MAIDEN VOYAGE!!! WHOOP!!

Yep, we went sailing. For the first time, Meraviglia was under sail. Granted, we did sail her here to Georgia from Florida last year (see Chapters 7 and 8…), but she was Destiny then. So, this was Meraviglia’s maiden voyage! And the first shakedown cruise. What’s a shakedown cruise, you ask? Well, that’s where you shake the boat and everything breaks down. Seriously.

Let’s start with leaving the dock. Close your eyes. Imagine a beautiful, clear, sunny day with northerly winds of 12-15 knots. Temperatures in the 80s. Perfect sailing weather. So we suit up and get ready to cast off. Now, I don’t know why I did this, but I’m going to go with “Jesus loves me.” That’s right-the song. Because before we untied the dock lines, I shifted the boat into forward just to get the feel for the shifter.

The boat went backwards.

I shifted into reverse.

The boat went forwards.

What. The. Actual….?

Remember when our transmission was locked up and had to get rebuilt last spring (see Chapter 17) ? You thinking what I’m thinking? I called our project manager.

Bonus points if you recognize this. Related to our hailing port.

Me: Ummm, we are trying to leave, but forward is reverse and reverse is forward.

Him: Yeah, I know.

Me: You do??

Him: Yeah. It was that way when I brought her to the dock after launch. I thought it was always that way.

Me: NOOOOO!!

Him: Okay, we’ll fix it. But it’s fine to use. Just remember that forward is reverse and reverse is forward.

Me: …

So we shoved off with me chanting “Forward is Reverse. Reverse is Forward. Forward is Reverse. Reverse is Forward.”

Out in St. Simon’s Sound, we raised the sails. Because then we don’t need to remember the gear shift thing.

Mainsail first. Up it went. No problem. Until the cover snagged on the newly installed solar frame and ripped. And the lazy jacks got caught in the rigging. Down came the mainsail.

Genoa next-let’s try that. The genoa, or headsail, is on a furler up front, meaning it’s all wrapped up around the forestay and we just need to release the furling line and it unwinds and off we go. Or not. Furler’s jammed. Up to the bow I go. After unwinding, rewinding, unrigging and rerigging the furling line 3 times, the genoa unfurled. We’re sailing!!! Where should we go? How about out the channel? Cool!

Kim: Why is it that we are heading to the channel but the chartplotter says we’re heading for land behind us?

Bob: Umm. I don’t know. Are you sure?

Kim: Very. I don’t know where we’re going.

Bob: Hmmm.

Turns out that before the chartplotter will show you where you are, where you’re going, and, most importantly, how deep the water is, you need to calibrate its electronic compass. Who knew??

So we did that. Sails down. Engine on. Drive in circles (forward is reverse, reverse is forward). Zig zag. Zig zag some more. Calibration complete!!

So now what?

Well, we were tired. We went back to port.

Full disclosure, we went out again two days later and it was PERFECT!! Except I forgot the whole forward is reverse thing while docking. Fortunately, catastrophe was averted.