First Sail of the Peregrine Peregrine is a small sailboat, a West Wight Potter 19, almost brand new. Most days she sits on her trailer in a space at a nearby marina, covered with blue canvas. Last weekend we went for our first sail. We (my wife Christina and I) got to the space about 1015. We took the cover off Peregrine, put the motor on the back, stowed things below, and otherwise fiddled for 45 minutes getting ready. Finally we hitched up the trailer, and towed it the quarter mile to the nearby boat ramp. Little known to the non-boating public, ramps are one of the best sources of free entertainment available anywhere. This particular one is blessed with a small group of retired gentlemen who, every weeekend when the weather is fair, sit on convenient benches and enjoy the show, freely offering their advice and a running commentary to anyone who will listen, or to the air, if necessary. Fortunately, it was late enough so that we missed the early-morning fishing crowd -- there were only a few people around. We pulled around the ramp parking lot to get into position to back in. A young fellow was ahead of us, so I politely pulled in behind him. "My car won't start," he shouted. "That's OK," I said. "I can make it around you." I cranked the wheel, pulled around, and got into position to back down the ramp. A guy on a bike slowly rolled by. "That's the most expensive looking Potter I've ever seen!" he said. Compliment or insult, I wondered, when a crusty old salt with an alcoholic gaze approached my window. "Heading out to the Farallones, huh?" he asked. I said "Sure", laughing uncertainly. "Well, you can leave your boat for me when you get back. Har Har Har". He was clearly amused by his joke. Another car with a tiny boat backed down the other side of the ramp. Old Salt wandered over to that car. "Heading out to the Farallones, huh?", I heard, before my attention was occupied elsewhere. We were in the water by 1115. Parked the car, mounted the rudder, fiddled with the motor. Next to us was a large power boat with two motors -- a big one, maybe 80 or 100 horsepower, and a smaller spare. They were having trouble getting the big one started. I was having trouble getting ours started, too. Pull, pull, pull on the starting rope. Adjust the choke. Check the fuel line. Pull, pull, pull. Nothing. Next door they had an electric starter, which whined briefly every time they tried the switch. A cloud of choking blue smoke would gush from the back, and they would fiddle with the controls on their motor, before trying again. I grinned hesitantly at the owner. His eyes briefly focused in my direction, but there was no glimmer of communication. I looked away out into the estuary at all the boats happily heading out to the bay. Oops -- stupid me. I had forgotten the fuel tank air vent. I turned the little knob that opened it, and air hissed in to the vacuum I had so energetically created. The motor kicked over on the next couple of pulls. I twisted the throttle a couple of times, and the motor purred. The man on the boat next to us studied his motor intently. Peregrine, I found, doesn't turn very well going in reverse. Luckily there was nothing in the way. A thought appeared in my mind, as I backed across the traffic, that maybe I should have put down the keel first -- Peregrine has a retracting keel that you raise and lower with a winch. But there were boats all over the place, most of them aimed at me, and the thought disappeared. Control was much better going forward, though, and after only a moments awkardness, we joined the long line of boats heading to the bay. I had Christina hold the tiller while I turned on the depth guage. It registered about 30 feet. I watched it for a little bit. Suddenly it read 2.4 feet, then went back to 30. This was a little disconcerting, but I remember reading about an adjustment that can be made for these symptoms. Next time for that. Thoughts of the keel returned: I cranked on the winch, and the 300 pound keel creaked down into position. It took a peaceful hour to reach the mouth of the estuary. We pulled off into (I think) the entrance to the Oakland Middle Harbor, to hoist the mainsail. There was very little wind -- maybe a couple of knots -- and the main was almost limp as I raised it. The only sound was the subdued "Putputputput" of the motor, idling in neutral -- a reserve, in case we drifted somewhere bad. The sail bellied a bit as I unfurled the jib, and it slowly pulled out on the sheets. I dropped a pretzel crumb into the water and watched it drift backward. Yes, we were moving! Ceremoniously, I turned off the motor. We sailed maybe a hundred yards, I fiddled with the sails -- at one point we got up to maybe 3 knots. Unfortunately, as we got to the wind shadow of the banks of the estuary, we slowed to almost nothing. CF pointed out we had to start back. My original plan was to sail back down the estuary with the wind on our starboard stern. But since there was almost no wind, I started the motor, hoping we would pick up some wind on the way. About halfway back I saw a windsock that wasn't completely limp, and the wind was coming from directly behind us -- of course we couldn't feel the wind since we were motoring faster than it was blowing. I stopped the motor and got the sails out wing and wing, and drifted along at about half a knot. CF pointed out that we didn't have all day. Sigh. So I started the motor again, and furled the jib. I tried arranging some bungee cords to hold the tiller in place -- seemed to work pretty well, except that it tended to veer a little. There were boats all over the place, so I couldn't experiment too much. The sun was warm, and Christina fell asleep with her hat pulled over her face. As we approached the ramp I nudged her awake. Coming in to the dock she went up on deck to arrange the fenders, and we came in to the dock with a gentle bump. She