Heaven help us!
Don and Renae Shore had flown down from Minnesota to join us in Florida for a week’s cruise, to experience the gentle art of sailing – or at least, that’s what they thought!
It was only going to be a quick jaunt up or down the Intra Coastal Waterway, on our 45ft brigantine schooner Britannia. The ICW is an ideal place for newbie sailors and to test the extensive modifications and fittings I’d installed over the past year. There was also a possible excursion out into the Atlantic ocean if things went well.
The Shores had never been on a sailboat before, and they wanted the experience – such as it could ever be in a week on the ICW – to see if they liked sailboats, with a view of possibly buying one themselves eventually.
After they’d stowed their gear I showed them how to flush the electric toilets, (and why not to drop anything else down the loo). I showed them how to operate the shower, with words of caution about leaving running water and lights on.
Due to their inexperience I insisted they wear lifejackets. It’s just as easy to trip and fall overboard in a marina as under way, and I would much sooner fish somebody out there than from a swaying boat. I then started them off with refitting the roller furling jib, fore staysail and ‘tweenmast staysail. After this I showed them how to coil a rope and heave it ashore, tie a few knots and bend a line
