Let's have a go

It's my second day with the boat, and my buddy Ryan and I, stoked on being sailors now--and a little disappointed with our demonstrated sailing ability yesterday--are hitting the water again.

This time, I've re-read key parts of some of my sailing books and I'm pretty sure we're gonna fly this time. Let's go.

After motoring out into the middle of the bay, I point into the wind and we get started. Mainsail up (boy, that electric winch is handy!) . Check. Boom free. Check. turn 90 degrees to wind. Check. Sheet in mainsail until...shit! We're moving! The engine is off and look at that--3 knots. Woo Woo! This is easy...

Stoked, but still a little unsatisfied, we decided to unroll (furl, whatever) the jib and have a go with that thing. I chose a winch, put a couple of [clockwise] turns on it and let Ryan crank away. The jib--genoa, apparently--isn't even all the way unfurled and we're already noticeably accelerating. Nice!

Headsail fully unfurled and sheeted in somewhat appropriately and making nearly 7 knots, we celebrate thoroughly happy with ourselves and with the fact that we are such superb sailors.

Our celebration is short-lived, though, since we quickly run out of water and need to come about before we end up on the rocks. We've never had to do this before, but no problem. I start to turn, he releases the working sheet, and starts hauling in the lazy one. Voila! Now we are sailing the other way. Damn, this sailing thing seems pretty easy.