Exciting day today!  We decided that it was time to finally take this boat out for a sail! The wind was fairly light so we got to work securing everything that could fall off the shelves, arranging the lines on deck, etc.  We eventually motored out of the marina and into the open water of the St. Johns River! I didn’t take many pictures because we were messing around with the lines trying to get the sails pulled out and messed with, etc.

We started by motoring around and setting up the autopilot, which is networked to the rest of the navigation system and powered by a large hydraulic ram that’s attached to the steering shaft below. It goes through an automated setup where it turns the boat left and right to figure out how quickly it responds to the input so it can use that data for later.  No effort required on our end other than just sitting there watching it do something!

Eventually, after some struggle, we got the main pulled most of the way out.  That was really the only snag in today’s activities… the main gets jammed in the mast when furling and unfurling.  We will have to call the company on monday and see if they have any advice.  The furling inside the mast is really nice in that you can reduce sail area as much as you want and it stores it all nicely away out of the sun (which damages sails!), but if it gets jammed and you can’t put the sail away that can turn into a dangerous situation! 😮

We also unrolled the little staysail.  It’s tiny and easy to manage so we didn’t have any issues at all with it! I was too nervous about the main doing weird stuff to want to roll out the big front sail genoa.  Maybe next time!

I even took a (very sad and boring) VIDEO!

You may be wondering.. hey, what about your cats? Well… they didn’t get the choice so they went on a boat ride as well! Duster didn’t really seem to notice or care that his home was off kilter and bouncing around.  Dart, however, was very much less than impressed by the entire experience.  He slid across the floor in the kitchen with all claws deployed.  I’ve never seen an animal look more angry with life as Dart sitting on the sofa glaring about his current situation. Poor buddy! However at the end of the sail they were both lounging on the sofa ignoring everything.  I think after a week or so they’ll not even notice the boat anymore!

So now that I’ve actually used our fancy new sailboat, what do I think about it?

It’s really really nice.  The wind picked up to 15+ knots and there were small whitecap waves in the river, but the boat didn’t even notice.  She’s a big, heavy girl, which makes her hard to maneuver at the dock but out in the water it takes a lot to upset her. I think she’ll be really comfortable in the water!  The diesel is also super quiet.  It’s a smaller engine, but I also went through and replaced all the sound dampening in the engine compartment.  You can easily talk over it when down below and if you’re up on deck you can’t even hear it!  Fantastic! One of my biggest pet peeves is listening to loud, obnoxious engines so I’m glad ours is quiet!