but a good day sailing, well that’s another thing entirely.
I took a sailing checkout at the Center for Wooden Boats today on a Blanchard Jr Knockabout. I wish I could link to a picture, but there are all of two I can find, neither of them worth sharing. Looks like I better take some of my own.
The checkout was supposed to be a lesson/refresher and it was supposed to be yesterday. So we were a little crossed up. But when the instructor learned that I had done a lot of sailing in my yout’ he turned it into a checkout, gave me the boat and some brief course instructions — “head for the red buoy, round that and come back to the dock, see if there’s enough wind to bring her in under sail.”
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The wind was negligible, given the considerable wind shadow, but once I got out a bit, things picked and I remembered why I liked sailing so much and why I had missed it.
I would have passed the checkout, perhaps, but for my unfamiliarity with the jib: I have never sailed with one, so it took a bit of extra mental muscle to get used to it. So we have a follow-up for next weekend and I look to be ready to checkout the smaller gems of CWB’s livery fleet.
it’s really pretty surprising that I can’t find any pictures of these boats. They really are treasures, especially given Seattle’s maritime heritage. Even some crummy digital snapshots would be useful . . .