Maiden Voyage

This past weekend we finally got to take Scream out for her maiden voyage. We had hoped to head for Montague Harbour, a favourite haunt and a decent sail from Tsehum Harbour. However, the winds were light and, as usual, coming from the wrong direction, so we slowly wended our way to Bedwell Harbour instead.

Surprisingly, the boat did fairly well in under 5 kts of wind, and we managed to sail most of the first day, if it was fitful. In between bouts of sailing we learned important lessons about the engine - how to engage the propeller lock, how to properly turn it off. We also learned the smoky way that the stove doesn't like to be underfed by diesel.

The winds picked up overnight, as is typical, but Scream was quite solid at anchor. In the morning the electric windlass conked out (ah, already a to do list), so we got to learn about raising the anchor manually. The winds that day were much more fresh, and we sailed home running with just the single yankee foresail.

Docking was surprisingly good, since we still struggle with docking in our 26' boat, and every extra foot just adds complexity to the process. We utterly failed to hit anything, and we got into our slip and tied off, so all was well.

Major lessons still to be learned include:

• how to figure out how much fuel is in the tank
• how the holding tank empties
• the trick to bringing down the main
• why the foresail is so tough to furl and unfurl
• a bunch more stuff I can't remember right now

We still have a long way to go, but we had a great sail with few issues, and we're still thrilled to pieces about the new boat.