| You don’t realize after more than 20 years of sailing how jaded you can become. I don’t even read Sail or Cruising World any longer. The articles have become repetitious and boring. Either I’ve been there, done that, or I don’t want to go there or do that.
That’s why it’s been so refreshing to be exposed once again to the excitement and awe that every new sailor undergoes. Our friends George and Linda O’Malley—they’ve never sailed before—have just bought a new catamaran, a Gemini 105mc, a 34-foot catamaran. They’ve invited Jane and me to share in the shakedown cruise, bringing the boat from its current berth over in Bradenton, on Florida’s West Coast, back to their home base here in Vero Beach. For the first time in a long time, I’m excited about a sailing trip, modest though it may be.
George is a retired corporate executive and Linda is a graphic designer and an artist in the real sense of the word—she paints spectacular pictures and teaches classes at the local art museum. They’ve been looking for something to do together. George has his pilot’s license, but it’s become pretty clear that as much as George enjoys flying, Linda hates it. So they’ve made what I think is the perfect transition. Sailing is a lot like flying, only slower and safer, so George will stay occupied with navigation, sail trim, and all the other little things that occupy a sailor’s time. Linda is eager to learn, but also looking forward to downtime on the water with George.
They’ve already made smart decisions, which is a good indicator. They chose a Goldilocks boat, neither too big nor too small, but just right. The Gemini is easily handled by one or two people, has the room to accommodate guests comfortably, can go in amazingly shallow water and, perhaps most importantly, is a catamaran and thus doesn’t heel like a keelboat. In my experience, heeling is the worst problem for people getting into sailing. It just feels weird to be moving around something that is tilted 20 degrees from horizontal.
Here’s another good sign. With the Gemini’s mast height of 41 feet, George and Linda could have elected to bring her home to Vero via the Okeechobee Waterway, which would cut off several hundred miles versus going around the southern tip of the peninsula. The downside is that 90% of the trip through the waterway would be under power with little chance to actually sail. No thanks, they said. They want to experience their new boat and learn as much as they can right from the start. As a result, George has plotted a course that takes us down to Key West, up Hawk Channel and to Fort Pierce Inlet. And to prepare for that shakedown cruise, he and Linda have hired a trainer to come aboard their boat to teach them the rudiments of sail handling and boat handling for three days before we depart. The first two days of the actual delivery will be spent hopping from one marina to another, but George has also planned an overnighter to Key West to get some experience sailing when things don’t look quite the same.
Linda is, quite naturally, a little nervous about all this. And that nervousness is compounded by reading all she can about sailing and about catamarans. She’s heard the dire warnings that cats, once they turn over, don’t come back upright. That’s true, but they also don’t turn over unless they’re in spectacularly dangerous conditions, which I know George will avoid assiduously. I’m confident that at the end of the seven to ten days it will take us to make the trip from Bradenton to Vero Beach, Linda will gain immense amounts of confidence and will know better what to worry about (be sure the propane is off when you finish cooking) and what not to (capsizing in 30-foot seas).
As any sailor knows, of course, there’s a downside to sailing: expenses and complexity. And George and Linda are learning all about that, too. Although the boat they’ve bought was used, it was used only lightly. They will want to upgrade flare kits, buy the requisite Coast Guard placards, maybe add another anchor and rode, get some good foul-weather gear and replace the inadequate little Walker dinghy with an inflatable and outboard. George is going to learn the joys of changing fuel filters and engine oil and doubtless will master the impenetrable instructions in the various manuals for his radar, GPS, chart plotter and autopilot. Some things they’ll learn the hard way: be sure the anchor really is set and that you have adequate swinging room, reef the sails as soon as the thought crosses your mind, and approach the dock with enough speed, but not too much. Other things will come much easier: sitting out under the stars with a cool drink and snorkeling around some of the Keys’ beautiful reefs, for example. But it’s all just a form of learning and if there’s anything George and Linda are good at, it’s learning about new things. |
