I like to think that our season lasts until mid-October, but I’m slowly having to admit that it’s not necessarily the case. Last year we hauled out Pegu Club in August so we could get to work on her, but I remember in 2014 we were able to get very few sails in after Labor Day. Typically as temperatures get cooler a series of northerlies start to drop down. Throw in an occasional hurricane threat and nor’easter, and it seems like more often than not we end up not heading down to the boat at all.
This year between work obligations, a lingering head cold for poor Jeff, the threat of Hurricane Matthew, and some ill-timed northerlies and general rainy weather, we ended up with a repeat of 2014. We’re going to have to do some thinking about our haul-out date next year. If we haul out early we may miss some good sailing. If we haul out late, we might get lucky and have a few good weekends but we’ll have no choice but to work on Pegu Club when it’s cold. Maybe the solution is to simply to permanently untie the lines next fall! Ha! I wish.
So the last post left off with the weekend of September 24th and our skill building sail. On the weekend of October 1st, it was raining on Saturday, and we both had to work on Sunday, so unfortunately it was a no-go for the boat.
The weekend of the 8th (Columbus Day weekend) had us hoping to spend the long weekend in Essex. Hurricane Matthew gave us some gray hairs until he decided to change his track, but Mother Nature still didn’t cooperate. As of Friday night things looked great, so we packed our bags. Just before leaving the house on Saturday morning I did a last-minute weather check. Good thing I did. Now we were going to get rain beginning in the middle of the afternoon straight through until Sunday night, followed by a small craft advisory for Monday. Sigh. However, we were really missing Pegu Club, so we decided to drive down on Saturday anyway to hang out until the rain started.
Earlier that week I had driven down to Shenny in the morning to pick up our sailing kit for Pegu-teeny. David Foynes, the owner of Fatty Knees, was going to be driving right past the Shenny exit on his way to the boat show in Annapolis so we had arranged to meet rather than having the sailing kit shipped. The drop off occurred without a hitch, so Saturday was going to be Pegu-teeny’s maiden voyage.
Pegu-teeny’s sail kit didn’t come with rigging instructions and there really wasn’t much on the internet, so it took us a while to figure it out, but eventually she was ready to go! We’re probably going to make a video next spring and upload it on YouTube so anyone else looking for some tips will have a resource.
Jeff was still feeling a bit under the weather, so I hopped in, took a deep breath, and off I went. It’s silly. Before getting in a different boat I always wonder if I can actually sail it. Maybe I can only sail Pegu Club? But then I discover that no, I can actually sail.
Pegu-teeny is a lot of fun to sail. She turns on a dime, and although she’s very responsive to shifts in weight, she didn’t feel overly tender. I bombed around in her on two separate occasions that day, stopping only when it started to rain. With that, we headed home and spent the rest of the long weekend doing house projects. Not nearly as much fun, but necessary since (future post alert!) we’re planning to sell the house in the spring.
So that brings us to the weekend of October 15th – haul out weekend (cue sad music). Saturday was calling for sunny skies but light winds, and Sunday was supposed to be sunny with 10-12 knot winds. We had plans to sail on Saturday with our friends Tom and Arlene (who we had purchased little Bristol from), and then a short sail on Sunday morning with our friend James who was also going help us with the haul-out, scheduled for 3:00 p.m.
We weren’t sure we would have enough wind to sail on Saturday, so we rigged up Pegu-teeny again. This was going to give Jeff a chance to sail her now that he was feeling better from his cold, and Tom and Arlene could also play if they wanted to. There wasn’t a lot of wind for Jeff, but he gave her a fun-rating of two thumbs up.
When Tom and Arlene arrived we decided to see if we could find enough wind for the big boat. Tom is an avid sailor who currently owns a power boat, and after a two-year gap in sailing it was obvious he really wanted to give it a go.
What followed was a wonderful afternoon of ghosting around with friends. The wind hovered around 6 knots, occasionally dropping lower, rising to 9 knots once for a few seconds. Tom was at the helm almost the entire time, and since he’s been sailing these waters for decades – he knows them much better than we do – Jeff and I were able to completely relax and simply enjoy being passengers on Pegu Club. It was truly a splendid day. Pegu Club cocktails followed for everyone, and then with promises to do it again next season Tom and Arlene hopped on the tender to head home while Jeff and I settled in for the night, looking forward to one last sail tomorrow….
Adventures on the Club 