I hadn't been on a sailboat in twenty years until this Saturday. What a great day, which was even better since it was to support the youth program at First Presbyterian of Annapolis. Every Fall, we have an auction to raise money to support the youth program. Last year one of the items that was donated was an afternoon of sailing out on the Chesapeake Bay. Our congregation really gets into the auction and is incredibly generous with their bids and donations. When the sailing item came up my friend Craig and I decided to pool our resources and go in together for it and we were successful.
The plan was to go out in the Spring, but it took until this weekend to find a suitable time that Craig, Jen, Vern, me and the boat were all available and in good health simultaneously. It was well worth the wait. Despite a so-so forecast and a gray morning we had a gorgeous sunny day and a nice breeze for most of the five hours we were out on the water. Vern let each of us take turns at the helm and I was fortunate enough to have my turn through the best winds of the day.
Our top speed was around 5.5 knots. For those of you familiar with the Bay, Vern lives in Amberly so we came out of Whitehall Creek into the Chesapeake just south of the Bay Bridge. We sailed down along the west side past Annapolis, Bay Ridge and Arundel on the Bay. We tacked east before we got all the way to Thomas Point and shot over towards Kent Island. We came about again and managed to take a single line from the east side of the Bay all the way into the mouth of the Severn. We turned around just off of the Naval Academy sea wall and headed back up the west side of the Bay to Whitehall Creek.
A fabulous day with great company spent out on the water. It doesn't get much better than that.
FYI - The boat Vern has is a Sabre 28. I also found this review which has some interest info about this boat that is no longer made and is almost as old as I am.
No comments:
Post a Comment