We were having a computer system installed at work and one of the engineers heard about my new found sailing hobby and strongly recommended I look into a West Wight Potter. These are boats with positive floatation (they can be filled with water and will still float - they have foam between the hull and the interior) which seemed like a nice idea given my lack of confidence around water and our just learning how to sail.
I searched on eBay... found a nice used one up for sale in nearby PA. The owner was even willing to tow it. So late in August, we walked around the corner to Olsen's Boat Yard and took delivery of a 1996 West Wight Potter 19' sailboat.
I should hasten to add that this little pocket cruiser (it sleeps 4 if you REALLY like each other) cost less than my camera. Still it was our boat and after loosing some sleep realizing I purchased a boat an don't even know if it floats, the Olsen crew put it in the water and I found myself on this weird red square "vessel" (I have always wondered what that was used for - I photographed it a lot from my deck) being taken out to my boat...
... viewing our condos from the bay for the first time... and finding myself in the middle of the mooring field.
The first couple of days I rowed out by myself and did some cleaning on the boat. (I should have done most of it while on land.) Then one fine day I rowed Vicky out to it... and we set sail. It was a gorgeous day, we sailed out across the bay, did a long slow loop and headed back, where we spent some more time cleaning (my cleaning was not up to Vicky's standards).
Finally, I rowed us back at sunset and we checked my iPad to find out where we had been.
The first trip being successful, we wanted to share the experience. Vicky's friend, Joyce, a daughter of Vicky's dad's colleague used to sell Pearson sailboats. She has a son, Pearson, to prove it. The next weekend where the tide was favorable, they were visiting and we took them out.
Pearson had mixed feelings about NJ's rule about kids under 12 wearing life preservers...
Vicky was still cleaning - I think the term "swabbing the decks" applied in this case, but we did find time to just enjoy ourselves.
Until Pearson, who slept soundly from the rocking of the boat, woke up and let us know that HE DID NOT LIKE THE LIFE PRESERVER! So we headed back.
We had another couple of sails late in the fall of 2013. The last one was a bit unnerving... we had planned to head to the north west corner of the bay to approach an old lighthouse. It was a windy day that got colder and more windy as the day progressed. We sailed for two hours. As the wind picked up, Vicky was having a little trouble controlling the boat - or so she claimed. When I went below to "use the facilities" suddenly the boat started lurching all around.
As the weather got cooler we bundled up, but after maybe 2 hours of sailing we didn't seem to be making headway. We could sail straight across the bay, but nothing we could do got us to the northwest. So after a while, we turned around and packed it in.
Looking at the iPad later, we could only confirm that we were zig zagging when we thought we were on a staircase tacking pattern. The boat didn't seem to be sailing properly so I hit the web to see if it was a problem with the sails, the rigging, or what. It turns out the consensus is that West Wight Potters are known to have difficulty pointing into the wind... especially with novice sailors.
One thing we both noticed with the Yacht(ette), was that it never really felt good. A small boat in the relatively protected Navesink River was fine... but a small boat out on the much more exposed Raritan Bay just felt too live (much too much rocking and rolling - without music).
We had some wonderful days out on the Yacht(ette) - it never was officially named - not to mention some incredible sunsets rowing back to the Olsen yard, but at the end of the season as it was hauled out of the water, I think Vicky was already contemplating how to get something larger without directly challenging "my boat."
While all this was taking place, we were exploring the Keyport Yacht Club next door to our condo complex. When we purchased the Yacht(ette), I knew that I didn't want to row out from Olsen's boat yard every time we wanted to go out on the boat. For one thing, getting me and Vicky out was comical enough... when it came time to board Pearson, his mom and his grandmother, I realized I'd have to do a side trip to the Keyport dock, and even then we were the evening's entertainment. We'd been watching the launch service at the Yacht club go back and forth all summer so we started checking out membership over there.
