July 20 2014

Sunday. I set up my sabot and as I tacked out of my little area, past the owner of a $100 auction boat, and I asked “You going out today?” He replied “No, I don’t have anyone to go with.”

YES. FRIEND. YOU DO NOW. I’ve been telling Mia for a couple weeks “I want to go sailing with Pit Bull guy on his boat” so this whole thing went down exactly as I planned.  He’s got this awesome short dog that is in fact a ‘Bully dog”  - imagine a pit bull fave, at short and stout as a bull dog, that could still probably knock you over, his name is Rocky. His owner is Gary, and Gary bid $100 on an old 60’s classic-designed spin-off of an Islander 26.  It’s fully old-school. Hank-on jib, winches on the mast, tiller, old non-tailing 1 speed winches in the cockpit, mainsheet/traveler in the back. Just awesome.

So we went sailing with Rocky, who had never been sailing before. Gary steering and me on the deck and trimming the sails. He was happy because the other 2 guys on my dock who have taken him sailing are both old, but I was like “Does tipping scare you?” he said “no, I don’t think so” so we had it heeled and going fast - his handheld gps said 6.5 knots consistently - that’s faster than my boat sails (which I blame on weight of all my worldly possessions). He had no idea what “wing and wing” meant to sail downwind, so we did that too. Speaking of auctions at the dock. There was an auction for a nice Ericsson 27 for $1800 and went to the dock master. He doesn’t know how to sail either.