Sunday, I helped Ken and Dottie bend the sails on Sea Spirit, their Cal 25. We took her out for a quick sail. Ken fired up the 8 HP Tohatsu outboard and we motored over to the swing bridge. We had missed the 14:15 bridge opening, so we waited for the next opening.
Once past the New Bedford Hurricane Barrier, we put up the main sail and unfurled the genoa. The wind was blowing about 20 knots, out of the southwest. As we were sailing, I noticed that Ken was having a fair bit of trouble with the genoa sheets, since the lines didn’t seem to lead fair from the fairleads. He was constantly getting overriding turns on the winch.
As Ken had inherited this boat from his cousin, who was a racer, I guessed that she single handed the boat a lot and probably had the genoa winches setup to cross sheet, allowing her to handle the genny sheets on the high side. I led the genny sheets across the cockpit, and it was pretty clear that Sandy had indeed set the boat up to cross sheet the genny sheets.
We probably should have had the genny furled a bit, but I haven’t sailed on a monohull in quite some time, and never had sailed a Cal 25 before. She was overcanvassed a bit, but Sea Spirit took it in stride. At one point, according to the GPS, we were making nine knots, which is excellent speed for a small 25′ monohull.
Ken and Dottie are just returning to sailing, after having spent some time away from the sport. Buzzards Bay is a bit more challenging than the lakes that they had mostly sailed on, and they’re both getting their sea legs back. There’s still a fair amount of work that has to be done on Sea Spirit, but she’s coming along slowly. The main sheet has to be re-worked, as does most of the electrical system. The plumbing also has some issues to work out.
I’m hoping that Dottie, Ken and Sea Spirit will be able to join me, my crew and the Pretty Gee for an overnight trip to Tarpaulin Cove sometime later this season.
I’ve posted video of Sea Spirit, Dottie and Ken from a sail they did last summer. You can see the video here.