Skipper?

If you have heard the rumors, they’re all true–I bought a sailboat.  It’s a small little dinghy-type sailboat.  It fits on top of the car.  Our neighbor Rob stopped by today to help us get it off of the car and into the back yard, and then he stuck around to help me figure out how to rig it.  Awesome is about all that I can say.  I can’t wait to get it out onto the water in Michigan! 

Tomorrow, I need to spend a little bit of time picking-up some safety gear at our friend Jay’s marina (well, it isn’t his, but he works there, and he’s a pretty darn cool guy).  I also want to build a set of supports to better anchor this boat to the roof.  I already have it worked-out as to how I’m going to build them.  I need to get a section of 2×4, some U-bolts, and some eye bolts.  I’m also going to pick up some additional bungees, as I plan to build a small shelf on it to hold the mast. 

I haven’t written much about this here, but I’ve been interested in learning how to sail for a long time.  I’ve been interested in it since before I met Jenny, actually.  I just never had the gumption to do anything about it.  I started studying for my skipper’s license, which would qualify me to eventually do bareboat charters for fairly large yachts, if we ever wanted to do an on-the-water vacation.  I’m hoping to use this small boat to learn a lot and improve my skills, with the aim of maybe someday being able to get a slightly larger sailboat that we could move around by trailer. 

… or maybe we could win the lotterly, and Jenny and I will buy a large yacht and live on the Great Lakes during the summer.  🙂  hahaha.  Yeah, right.  When there’s a contest with just two entries, I’m usually the losing entry.  Oh well.  There are always dreams, though, right? 

I hope to have some pictures of this from its maiden voyage(s) in Michigan.  I wanted to take a picture of it while we were rigging it in the back yard today, but it was getting dark by the time we finished everything.  Big thanks to Rob for spending his evening helping me to figure out which hardware went where. 

jonathan