She finally made it back into the water on Friday! The boys at the marina picked her up unceremoniously and plunked her down on the pier and that was that- she bobbed along, new painter and stern lines tied up and ready to go. That morning i had bought a small suzuki outboard and had hoisted it into the cockpit, so i figured it would be a good start to mount and test that. Not much to it, the usual procedures and it fired right up. Nothing for it then but to hoist the sails and get a couple pictures since i'd never flown the original main and genoa before. The breeze was fresh but seemed mild so i ran up to the van and got Andy, then shoved off straight away, sails full and pulling hard.
Immediately out of the harbor i realized that a few things were different: first, i was singlehanding for the first time, second, i had never handled a jib that size before, third, Andy was worse than useless as a deckhand, and last but not at all least, there was way more wind than i could handle. I luffed both sails but she still heeled hard over, and the flapping was not helping me think clearly. Finally i decided i had to drop the jib entirely in order to regain control so i pulled up into irons and released the halyard, but the wind was so strong that the jib was pinned to the windward spreader and wouldn't allow me to pull up again into irons. The jib sheets were free of their blocks and were thrashing around so hard that they immediately tied themselves into a big flying knot, the jib was tearing out at the seams where it was snagged on the spreader, the winches were underwater half the time and Andy was scrabbling away from the water for dear life.
At that point i backwinded the main and finally swung into irons, yanked the jib down and managed to unclip it from the stay and get it stashed in the cockpit, and the world was calm and quiet again.
Andy stuck his head out from under the benches and decided he was safest looking out from between my knees, which actually seemed to give us both some comfort.
The wind was gusting hard but she handled nicely with the main alone, so i pressed on westward out of the bay and toward New York Harbor. Past Breezy Point the swells were rolling in heavily and i realized that hurricane Bill was not far off the east coast, but she handled wonderfully and gave me complete confidence to press on, so i fell off a little, toward Coney Island, and it was a fantastic ride, riding the swells on a beam reach and listening to the sound of the breakers on the shoals falling away behind.
Riding those waves for a while i saw the horizon darken over Sandy Hook, and since the forecast called for severe thunderstorms i thought it prudent to not be too far from home, so i came about and beat up to the beach at Rockaway, and sailed along the beach, checking out the boats at anchor, waving to the swimmers and fishermen all along. Andy held his head abovedecks and watched the beaches roll by, happy and content as i was. We got to the Gil Hodges bridge and when i fell off across the bay to the marina and i realized that the wind had picked up while i was cruising the beaches and i was flying with the boom on a full run, spray flying off the wavetops. Unfortunately the entrance to the marina is shoal, with a sandspit that you have to sail around and beat back up a narrow channel, and i wasn't sure that the motor could overcome what was quickly approaching a very fresh breeze, so i decided to sail down and around, beat back up past the marina so i wouldn't get blown onto the piers and drop the main just outside the breakwater. I had to tack a couple times within the hundred feet between the pier and the sandspit, and even with the main luffing hard, the turnbuckles were still underwater at each tack, Andy was nowhere to be seen and i was wondering how i get myself into these situations. Fortunately i pulled it off, came around hard into the wind and dropped the main, boom and all, into the cockpit. I knew it was a special entrance when i realized that an old-timer on the pier watched the whole thing and gave a hearty wave when i rounded safely in out of the blow and the whitecaps. Dropped the motor and it fired right up. Steering the motor with my hand and the tiller with my feet, i pulled into my slip pretty as you please and got everything lashed tight and stowed. About then the storm blew onto us so i crawled into the cabin, Andy came in and curled up on the sailbags, and we slept like champs while the halyards chimed around and the thunder banged overhead. All in all another fantastic day of sailing, one of the funnest and most exciting i can remember since the day that Steve and I flew into Friday Harbor, flying ahead of a storm in the San Juans. I'll attach a video i took out by Breezy Point and although it's hard to see the situation, it conveys the feeling. On the right you can see Coney Island to the north, the disk shaped tower is at the rides on the boardwalk. From there you can turn north into the New York harbor, under the Verazanno Narrows Bridge and up to the Statue of Liberty, then up the Hudson or the East river around Manhattan. That's where i want to go on my next trip.
