Monday, September 24, 2007

Stardate 61730.51 - Coastal Cruising Pictures



As I mentioned in my last post, I took the ASA's Coastal Cruising standard this past weekend and successfully passed. We went out on Gratitude, a J/105 owned by the Manhattan Sailing Club. 105 means 10.5 meters, or approximately 32 feet and indicates the boat length. The J/105 is a racer, and not really a cruising boat (which is what I am interested in) however she was perfectly acceptable for this course and was quite responsive (even if you wouldn't want to spend a week sleeping on her).

We started in North Cove and then went over to Liberty Marina to take on fuel and to practice docking procedures. Right after we finished with that, it started to rain. The forecast was for 80 and sunny, but the instructor wisely told us to bring a waterproof jacket. We then practiced anchoring in the rain, and finally stopped to eat in the pouring rain.


The rain finally eased up a bit as we started our trip down to New Jersey (Atlantic Highlands). We passed under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and slowly headed to our marina for the night.

After spending the night in NJ, we were greeted by beautiful weather on Sunday - sunny and warm. It made for a great day for practicing man overboard drills and jibing. Here I am running the mainsheet.


Here I take the helm under the watchful eye of the instructor.


There was a lot of traffic but a lot of great shots to be had as we returned to North Cove to conclude the course.


Jose took all these great shots, and you can see more of them by clicking here. Thanks, Jose!!

NYC

1 comment:

JamesF said...

Jose took some good pictures. I especially liked the sunset one with the sailboat to the left of the setting sun.