Sailing Lessons. Book Learning and the Practicum - June 14-16, 2013

Kelly IV became a floating schoolhouse for the Moraine Sailing Club (MSC) of Lake Arthur, Butler County, PA this weekend. New MSC members Bill and Sarah Paviol and Corina Campbell joined former member (me) and long-time Lake Arthur sailor, Jim Clark, for a beautiful weekend sail that included a trip to St. Michael's, Maryland.

Corina, Sarah and Bill

We departed the dock 8am on Saturday with crew and chef-extraordinaire Bill creating a grand breakfast while underway. The wind direction was from aft of the beam, so we tried sailing, but the light breeze (less than 5 knots) became even less as we demonstrated our first sailing lesson of the day: apparent wind. So the iron genny provided the driving force to our destination.

Bill, Sarah and Corina had been taking sailing lessons so they can be certified to sail the MSC community Flying Scots. Bill began working through their book as we motored through the sunny day and still waters of the Chesapeake Bay. Lesson by lesson we read questions from the book provided answers, then checked our answers with those from the book. We even broke out some spare lines and practiced our knots.

Kelly IV at anchor

By 1400 hours we lowered the anchor in a tiny cove just inside the southeast corner of the small harbor at St. Michael's. With Kelly's new all-chain rode, we felt confident she'd stay put while we played tourist in the quaint, historic town. Kelly, upped anchor to settle for the night at the roomier anchorage just outside the harbor. Kelly's neighbors in this anchorage were visited by Sarah and Corina as they took the Pudgy dinghy for a ride before sunset.

Bill enjoy's St. Michael's

This is the town that fooled the British in the War of 1812 when they raised lanterns in the trees and doused all the lights in town. The bombarding British fleet shot up the trees leaving the town relatively free from damage.

Jim, CaptMurph, Corina, Sarah, Bill

After several hours walking about town, enjoying the many homes that are well over 200 years old and ice cream that was fresh from the dairy, we dinghied back to Kelly IV.

Corina and Sarah take a cruise in the dinghy

For Father's Day, Sarah cooked a terrific breakfast. It was a wonderful Father's Day treat!

By 9am Kelly and crew were off the anchor and raising sails immediately to enjoy the day's breeze. This time the southwest wind was substantially stronger (about 12 knots) so even with the breeze aft of the beam, Kelly was sailing along in a wonderfully capable apparent wind. Given the breeze, Sunday was declared the Practicum to Saturday's book lessons. With several course changes and adjusting sail trim required to dodge the shoals in the Miles River and six tacks necessary to traverse Eastern Bay and clear Bloody Point, Kelly's capable crew demonstrated that their book learning had produced excellent results.

With Bloody Point aft of the beam, the wind also fell behind us so we were on a broad reach for the balance of the return to Annapolis. The only “adventure” this weekend was when we cut across one of the Sunday afternoon race courses at the mouth of the Severn River. No one had to adjust their course, but we crossed two of the racers paths, one across their bow, the other behind their stern, within about 100 feet of each vessel.

Sailing an uneventful weekend depends a lot on having a great crew with experience. Even though the Paviol's are taking lessons, the fact is that they have been active sailors on Kelly IV and several other sailboats for many years now. It showed as each tack and sail change was handled smoothly and shifting anchor locations was merely routine. This is a crew that always has fun and are fun to be with.