After a very long day, the boat is finally in the water.
As anyone who lives in upstate New York or Southern Ontario will tell you, we had a seriously bad storm roll through the Toronto region today.
It was all sunshine and summer weather while I was at a meeting downtown. I hopped on the GO train, destined for Bronte at 11:25. My father, who also has a boat at Bronte outer (sadly, not an Alberg) picked me up, and we drove to the marina to go about preparations for launch at 5:00 (his boat) and 6:00 (my boat).
By 3:30 the third thunderstorm straight out of the maw of hell had rolled through, and wind gusts up to 60kts were a frequent occurence. The marina decided to halt launching, but we hoped the weather would settle, so we filled our time helping the marina staff tie high-windage powerboats back up to their berths. One had actually ripped a cleat straight out of the dock. At one point, my father was almost blown off the dock into the water.
So we went out for dinner, and sure enough, just as we were finishing up, my phone rang and the marina was ready to launch our boats. It was sunny again, and the wind had dropped down to a nice gentle breeze.
Both boats launched without a hitch, though my A29 demonstrated once again why it is I hate reversing the boat. Nine times out of ten, it will walk to port while reversing, and one time out of 100 it will back up in a perfectly straight line. I took a guess and thankfully she walked to port. I looked like I actually knew what I was doing.
So begins another sailing season. Hopefully it will be better than last year.
Well, if your sailing season is going to be anything like my climbing season, it’s going to be amazing! :)