Day 6 - the final half day of our sailing lessons

Whew!  I had every intention of posting our Day 6 update last night but, shamefully, our Saturday night in the fast lane consisted of going to Ybor City to enjoy some hard earned pizza and beer at 4:30 PM and that's pretty much where we crashed.  We were back at the hotel by 7:00 and fast asleep by.........8:30!!!!  It could have been the beer, it could have been exhaustion or it could have simply been the fact that we were sleeping on a comfortable king size bed for the first time in six nights.  Whatever the reason, we were out like a light!  I know, it's shameful.  I really wanted to catch up with a buddy of mine in Tampa but we just couldn't pull it together last night...

So, Saturday was our final half day on the boat.  Mark came on board a little before 8 AM and graded our tests.  As he'd suspected all along, we passed with flying colors!  Mark is truly a terrific instructor as he taught us things that were "by the book" but he also taught us some other equally effective tricks of the trade.

For instance, in sailing, there are a couple of different maneuvers for picking up a "man overboard" which are the quick stop and the figure eight.  By the way, I asked Mark why they call it MAN overboard - don't the women ever go over?  He then asked me if I knew what the #1 reason that causes someone (men) to fall overboard.  What do you think it is???  Well, if you guessed it's when men are peeing off the stern then you win a prize!!!!!!!  That's the #1 reason that people fall off the boat - and by "people" of course I mean men.  So ladies, no reason to be jealous of us when we go behind a tree or a bush.  At some point if we are on a boat then peeing in public will be our undoing...

Anyway, so each of the man overboard situations requires sailing away from the person in the water and that makes me a bit uncomfortable.  So, Mark showed us a method where we turn into the wind and backwind the jib so that the boat comes to a fast halt.  At that point, you turn the engines on and gently use a little reverse while the wind blows you right back to the person overboard.  It's awesome!  Here's us picking up our flag named Oscar - he evidently was peeing off our stern...

So, we passed our test and as a reward, we got the chance to perform more docking practice!  There was absolutely no breeze to speak of so it pretty much kicked our tails.  We performed four of these with each of  us getting to try a bow first docking situation and then a stern first attempt.  You'd think stern first might be more difficult but it's actually the preferred method as the weight of the boat is on the stern so you have much more control.  But why is it so laborious?  First, you must attach your bow line and your forward spring line to the same piling if going in bow first.  Then the captain uses those lines to bring the stern in and you can then attach your stern line and aft spring line.  Here's an attempt to show you the lines:

See the blue line going to the opposite cleat of the stern?  It doesn't start there.  It starts on the boat's cleat next to the piling and then you move it across to the other cleat.  It's heavy and even heavier when wet so on the fourth round of docking practice, these suckers are heavy!  Here's a shot of the red bow line which also starts on the cleat next to the piling and then, too, is moved across the boat.

Lastly, here's a shot of the forward spring line which is in it's final resting place.  It doesn't start here, either.  In fact, all four lines start in one place but then have to be moved to other places, sometimes multiple times!  You may have a hard time seeing this line - it's white and blue and leads alongside the boat to the left of the yellow throw float:

So, after three docking practices, we were spent.  As we worked thru the math as to how to now spring off the dock using only two lines (and how to free up the cleats for those two lines), we were tired, frustrated and a mess.  About that time, some jackass in a little motorboat eased up to us and yelled, "hey captain, can you move your boat to the other dock?"  Um, little man, we: A) have a class going on here; B) it's a public dock so first come first serve and C) DO YOU NOT SEE THE SIZE OF THIS CATAMARAN?  As it turned out, this jackass was the lead scout for a flotilla of elderly that suddenly was coming in all around us.  One of the boats was a large 45 foot motorboat that had a ton of people on it and you could tell they were confused as to what to do as the captain brought the boat in to dock.  Mark said, "let's sit back and watch them for a bit, shall we?"  LETS!  There was absolutely no communication between the captain and his passengers.  There was only one guy even holding a line and he looked bewildered as the captain slowly turned the boat completely around in a circle at the side of the dock.  This moron darn near beached the thing as we kicked back and laughed at this Cocoon Cluster.  Listen, we may not have our docking lines down to a fine science but after seen this kind of stupidity we suddenly felt a whole lot more knowledgeable - and strangely refreshed!!!!!

So at the end of the day we had both passed all of our tests so here's where we stand:  Beth has certifications in Basic Keelboat, Basic Cruising and a Catamaran Endorsement.  In addition to these, I have a Bareboat Cruising cert to go with my previous ASA 101 and 103 certifications.  What does all this mean?  We're ready to charter a boat and we can do so anywhere in the world that we want to go - so let's go sailing!