend. Mike had gone out with me once and he is a licensed single engine flight instructor so he is fairly knowledgeable about navigation, turbulence, lift and all those things that sailboats are similar to an airplane. Sal and Rodrigo on the other hand are newbies at this activity. I decided that we just take it easy and more or less run the show myself as they come out just to enjoy a nice day.

It turned out to be a beautiful afternoon of sailing, As usual, we sailed out of the harbor and headed southwest on a starboard tack for awhile before tacking to the port tack headed for the pier. The winds are about 15 to 20 knots with just a little bit of visible whitecaps on the surface. This made the surface a little bit lumpy but its pretty much business as usual. I am feeling pretty comfortable with the boat in these conditions by now. There are just some periodical splashes of water over the bow to make things a little bit exciting.

Here is Mike the birthday boy wearing his Gilligan hat.

Enjoying a nice afternoon sail. BTW, don’t drink and boat. I’m just holding the beer for Rodrigo while he takes the photo.

We sailed to the pier and just had some great conversations to catch up with each other’s lives. Sal’s wife is also pregnant like Marlene. She is due about just a month before ours. It was a blast hanging out and trading some experiences of being a soon-to-bem first-time father. Rodrigo and Mike are both bachelors and they are usually a handful together during a night out into town. This weekend proved to be no exception. But that’s really not an appropriate topic for a sailing blog

The winds picked up a bit on our way back and we sailed back into the harbor on a dead run pretty much doing hull speed. It proved that 4 people in this boat is a little crowded but fairly manageable. The main problem is the tiller during tacking and gybing as the person sitting opposite of the helmsman is usually in the way. Especially when most people onboard do not have a lot of sailing experience and tend to get in the way of some manuevers. Sal had to learn after a few mistakes about the concept behind steering with a tiller as opposed to a wheel. There were just a couple of accidental gybes after we dropped the jib having returned safely to the inside of the harbor.

I kept the boat in the slip for a total of 3 nights at 17 bucks a night. It really is much more convenient and I miss the days when I kept my Cal 25 in a slip. I used to just take tha boat out whenever I had a couple of free hours. It is also nice to not have the associated expenses of a wet slip. I am getting pretty good at launching and retrieve the boat using my homemade trailer extension just by myself. Maybe soon I will upgrade to a bigger boat and have the luxury of slipping it in a marina. Not likely but one can hope.