Geoff Demoted to First Mate

I am not sure when or how it happened but I realized about two hours into our sail that I had yet to touch the wheel.  I had been involved at some level, but mostly doing grunt work like trimming the jib and untying the mooring.  It was inevitable that Cristin would become the helmsman, I just didn’t expect it to happen this quickly.  We reached out once again across the Bay following the same linear paths we have put on the chartplotter on a close haul out to Woods Hole and a broad reach back to Mattapoisett.  At some point we need to actually go to a destination like Quisset or Great Harbor.  We don’t really have an excuse as these places are under two hours in typical breezes.

Today the breeze was fairly fresh and with full sail we were heeling over at around the maximum optimal angle.  I had lived in fear that the kids were going to freak out about the sailboat motion but so far we haven’t heard anything negative from them.  They are often down below and I went down today and discovered it was a bit like a bull ride in the chop and was amazed that they hardly seemed to notice. At one point we peered down in the cabin and realized that the girls were taking advantage of the heel which had converted the leeward settees into lounge chairs.  When we got back we put the boat in at one of the public floats where we gained a good appreciation for how poor the backing power is on a folding two blade prop.   We had dinner at the Slip and listened to some tween belt out Wrecking Ball from the gazebo at Shipyard Park.  We then grabbed ice cream and headed back to the mooring.   A very solid day.