I have officially adopted the title of Skipper Emeritus. That is Skipper as in the master of a small vessel and Emeritus as in Retired but retaining the title and honors of a professional position. As Skipper Emeritus of the Regal Jug I get to stand around and critically review the performance of the new Skipper and Crew.
On Saturday we all took the Regal Jug to Anderson Lake. Since the last time we went sailing we did some repair work on the main sail, so it took us quite a bit of time to put on the sail and get ready for launch. It would probably be unfair to mark the crew down for this performance, but there is certainly room for improvement. Launch went perfectly; no runaway boat and no one got dunked. I stepped up and did the official starting of the auxiliary engine. We dropped our moorings and left Patrick stranded on the float. After circling back and running a landing we were able to retrieve our AWOL crew member.

We ran out into the lake and noticed some white caps and decided we should take a reef in the main sail right from the start. That turned out to be a wise choice. We did a bit of a Keystone Cops routine getting the reef in and the sails set. This also included an unintentional gibe which gets the helmsperson major marks off, besides I almost got hit in the head.
Lunch was interesting: We were partway down the lake and decided it was time to eat lunch. Aunt Cathy and Judy started making sandwiches in the cabin. When we started to run out of lake we executed a maneuver called “lying a-hull.” To do that we act like we are doing a tack and forget to change the jib sail. Actually this is very easy to do, and the boat sits quietly even though the wind is quite stiff.

We had a first time sailor aboard for this trip, Aunt Cathy. Cathy was called up from the cabin and given the job of trimming the starboard jib winch. That means she was to pull in the rope holding the back corner of the front sail when we turn our left side toward the wind, for you lubbers. Now this woman has my admiration. We were sailing in very brisk winds, the boat was healing, (tipping,) and we were tacking every few minutes. Also up to this point the performance of crew did not necessarily give you a feeling of great confidence. Yet Cathy performed well under pressure. Occasionally I did hear a sharp intake of breath when the boat lay over on its side and got the brown stripe wet, but she never asked to leave the boat.
I did get a bit of static from Aunt Cathy when I tried to explain the shifting of our personal bodies to the high side to act as live ballast to control the heeling of the boat. Something about calling her “a fat a**.” I tried to graciously back out if this and kept getting in deeper and deeper. I think that in the end it was my position as Skipper Emeritus that kept me from getting dunked.
New Skipper, Glen is becoming a regular old salt with his “Ready ‘bout” and “Helm’s a-lee.” Perhaps just a bit more work on “gibe ho.” Glen and Patrick are fantastic at getting the mast up and down. It will be the part of the job I will miss terribly…or not.
After this sail we had to repair the working jib. The leach edge of the sail had torn under previous ownership. Glen and I spent about half a day at the sewing machine getting that done. We are anxious to test our repair. Perhaps we will have more adventures to report next week.