The maiden voyage of the SS Rooney occurred July 4th with Captain Rick at the helm.
Rick bought this sailboat about 8 years ago. While he had initially done some work on it, he had never taken it out in the water.
The poor thing laid out in back of the garage and gathered grime while critters stored acorns in the hull.
We’ll never get those out.
So Rick had decided that Monday would be the day to see if it was seaworthy.
Or lakeworthy, as our case is up in the Northwoods.
But first, we had to figure out how to rig the mast. And believe me when I tell you that there is no copy of an owner’s manual anyway on the interwebs. ANYWHERE. I know, I looked. And looked. And when I was done, I looked some more. Finally, I came upon a sight that had pictures of this type of boat and delved back to the ones in the 1980’s where I estimated this boat originated from. (I only got that time period from the gazillion non-manual websites that I came upon that even mentioned this type of boat.)
We’re good with visuals, so we pieced a few of them together and got the general concept and crossed our fingers that it would work.
So off to the beach with a boat landing we went. Of course there were tons of people there to witness this event, being a holiday and all. And you can bet that plenty of them knew Rick. This was going to be interesting.
And not, I did not participate on the first excursion. I figured that having one person figure out the general workings of this boat was better than 2 of us fumbling around, cursing, and generally paving the way for divorce court was not my idea of fun. Plus, if he tipped it, I didn’t want to be involved with the water part.
The lake was a little down, so he had to tow it out to deeper water in order to attach the rudder and keel. It probably didn’t hurt to get past all the swimmers too.
Alley oop!
And away we go! It was the perfect conditions for learning about how to run this thing. The wind wasn’t very strong, but he didn’t need a lot to get that thing cruising.
And then it happened. The wind caught the sail and he didn’t get the craft leveled out in time and ended up in the drink. I guess the boat wanted to show him who was boss.
But when you fall off a horse, you have to get right back in the saddle.
Before I knew it, he was sailing that thing as if he had been doing it for years.
There was still a scare…
…or two, but he kept her upright. I may or may not have had to suppress a gasp a time or two.
After about 40 minutes, he decided to come ashore, and even had some kids giving him help.
He was happy with his adventure, and I’m sure that we’ll be taking many more trips to the lake so he can master his art of sailing.
This little guy even came buy to congratulate Rick on a job well done.
Or maybe he was just looking for his stash of acorns.
10 Responses to “Who Needs Captain Phil”
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I think the squirrel is a pirate trying to take over the boat w/~sandyrooney~sandyrooney~sandyrooney~sandyrooney acorn’s inside the hull. He swam right up to the rudder and I chased him away…boy he looked mad. Other than that sailing was fun. I can see how they were able to cross vast distances using this mode of transportation. When the wind blows you can get her going quite fast, and when the wind stops, you have to sit and wait for it to come up again, and when it does you better be ready. Now I want a bigger boat……….LOL hint hint……….. Oh another very cool aspect of this kind of vessel….no gas or oil to cart to the lake.
You have a lot more lessons on this one to even hope for a bigger one, dear 😉
I loved this one, Sandy! I went sailing with friends last summer on Lake Pepin, and learned that you certainly need to know your stuff when sailing. Much more so than with a regular motor boat. I was pretty impressed. What lake was Rick sailing on? We hope to come by your place and “bother you” when we are up in August.
Oh – who is Captain Phil?
Hey, You guys (Rick) had an incredible run for a first time sail- looks like a lot of fun, something Im afraid to try myself, as I dont know a lot about the particulars of actually doing it. And I have to say, after the kids new to tubing saw him tip and climb right back on and go to it, he was the object lesson of the day- when the tube throws you off, get right back on and do it again!! By the way, what a beautiful boat, me, Dawn Marie, and Roy were all admiring!
It was fun to watch him! We went on Grindstone Lake which is near our home. Captain Phil is from the TV show Deadliest Catch, which I’m really getting into, even though Phil is dead now. Can’t wait to see you next month!!
He really did have a great group of supporters that day! If you ever want to give it a try, I’m sure that Rick will be happy to let you use the boat.
It is christened the Land Yacht no more!!! 😉
LOL Smart a@@@@@@@@………..
Heehee
Hey, you cant christen the boat the ‘land yacht’- thats what Rick calls my truck, and I kinda like it!