I went out to Bluebird on the Delaware River yesterday afternoon, readied her for a sail and then motored back to the dock at the Red Dragon Canoe Club where, once the dock lines were fastened, I took out my cell phone and called Monica. In about three minutes, she was coming down the gangway onto the floating dock.
It was a perfect afternoon. The wind was from the northwest, and since the river here travels from southwest to northeast. that meant that we would have a beam reach. We restarted the outboard, and with Monica at the tiller, I shoved Bluebird's bow toward midstream and hoped for the best.
Since I bought the O'Day Mariner two years ago, Monica has had some disparaging comments about our need for "another boat". I had hopes this sail would result in some fondness in her heart for this particular vessel.
The jib was already up when Monica steered on a slant toward the shipping channel while I raised the mainsail. Then she steered upriver, toward the Burlington-Bristol Bridge, about a mile and a half away.
Bluebird behaved splendidly. In light gusts, she skimmed the surface, always stable and tracking perfectly.
After a bit more than a mile, we came about and sailed downstream, with the current of the falling tide, and in no time we were offshore from the riverfront mansions of Edgewater Park.
Monica by now was remarking on what a great sail we were having, and what a really nice boat Bluebird is.
The sail lasted a bit less than two hours, I think. But the feeling was timeless. You sit low in Bluebird's cockpit, never needing to hike, with the coaming as a backrest. Your feet rest on teak floorboards, under which rainwater slops. I think of her as an old-fashioned boat and of the sailing arrangement as very traditional.
Monica thought her new boat was perfect.