Note: This reads like a blog, because I wrote it into my blog first and copied it here>.>
I went sailing saturday, which was most certainly interesting.. Ransom showed up at my house around 9:30, but my parents left till like 12 so we had a late start. We spent the time watching funny videos of people flying down escalators as seen here. Yeah, that was certainly interesting. We then put the mast up on the boat first. This mast just so happens to be 26 feet long. And very heavy indeed. Very heavy. So yeah, mast goes up without much trouble, everything checks out ok. Great, put it down, tie boat up for trailoring. Parents get back, and I call Evie to let her know we're leaving. So far so good, we get to Mystery Bay, put the mast up, boat goes into water. Beach the bugger, and start putting sails up.
Random new paragraph time. Jib goes up without too much difficulty.. Good there. We start working on the main. Goes up -almost- all the way, and catchs on the bloody rigging. It now wont move up or down, so, we end up cutting the line its caught on (not one of the shrouds luckily, it was a harness line to stand off the boat), whipping it around, and getting it unstuck. This is an hour after mast goes up at this point, so about 1 a'clock. Awesome, ready to sail, finally. We all(Ransom, Evie, myself) get onto the catamaran and head out of Mystery Bay. Well, getting out of the protected area ment the wind picked up. Alot. When I say alot, I mean about 13-14 knots(18 mph or so). This boat sails -fast-. So, we're zooming along, dual wake behind. I prepare to tack, and the aft section of the portside pontoon totally goes underwater while we tack. So now I'm totally soaked from waste down, and Evies partially soaked. Ransom stayed dry. Try another tack, fails horridly again. I then realize I should learn to sail in less windspeed>.> We head into shore, and check the time. We sailed an amazing 15 minutes.
So, this known, we sit down for lunch. Which was more or less sitting at a picnic table laughing and talking about really random crap. My parents leave, under the assumption that we're gonna try sailing without the jib. Well, they leave, and the wind starts gusting to much higher speeds. Totally lame that. I decide its a bad idea.. and sailing totally falls apart. Evie rides her bike home, Ransom and I walk to the nordland store to use the payphone. My parents get back, and we get the mainsail down and the boat out of the water. We then decide to take the mast down.
(it gets good now)
My dad takes a line tied to the fore-stay, and I am up on the boat, guiding the mast down. Ransom is back behind the boat ready to receive the mast. So, we have the mast at about a 45 degree angle, and Ransom says: "Did you remember the pin"? Myself: "Oh crap." I flinch a tad trying to start putting the mast back up, and the bottom slips out of the maststep. Giant aluminum 26' mast lands on my shoulder, uses that as a pivot point, and very nearly slams into Ransoms head. I collapse in shock and start trying to decide if I had killed anyone, or if my shoulder was broken. Luckily, neither was the case. I hop down off the boat, and take a look at the mast, the tip(solid aluminum chunk), was -dented-. Scary stuff. It gets funnier yet though. 1 minute after I hop down, Evies mom drives up to see how things are going. For some reason Evie wasn't there, I dunno why. She very very nearly saw total disaster. That sure woulda made me look safe and responsible>.>
Yeah, that was totally my saturday.
For clarification, Ransom is a sailing/rowing buddy of mine from class. Evie is the girl I overly obsess about too much. I also stalk her. Yeah.
Enjoy, those of you who actually wade through that.
I went sailing saturday, which was most certainly interesting.. Ransom showed up at my house around 9:30, but my parents left till like 12 so we had a late start. We spent the time watching funny videos of people flying down escalators as seen here. Yeah, that was certainly interesting. We then put the mast up on the boat first. This mast just so happens to be 26 feet long. And very heavy indeed. Very heavy. So yeah, mast goes up without much trouble, everything checks out ok. Great, put it down, tie boat up for trailoring. Parents get back, and I call Evie to let her know we're leaving. So far so good, we get to Mystery Bay, put the mast up, boat goes into water. Beach the bugger, and start putting sails up.
Random new paragraph time. Jib goes up without too much difficulty.. Good there. We start working on the main. Goes up -almost- all the way, and catchs on the bloody rigging. It now wont move up or down, so, we end up cutting the line its caught on (not one of the shrouds luckily, it was a harness line to stand off the boat), whipping it around, and getting it unstuck. This is an hour after mast goes up at this point, so about 1 a'clock. Awesome, ready to sail, finally. We all(Ransom, Evie, myself) get onto the catamaran and head out of Mystery Bay. Well, getting out of the protected area ment the wind picked up. Alot. When I say alot, I mean about 13-14 knots(18 mph or so). This boat sails -fast-. So, we're zooming along, dual wake behind. I prepare to tack, and the aft section of the portside pontoon totally goes underwater while we tack. So now I'm totally soaked from waste down, and Evies partially soaked. Ransom stayed dry. Try another tack, fails horridly again. I then realize I should learn to sail in less windspeed>.> We head into shore, and check the time. We sailed an amazing 15 minutes.
So, this known, we sit down for lunch. Which was more or less sitting at a picnic table laughing and talking about really random crap. My parents leave, under the assumption that we're gonna try sailing without the jib. Well, they leave, and the wind starts gusting to much higher speeds. Totally lame that. I decide its a bad idea.. and sailing totally falls apart. Evie rides her bike home, Ransom and I walk to the nordland store to use the payphone. My parents get back, and we get the mainsail down and the boat out of the water. We then decide to take the mast down.
(it gets good now)
My dad takes a line tied to the fore-stay, and I am up on the boat, guiding the mast down. Ransom is back behind the boat ready to receive the mast. So, we have the mast at about a 45 degree angle, and Ransom says: "Did you remember the pin"? Myself: "Oh crap." I flinch a tad trying to start putting the mast back up, and the bottom slips out of the maststep. Giant aluminum 26' mast lands on my shoulder, uses that as a pivot point, and very nearly slams into Ransoms head. I collapse in shock and start trying to decide if I had killed anyone, or if my shoulder was broken. Luckily, neither was the case. I hop down off the boat, and take a look at the mast, the tip(solid aluminum chunk), was -dented-. Scary stuff. It gets funnier yet though. 1 minute after I hop down, Evies mom drives up to see how things are going. For some reason Evie wasn't there, I dunno why. She very very nearly saw total disaster. That sure woulda made me look safe and responsible>.>
Yeah, that was totally my saturday.
For clarification, Ransom is a sailing/rowing buddy of mine from class. Evie is the girl I overly obsess about too much. I also stalk her. Yeah.
Enjoy, those of you who actually wade through that.
o.0