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Launching Day: 2003
After much anticipation, launching day finally
arrived! For several reasons, I had decided to launch a week later
than last year--partly because the tides worked out better, and partly
because, last year, I experienced damage to the
boat during an early-season storm. This was something I
particularly wished to avoid, obviously!
In any event, by launching
a bit later, I missed virtually no good sailing weather--we had a very
damp, chilly spring (and still are, as of this writing). The
extended ashore time, however, left me feeling like I was twiddling my
thumbs, waiting for launch day. Amazingly, though, I managed to find
lots to do on the boat--but she could have been ready to go over the side
at just about anytime since the day I painted the bottom, back on April
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 I
made final preparations the day before launch, lowering the mast down off
the winter storage horses and lashing it to the pulpits, and giving the
hull and decks a final scrub and washdown. I double checked fuel and
fluid levels, checked all the hoses and seacocks, and lowered the radar
pole down for transport. With nothing further to do, I declared her
ready to go.
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 Bright
and early the next morning, my hauler, Steve Morse, arrived at 0645, and
with minimum effort soon had the boat loaded on his trailer. By 0715
or so, we departed for the 5 mile trip to Yarmouth Town Landing.
This was the first time I had launched Glissando here, up at the navigable
headwaters of the Royal River; in past years, I launched in Falmouth,
where the boat is stored. However, dissatisfaction with the boatyard
that I had used for the mast stepping previously--mainly centered around
billing charges and practices--I decided early on this spring to switch
boatyards and get my mast stepped at the well-reputed Royal River Boat
Yard in Yarmouth. Some uncertainty about the general process for
mast stepping there had caused me a bit of mild anxiety the night
before--just normal pre-launch jitters, that's all.
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 Mere
moments after Steve and the boat arrived in Yarmouth, Glissando was once
again afloat at the town landing--a quick check indicated that the
stuffing box was too loose, but nothing drastic. Steve rapidly
departed, leaving me alone at the quiet town landing. For the next
several minutes, I worked to raise the radar pole, launch the dinghy, and
get squared away. Then, I headed downriver a bit to the
boatyard. They weren't quite ready for me, so I tied up at the fuel
dock and finished untying the mast. At about 0830, the yard skiff
came alongside and towed me into the Travelift slip, and in short order
the mast was once again standing. Once it was more or less steady,
they towed me back to the fuel dock and left me there, where I spent 45
minutes or so neatening up, installing the boom, and getting ready for my
journey around to my mooring in Falmouth.
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 The
trip from Yarmouth to Falmouth involves heading out the narrow, tidal,
curvaceous Royal River, then around Littlejohn and Cousins Islands--an
overall distance of about 8 or 9 miles. Since I was alone, I had
worried overnight about the forecast chance of fog and reduced
visibility. As I headed out, though, the visibility was clear, with
a relatively bright, high cloud ceiling and no wind.
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 The
river's narrow channel is marked with a series of government buoys, but
they are widely spaced, and the channel tends to arc between the buoys--going
straight from buoy to buoy can get you in real trouble here. It's an
interesting trip, but not a journey I would want to make every time I
wished to sail. In a powerboat, it's OK--I used to keep a series of
three powerboats I owned up in the river.
Sidenote: I have
always been a sailor at heart, and grew up on sailboats, but for a time I
enjoyed buzzing around and fishing from these powerboats. Then I got
over it.
 At
the end of the channel, I could see all the way out Broad Sound to the
open ocean, and was pleased to note that it was all clear. Within
minutes, however, I began to realize that, inexorably, one by one the
outer islands were becoming lost to view. At first, I figured that
it would take 30 or more minutes for the fog to reach my position, but it
proved me wrong; before I had gone even half the distance from the last
buoy at the river to the first turn around the northeast corner of
Littlejohn Island, the fog--or, more accurately, heavy drizzle/light
rain--was upon me, reducing visibility to about 1/2 mile, at worst.
Nothing to worry about, fortunately--that's plenty of visibility.
Still, once I saw that it was indeed coming, I had stopped the boat (I was
alone, remember) to get my radar and laptop fired up, so that I would be
all ready to navigate home through whatever mother nature threw at
me. I wasn't worried about getting there, but was a bit apprehensive
about being forced into thick fog on my first day back on the water.
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 As
it turned out, I actually had a simply enjoyable trip, by myself in the
fog and rain. The wind remained calm, and I saw no other boats
except the Chebeague Island Ferry, which crossed my bow as I neared
the nun in the center portion of the channel between Littlejohn and
Chebeague.
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(I'll get a chartlet up here
soon, but don't have the program installed on this new computer yet.) |
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 The
fog/mist/drizzle/rain held up fairly steadily till I reached the mooring
field in Falmouth, after a pleasant and uneventful 1.75-hour trip from the
boatyard. My mooring ball was even installed, as I had asked
for--but in the past, the company that maintains my mooring has sometimes
been late, despite my always letting them know when I want it by. A
couple years ago, after a comedy of errors, they apologetically sent me a
$50 gift certificate to a local restaurant, and have been on top of things
ever since.
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Once back on the mooring, I
spent some enjoyable time (it's all enjoyable, back on the water) rigging
up the dodger, and bending on the sails. Then I spent some more time
straightening up the boat and making things shipshape--once the boat's
back in the water, I can't wait to get everything back where it belongs,
and turn it into a boat again--not a staging area. My friend Nathan,
anxious about his own launch the next day and even more anxious to get out
of work early, stopped down in the early afternoon, and I motored into the
dock to pick him up, since the launch wasn't yet operating and my mooring
is so far out that I didn't want to row both ways just for that. We relaxed
on the boat for a while, then rowed ashore.
This gave me the real
first opportunity to gaze upon the wonder that is my newly-struck
waterline. As you may recall, I took it upon myself to strike a
proper, level boottop and raised waterline last fall, after realizing that
the first one I did--when I used the molded-in scribe marks as a
guide--was hopelessly wrong.
If
you've forgotten, or don't recall reading about the process, please click
here.
At the risk of losing all
previous attempts I have made at humility, I have to say that my new
waterline absolutely rocks, and is completely perfect and what I was
striving for. I was so excited about how well, and how level and
even, it turned out that I could barely row. Look for some new
information and before-and-after photos on this site very soon, but for
now here is a fresh photo--my favorite from this young season, so
far--taken late in the day of launch, as we rowed in. |
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