All Forums  Catalina/Capri 25/250 Sailor's Forums  Catalina 25 Specific Forum  In the water again!

Note: You must be registered in order to post a reply.
To register, click here. Registration is FREE!

Screensize: 640 x 480 800 x 600 1024 x 768 1280 x 1024 UserName: Password: Format Mode: Basic  Help  Prompt  Format: Font Andale Mono Arial Arial Black Book Antiqua Century Gothic Comic Sans MS Courier New Georgia Impact Lucida Console Script MT Bold Stencil Tahoma Times New Roman Trebuchet MS Verdana   Size 1 2 3 4 5 6   Color Black Red Yellow Pink Green Orange Purple Blue Beige Brown Teal Navy Maroon LimeGreen Message: * HTML is OFF * Forum Code is ON Smilies [quote][i]Originally posted by hlprmnky[/i] [br]After [i]nineteen months[/i] on the hard, through two winters and one season full of projects and scheduling problems, the Puffin III is finally back in the water! Friday was splash day, including a brief chat with Neptune to approve renaming her - and applying her new name and hailing port decals in spitting rain! [img]https://www.hlprmnky.com/c25/puffin_iii_splashed.jpeg[/img] Yesterday, along with a delivery captain, I did the 33nm passage from St. Joseph, Michigan to Michigan City, Indiana. This was the first time ever that I’d cast off the lines in one place and tied up in another, so I thought it was prudent to have adult supervision. It turns out I was right! It was a fairly sporty day on the lake, blowing 12-15 with 3-5 foot waves pretty much the whole trip, and thanks to a couple of simple oversights getting ready, we spent our time in those conditions with no ability to furl in the 135 genoa (roller setup mishap) or sheet out the main - I had attached the pigtail to keep the boom in place while I reeved the mainsheet back on to its blocks and, since I never use it in general operation, forgot to release it! Once the main filled and put pressure on the boom, the little shackle was too hard to unstick so we just had to live with it. [img]https://www.hlprmnky.com/c25/puffin_iii_delivery.jpeg[/img] I learned a lot on the trip, but most of what I learned was taught by Puffin III - how tight a circle I can turn while waiting for a drawbridge, how even 5-foot chop is just uncomfortable, not dangerous, how exactly as I’d hoped it would be it is to put miles under her keel. I am so excited for the coming season, and I want to take a moment to thank all of you for being in this community, where I got the confidence and a lot of the technical knowledge I needed to get to this point. I hope everyone reading this has a wonderful season ahead. [/quote]   Check here to include your profile signature. Check here to subscribe to this topic.