Friday:

After the morning classroom session, we ate lunch aboard and set out for some promising maneuvers. We managed to plow through the mud just in front of our slip. We tried some u-turns in a restricted alley near Dock E at Haven Marina, and the slight wind gave us (me) some difficulties as it was on our stern. Once I had to back the boat out since I could not get the bow turned into the wind. We continued u-turns out at the ends of the docks in the channel with better luck – still stirring up the bottom occasionally.

Friday evening, we all joined the Philadelphia Sailing Club (PSC), also there for’ skills weekend’, and an outdoor social in the outdoor bar (no service). We were then invited to join them at the Harbor Shack.

That evening, Bill Hungerford kept falling out of his bunk (poor design?) and decided to sleep on the salon floor. Naturally, Jim Hills had to use the head and walked on the ‘laundry’ that was piled on the floor.

Saturday:

The plan for the evening was to raft up with the PSC in Swan Creek, so we went shopping for frozen lasagna for the evening dinner.

Wind Dancer was having difficulty with their raw water pump, and with Jeff leaving Winnefox for business at home; we divided Julio’s crew up to continue training. We cast off at 9:30 (the morning class was canceled to take advantage of the tides) and returned to Dock E to demonstrate warping into a slip. The wind was becoming a problem again, but by moving west to another section, we were able to do u-turns and backing into slips with the help of the wind. We continued u-turns and straight-line backing in the channel then motored to Swan Creek to raft up with Winnefox for lunch.

We arrived after Winnefox was secured and decided to anchor also, then with anchor set, raft up. The first attempt resulted in our anchor dragging (later we found out that Swan Creek was notorious for that). The second time was a charm and we enjoyed a leisurely lunch with good friends.

After breaking the raft, we went for a sail. We were joined by Joe Brozek – he wanted to raft up. The winds were good and so was the sailing. After repeated warnings from Charlotte Chappel (at the helm) we managed to run aground before we got to Can 3. Jim Hills got us off and we explained to Charlotte she was the only one to go aground – since we were under power the many times before and it only counts when you are under sail. I don’t think she bought that.

We arrived at the Swan Creek location early and secured ourselves to two other PSC boats. There was some confusion at this point since these boats wanted to be on the outside to leave early – and so did we. The next few PSC boats to arrive were smaller, so they waited for all of us to get our act together. We solved this by talking Julio on Wind Dancer to anchor, then raft up to us. The rest of the fleet joined up to Julio’s boat.

The weather became an issue a bit later. Wind and thunderstorms were predicted, so the raft dissolved into smaller components with Julio the center boat on a three boat raft. I remained on his port side and a PSC boat on his starboard. The thunderstorms passed on either side of us and the wind was not much of a factor. We turned in around 11:00PM