FIRST SEA TRIAL ON BENEVOLENCE

We took Benevolence out on her first sea trial on

Friday, Dec 14th. We weren't sure we would go out as the winds were blowing and it was cloudy. We offered Dennis to go with us as we felt we he would enjoy it and that we wouldnt be this far without him.

With camera in hand, I video taped. Brett steered her, I hoisted the mast and ran the main sheet. Dennis helped when he could with the main sail and steering. The boat did very well. Even with poor sail shape, she pointed high into the wind and reacted well to every one of Brett's moves. The engine did well, even with the too-large prop. She backed right out of her slip and reared into action. She plowed right through where we wanted to go. We went out past the main markers, to the first marker and tacked around. It was BLOWING. We decided that it was blowing much more than the 8-10 knots that the weather report predicted. We tacked with only the main sail and amazingly, she took very well to it. Boat's don't generally tack with just a main, they usually need a headsail to get her all the way around.

As predicted, the strong East wind was blowing us toward the shallows on the port side of the channel, so we started up the engine and motor sailed back. We were out appx 32 minutes. Brett coasted her right into her slip without a problem.

She is in excellent boat as we hoped. Brett and I were absolutely exhausted from the stress and excitement. Dennis really enjoyed himself. I was so glad that we invited him to go with us. We found out that the winds were blowing 18 knots with gusts to 26. So it was definitely blustery out there. The whole RV park and yacht club missed it!! No pictures but I did get video.. We hope to go out again on our boat today, my 30th birthday.

It was extremely exciting and she did so well...