Season Approaching

Wow, it's been a while since I wrote here. The marina finished the fiberglass work on my boat. Presumably, the mast will stay up, etc. this season.

I decided to try docking at the same place this season, so I drove up today to finalize things. (I desperately needed a day off at work; I've been doing workshop and other extra things, and I'm tired.) I paid for the winter work (painful, but not as much as I had feared) plus signed up for slip B-22. All told, a lot of money, but those should be the big expenses for the year. I took a walk out to the slip. It's just inside the marina, a few feet from the river. It's about 1/4 mile up the river from the drawbridge, and that's probably no more than half a mile from the lake.

I'm scheduled for launching on May 8, but I have to check my schedule here. I'll need to take most of the gear up there before then, most especially the batteries. The starting battery seems to be in good condition, but I'm having trouble getting the house batteries charges. I'd prefer to get another season out of them, but I may have to buy new ones. I need to have the ability to both start the engine and run the bilge pump, if nothing else.

I'm feeling pretty skittish about the sailing season. Not the sailing itself, but whether the engine will be on my side. It'll need to start as soon as the boat is in the water, since I'm told that I need to be there so that I can motor her around to the slip. Boy, do I need to practice that. Then once I have it there, I'll get everything ready. When it's time to sail, I'll need to motor that short way down the river, under the drawbridge, and out to the lake. It has tobe timed right, since the bridge opens every half hour. That's the part that makes me nervous. If the engine dies at the wrong time, I'm in trouble.

I also need to work on controlling the tiller when I'm sailing alone. I guess I'll try installing the "tiller tamer," but I'm not hopeful about it. When I have been out, I have managed to get the tiller tied down briefly, but the boat still went all over the place. I've been thinking about an electronic autopilot, but that's another expense. Not sure what my other options are.

More later.