or what I was doing while AS was down for maintenance.
The boat, under sail, on the long way to her mooring.
Yesterday, Johnnie Jr., one of my regular crew, and I went down to the marina to setup the mooring I’m using for the boat this season. We got out the inflatable dinghy and rowed out to the mooring and attached the mooring pennant. I’m using a fairly heavy mooring pennant, 3/4″ x 15′. It’s attached to the boat via the port side bow chock and then looped over the foredeck cleats. I think this should work quite well. The pennant is too thick to come out of the bow chocks by itself, so I haven’t lashed it down.
After rowing back to the slip and tying the dinghy to the big boat, we had to move the big boat to the mooring. So, we warmed up the iron genny and headed out for the swing bridge. As we were motoring out to the swing bridge, I showed Johnnie the easy way to stow an inflatable dinghy—I hauled it up on to the ama deck—fully inflated and tied the bridle to a padeye on the deck. Beats towing it, trying to horse it up onto the foredeck, or deflating it and stowing it.
Johnnie Jr. looking off at the Elizabeth Islands.
After passing the swing bridge, we raised the main and unfurled the genoa. It was time to go sailing. We woke up Otto from his winter hibernation and set off for a day just sailing on Buzzards Bay.
Otto at the helm, leaving nothing but a wake while under sail.
We didn’t have any plans or destination, just wanted to be out sailing on such a beautiful day. We sailed around the bay for about five hours and decided it was time to head back and try out the mooring.
As we motored up to the swing bridge, we passed two catamarans in the mooring field just south of Pope’s Island. Neither is a particularly sleek looking boat, but the one on the right looks like it sails like a dog—it definitely falls into the floating condo variant of catamaran, rather than the ones designed to sail well.
Two catamarans in the mooring field south of Pope’s Island.
We had tried the mooring pennant out on the boat before going out to attach it to the mooring, so I wasn’t too worried about how it would fit. It looks like she’ll lie to the mooring without the need for a bridle. Somehow, it took us over seven hours to get the boat on a mooring that is only five hundred feet from the dock the boat was in.
The boat finally on her mooring.
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