Having recently purchased a sailboat, a Coronado 23, I needed to deliver it to town from its mooring of the past few years, in Henderson Inlet.
The first leg, to Boston Harbor, was mostly a tow from my friend Mary. The boat has no motor and the light wind died altogether. I was frustrated at being unable to steer the boat well. I chalked it up to adverse current and the rather interesting eddies around Itsami Ledge.
But we did get a full moon with a beautiful sunset. Mary, wisely, had aboard a store of rum, fruit juice, and Cheese-Its.
After two weeks at Boston Harbor, I was determined to bring the boat home. I made a quick dash out from town in a borrowed inflatable with a five horse motor. That was the last quick thing I did for some time.
There was wind then. I hoped it would carry me back that evening. Otherwise I will tow her, I thought. I tidied up below as the breeze died.
I cast off the mooring around 1900. I had waited for more breeze, then decided to go anyway. The boat is uninterested in sailing in these conditions. As I drift down in the Harbor, towing her begins to look more attractive.
I learned, later, that boats do not like short tow lines. Also, they only slightly prefer having their helms lashed under tow. Actually having someone steer the boat is best of all. But I did not know that then. Mostly it was a kind of weird water-dance ritual between the inflatable and the Coronado.
Next, I decided to put the dinghy’s out board on the Coronado. I imagined someone with binoculars trained on this project saying, “There you go ... No! No! Don’t drop the engine in the water!” It was an awkward transfer.
What I learned, later, is that there is a great difference between short and long shafts. I had been told about this, and believed it. But having sailed in dinghies with no motor, or larger boats, I was not sure what a long shaft looked like. How long is long? But when the engine was mounted and started, it became clear that it would be death to run it. Obviously a longer shaft was needed.
As this towing/engine saga was unfolding, the two boats drifted around, not into, the lovely variety of boats moored in Boston Harbor.
I anchored. I lay down on the jib on the foredeck.
Noticing my close proximity to some kind of weird-looking work barge, I weighed anchor and moved, drifted, down a bit further and re-anchored.
I contemplated my options. I dinghied to a friend’s dock and borrowed a small outboard. I learned, later, that this was also a short shaft. I will say, however, that I made this decision a much more quickly this second time.
After sunset, the breeze came up a bit. Enough to get the boat moving. And move she does. However, she only seems to want to go north and south. I try to turn out of the bay, she will not go.
Keep in mind that it is a hot summer night. Friday night. People are out in their yards and on their porches. Folks are hanging out at the Marina. There I am sailing back and forth in the darkening night.
So I give it up. I skull, yes skull, back to the mooring buoy. I am tired, incredibly tired.
I could dinghy back to town, but I have no running lights. Besides, I'd have to come back in the morning anyway.
The extra clothes aboard come in handy. Long underwear, jeans, sweatshirt. I wear the clean, dry towel as a head scarf, with my ball cap over it. Extra socks on and make the bed, the quarter berth cushions. I cover with the triangular cloth tarp that fits sideways over the boom. Much more pleasant than bare vinyl. The recently washed mainsail cover, clean side down, is the next layer over me. It is followed by my foul weather jacket.
As hot as it had been that day, about ninety-eight degrees, things cooled off quickly. Sometime very late it got colder. That necessitated the retrieval of the working jib as a better layer than my jacket. The genny would have been overkill.
I must say it was a bit of a damp and sticky sleep. But I got warm. The stars were beautiful. My first night aboard ...
Dawn came and with it the eternal question, where can I get some coffee? The two households I knew in the Harbor were probably still sleeping. The possibility of disturbing or scaring them was not appealing. Back to sleep.
I woke later to “Rebecca! Rebecca!” One of my buddies was there in his dinghy, with a pot of coffee in one hand and a bagel neatly packaged in plastic in the other. He even brought a cup in case I needed it. Dinghy angle. Man! That was a beautiful moment. And the cool thing was I even had some cream cheese left over from the night before. Life is good.
The next three hours are were spent with my friends wife, drinking more coffee and trying to round up diver for my boat. It seemed prudent to get the mussels off my boat before sailing back to town. No luck with a diver. But the plastic blade of an aluminum paddle proved a reasonably efficient tool to knock off the mussels at the boats waterline.
As I shifted along in the rubber dinghy completing this job, I began to understand the odd steering problems of this vessel. Seeing as how there was a much larger colony on the starboard waterline, it became clear why the tiller had to be hard over to keep the boat tacking straight.
Having waited for maximum flood, hell I could drift into Olympia if I had to, I set sail and cast her off. The mooring line was on its last threads. Not much breeze, but we did slowly move out of the Harbor.
I have learned to curse quietly on the water, at least most times. I was very active in this as the sails and boom banged around at regular two minute intervals, or so it seemed, from the plethora of passing powerboats. “Why don’t they all just go somewhere and stay there? What are they doing? Why do they have to drive around all the damn time?” I was, needles to say, becoming dispirited in this endless journey.
I talked to the boat. “There is a great slip waiting for you at Eastbay. You will really like it.” I yelled at the wind god, “Hey! Do you think we could just have about forty-five minutes to an hour at ten knots? Do you think?”
Then, just as I had given in to making a rum and coke, the wind picked up. Oh, it was glorious. I was thinking I would have to name my boat Reluctant Sailor, or some such, until then. But oh, we made steady progress and clipped along toward Eastbay.
I drank some rum. It was a nice sail. And I found a name for my boat, Sonia. It seemed to fit her. As we cruised into the Marina, the wind died. There were only G - L docks to go. ARRRG!
As we sat, a paddle boat came by. A very yellow paddle boat. They asked if I would like a tow? “Oh yes please!” It was no time to be pride full or independent. I was pooped.
It was a sight. This paddle boat towing a twenty-three foot sailboat, towing an eight foot dinghy. Pretty funny. Would have made a great photograph. Lots of witnesses though, on a Saturday night. Maybe one of them had a camera.
The paddlers said it was not really harder to paddle. Seems like slowly and evenly did the trick. And I was aboard to steer.
Docking was easy. Some of my neighbors assisted me. They had seen my boat coming in and realized I was onboard by myself.
The fellow said he thought I must have been embarrassed by the tow. “Not at all,” I said. “Embarrassing? Oh, that was yesterday. This was great!” But I did think to myself, single-handing is a bit over-rated.
Rebecca Horn, Sonia