[ASWPotter]

Hello everyone! I am a new sailor, and just bought my first boat. I am in the Olympia Washington area, and will be exploring the Puget Sound this summer. I do not have a ton of sailing experience, but have always dreamed of learning. My wife and I decided we wanted to get our 3 year old daughter on the water. I recently completed ASA 101,103. I know very few people who sail, so this was a great way for me to figure out how things work. I figure the northwest was a great place to start, so I bought a boat of my own.

I bought a Westwight Potter 19 "Briar Rose". I bought her because it was trailerable and I could take it many places. Seemed to fit my needs of a "starter boat", but seemed comfortable enough for my family. I love sailing her so far, and can definately see myself sailing for many years to come!

I'm excited to learn from everyones experiences, and would love to meet/talk to anyone in the northwest area!

 

[fryewe]

Congratulations...great boat...great cruising grounds...and welcome to Sailnet.

 

[MedSailor]

Nice choice of boat. I talked a friend of mine into one of those!

 

[IStream]

Congratulations! I owned a P19 for a few years and had a great time with my family until we outgrew it (still loved it but too many people to fit in the cockpit anymore!) There's a very active Potter community on Puget Sound with regular cruises, etc. Have fun!

 

[MedSailor]

"If you want to PASS the class stay on the STRAIGHT AND NARROW". A pneumonic to remember that there are areas of high current and/or open waters in Puget Sound and the San Juan islands that must be respected and approached at slack CURRENT (not high or low tide, which is different.)

Go ahead and take your chart of puget sound and circle anything with the name: Straight (like straight of Juan de Fuca), narrow or narrows (Tacoma narrows), or PASS (Cattle Pass, Deception Pass, Agate pass) etc.

MedSailor

 

[IStream]

Med's point is a good one. The WWP will make 5 knots in a good breeze or under power but you'll often you'll be drifting along at 2-3 kts. It's therefore very important to time your passage to match the currents in your favor or at least at slack tide. Fighting even a 1-2 kt current will slow you down significantly and you'll be at a dead stop or going backwards in any sort of countercurrent in a strait.

 

[markarsenal]

Welcome - I'm a beginner and new here as well, starting out just a bit north of you. Still working on scoring my first boat (hopefully in the next few weeks). This region seems to have better sailing culture and infrastructure than anywhere I've been on the West Coast of North America - we're lucky to be here!

 

[IStream]

FYI, here are a few useful links for Potter Owners:

Yahoo Owner's Group: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/WWPotter/info
Trailer Sailor WWP Group: West Wight Potter
NorthWest Potter Group: NW Potters and NW Trailer-Sailors | Keeping Northwest Trailer-Sailors Connected
Judy B's WWP Rigging and Other Info Page: Judy B's West Wight Potter Pages

You can really go down the rabbit hole with that last one...

 

[Erindipity]

"My wife and I decided we wanted to get our 3 year old daughter on the water."

When I was a kid, Dad took me to the Boat Show. We were going to pick up a few things for my El Toro: The anchor was a coffee can filled with cement, and the Halyard was made of clothesline...

In a corner of the Cow Palace was the original West Wight Potter 14, complete with trailer and oars, being tended to by a nice old English guy. He had no problem with me crawling over every inch of it, even though I didn't obviously have a few hundred dollars in change loose in my pockets.
Dad showed up about an hour later; he had met some Clients, and hadn't noticed that I had wandered off.
Dad questioned the English guy about some convenience that seemed to be missing, English guy pointed to a bucket, included. (Holding tanks were pretty rare those days.)
Still... we left Potterless.

These days, Catalinas, Hunters, and Beneteaus are Daddyboats. Large, but not large enough to get out of yelling distance. Kinda ugly. Smelly. (Holding tanks...)
For a kid, a West Wight Potter is a Myboat. The lines are even more charming these days, although we have past the time of varnished wood sliding Gunter rigs, and lack of apparent headroom is not an issue for them. Kids fit nicely in Potters.
Get a good child's sailing harness, and if the water rat goes overboard, simply reach down and scoop them back up. No need for boarding ladders, although a Rat Overboard drill is still called for.

You might even let your girl name the boat. My youngest sister was allowed to name my El Toro, which ended up in some later brotherly embarrassment, which was the point.

¬Erindipity