New Picnic Cat

[oardnerusa]

Well, on May 10 the wife and I headed from Long Island, NY to New Jersey and picked up our brand new Picnic Cat.  The hull number is 270.  The name of the boat is still a secret.  The first sail was in our community's lake in PA with my brother-in-law, an experienced sailor, my wife and I.  May 24, out into the 15 mph winds we went, luckily we were reefed and took several strong gusts without being knocked down.  Learned to respect the wind.  May 25 a calmer 5 mph and less day.  Went out full sail and got a good feel for sailing the boat.  Memorial Day was very windy 20 mph.  Wife and I did not go out.  We instead completed installing buoyancy billets in the boat.  We now have about 800 lbs of buoyancy.

Will borrow a friends trolling motor for this weekend as paddling to and from the dock during our inaugural sailing weekend was a bit of a pain, somewhat diluted by our excitement in sailing our boat!

Hope to get the boat out this Saturday, June 7, again in our small PA lake.  Later in the month we will try Baldwin Bay off the south shore of Long Island, NY.  By then we should have our HONDA 2hp to fight the winds and tide if necessary.

Steve
PC#270

[mrb]

Congratulations Steve,

What a special event, a brand new boat and her maiden voyage.

Is this your first boat and or first cat. Sounds like whatever it is you and your wife are making some good memories and are there for the long haul.

Good sailing this weekend and always.

Melvin

[glenng]

Steve   don't be shy will these little boats they can handle some breeze I have been out in some decent air and have had no problems handling the shifts.  Good luck with ya new baby.

GlennG

[B.Hart]

Congratulations! The COM-PAC legend lives on! HAPPY SAILING  BILL

[oardnerusa]

Thanks for the good words.

We have had several more learning sails, one in East Bay out of Wantagh, NY and one in the Great South Bay out of Heckscher State Park also NY.  Both were enjoyable sails in 10 knot winds and 5 -10 knot winds.  Do have to practice returning to the dock though.  Can't seem to get it right.  Practice, practice, practice.

In the Great South Bay we dropped anchor in about 4ft of water, had lunch and a dip in the water before heading in.  Next time we will get an earlier start and head across the bay to Fire Island for lunch.  It is only three miles as the crow flies, a bit longer depending on the wind and tide.

We are sailing mid-week to avoid crowds and the show we must be putting on at times, especially when docking.  But we may continue the mid-week sails cause we like the solitude it offers.  When the summer ends and the wife has to go back to teaching, and I run low on vacation time we shall try the weekends.  I hear after Labor Day the crowds disappear.

Steve