Boaty McBoatface

So here it is, scrottie's sailboat, the "Free Spirit":



It is moored in Discovery Bay. If you look that up on a Google Map, you'll see that it's one of those neighborhoods built up as a series of jetties so that a whole bunch of wealthy people with enormous houses all have places to keep their yachts:



If you want, you can even buy one of the housesmansions that's for sale:



It comes with its own dolphin sculpture.

To some extent, I suspect that scrottie wanted to acquire Boaty McBoatface when he learned that it had a non-functional small engine, because he loves to work on small engines:



The current issue is that fuel isn't traveling along the fuel line, even after replacing the fuel filter. There are about eleventy-twelve different hypotheses he needs to test to get that sorted out.

So we took it out for a brief sail anyway.

We made it almost the whole way out to the tiny lighthouse below. Never mind that we were sort of trying to sail upwind in the opposite direction.



Just as we were getting the hang of how to tack back and forth across the narrow channel to work our way back towards the dock, the wind died completely.

I'd been nervous about getting stranded, but learned that it was possible to slowly but surely propel the boat forward by "sculling" the rudder back and forth.

Rowing is way more efficient.

But we did manage to make it back to the dock well before nightfall.

The guy who owns the house where the boat is moored snapped a photo as we made it back to the dock:



Another set of neighbors took our picture as we were heading out. There aren't many sailboats moored in that little harbor.

Reflecting on the experience, I am looking forward to getting to take her out again, but hopefully on a day where there's actually enough wind to go somewhere. It would be really helpful to have a functional motor so we can maneuver out beyond the congested part of the channel and explore more interesting areas. It was useful to be out on a quiet day, though, for the sake of learning my way around the rigging. I haven't sailed since that one summer camp trip in high school, and different types of boats have different sorts of rigging.

Meanwhile, I'm just about ready to get back to a more regular rowing/erging schedule. Being sick and then running circadian trials at odd hours have made it difficult to get out to the BAP, and now the Holiday Challenge is about to start. I'm going to try and mix things up and erg at the boathouse when I can.