jumped lightly to the dock with the bow line in hand. We walked the boat down the dock towards the ramp, and tied it down. Looking good, I thought. Some pre-teen boys with extremely short haircuts were standing around, taking turns playing around on a raucus Personal Water Craft (the aquatic equivalent of a dirt bike). One of them walked up to Peregrine and said "Wow, what a big boat! I'll bet it goes really fast!" "Sailboats don't go fast", I replied, as I went up to get the trailer. One of his friends on the PWC kicked up roostertails in the estuary. I carefully backed the trailer down into the water. It was a little crooked, and pointed in to the dock -- I wasn't sure I could get Peregrine lined up correctly. Other boats were starting to come in, though, so I thought I better get on with it. But try as I might I couldn't get Peregrine to slide on to the trailer. It seemed like it was getting hung up on some part of the trailer, or maybe it could't line up on the first roller. Perhaps the trailer wasn't deep enough? But of course I didn't want to submerge the rear end of the 4Runner. I backed up a few inches, then tried to pull the boat onto the trailer. No luck. My feet were wet. Out a little further. Again, no luck. My tennis shoes were full of water, and the sloshed discouragingly as I went back to the car. Muddy salt water soaked the drivers' side floor mat. Further, and ever further, I backed out into the water. My pants were getting soaked from wading from trailer winch to drivers seat. What would happen, I wondered, if the brakes slipped, and the whole thing rolled backwards uncontrollably? "Maybe you need to be a little further out," a bystander helpfully suggested. Desperate, I cranked extra hard on the trailer winch, hoping to overcome Peregrine's strange resistance. A thought -- maybe if I had Christina jump up on to the bow of the boat that would jog things loose. She obligingly got on the boat and jumped up and down. "Whap!" -- the worn polypro winch line snapped. The boat bobbed backward. It wasn't tied to anything! Visions of Christina and Peregrine drifting out of control into the estuary flooded my mind. "Grab that line and jump on the dock, quick", I said. Unfortunately, there were several lines, and the one she grabbed wasn't the one I had in mind...fortunately, though, it was connected to the boat. Christina carefully pulled the boat in, while I frantically looked around, trying to see if anything was damaged. No. And the winch line just broke at the knot. Good. All I would have to do was retie it. I climbed out on the trailer to the boat, pulling hard on the line to get enough slack to reach the boat. The winch handle whipped around and rapped me viciously across the knuckles. I looked at my hand. No broken skin. The fingers all moved ok. "I'll remember that," I thought, as I carefully tied a neat bowline to the bow. While all this was going on at least two other boats came and went on the other side of the ramp. Now, out in the estuary a big Coast Guard boat with flashing blue lights hailed a tattered ski boat, and they all started moving in the direction of our dock. More audience, I thought. I had Christina hold both the bow and stern lines in one hand, with a pole to push with in the other -- I was convinced that it was a matter of getting the to get the boat correctly lined up over the trailer rollers. I got in the car and cranked the wheel hard over as I backed a few more inches, trying to get the trailer pointing a little straighter. Back to cranking on the trailer winch, while Christina carefully held things in exact alignment. Still, Peregrine would not slide up on the trailer. By now four Coasties were standing on the dock, talking to to the driver of the speedboat, an embarassed middle aged black man with his wife and several children. He was not occupying all of their attention, I feared. Perhaps they would want to inspect Peregrine... A helpful lady from the boat waiting behind us said "The prop is down!". Crazy woman, I thought, what does she mean "prop"? There's the outboard motor, but that could't be a problem... but, I thought...there's the KEEL! I absorbed this sudden insight. Everything was so obvious now. A trim young woman in a powder blue Coast Guard uniform looked my way. The keel winch was back in the cockpit, so I gracefully vaulted from the trailer up on to the bow. I heard a sodden, subdued "rip" as my soaked pants gave way, opening up the entire crotch. I kept my face down as I scrambled back to the cockpit. A couple of experimental turns on the keel winch confirmed that the keel was indeed trapped against the trailer. I scrambled back to the trailer winch, and let Peregrine slide out a couple of feet. Perhaps, I thought, if I ignored the gigantic hole in my pants other people would as well. Trying to be inconspicuous, I made my way back to the cockpit and started cranking on the winch to raise the keel. I took the moment to look around. The dock was crowded with people -- the Coast Guard crew, the hapless object of their attention and his family, a couple of boatloads waiting behind me, another boatload on the other side of the dock, several stray teenagers, and a few curious bystanders enjoying the scene. No one seemed to be looking at me, for some reason. I put the keel safety bolts in place, and climbed back to the trailer winch. Christina came over and whispered "Did you know your pants were ripped?" I nodded. This was a good sign, I thought -- obviously my strategy of aggressively ignoring my tattered trousers was working. Peregrine slid gently and easily into position. I sloshed around to the drivers seat, started the motor, and pulled out of the water. Christina tossed a couple of trailing lines into the boat, and hopped in the passenger side. We slowly rolled down the road towards our trailer parking space, leaving the grateful crowd behind...