Ginny aboard she and her husband Kevin's 1986 Pacific Seacraft Dana 24, Cold Feet.

Today, Three Sheets Northwest readers share stories about the first year of a woman-owned sailboat, a diesel engine misadventure, a forgotten centerboard and a fellow angler who cut it too close. We’ll be running the final two installments of story entries over the next few days.

Kevin and Ginny
So there we were two rookie captains a year into ownership of our first boat and on our first extended cruise. Fighting light winds and a rising tide, we tried to make it to Bellingham for engine repairs. Our 18 hp diesel started overheated two days earlier on Sucia Island. By all rights we were adrift.

We bounced like a ping pong ball from Matia, Clark and Orcas Islands as we caught just enough breeze in our heavy cruising sails to produce forward momentum, then we’d get about 10 minutes out of the engine making a quarter mile or so before being pushed backwards from the tide.

After several hours Ginny was growing extremely frustrated by the east coast of Orcas Island. My lovely wife swore there was a house mocking her as we, yet again, drifted backwards past it. We finally decided to try Vessel Assist, I felt defeated. A sailboat calling Vessel Assist for engine problems, we had failed. Should we even own a sailboat?

Vessel Assist quoted us a significant price and after a quick three-second deliberation Ginny said, “Absolutely not! I don’t care if we drift through the night or anchor for a few days, we’ll wait for wind.”

Sweet — we hadn’t failed yet.

With time now on my hands, I dove into the sail locker and extracted a … spindrifter … We had never flown this particular sail and I figured no time like the present to figure it out. The sail was significantly lighter and quickly filled with wind. We were ecstatic. Our spindrifter, now named Lucky, drove us to safety … just not to Bellingham. We ended up in Blaine, where there were marine mechanics, just no Yanmar mechanics or parts.

Up early the next morning, we dissected Duke the Diesel in an attempt to determine what was causing it to overheat. Armed with tools, sparse spare parts, and a Diesel for Dummies book, we drained the coolant, tested the thermostat and removed the heat exchanger core. Unable to determine Duke’s ailment, we started cold-calling mechanics in Bellingham, looking for a Yanmar specialist. Secretly, I started wondered how we would make it 100 miles south and back to work in five days.

Google led us to Wayne at Tri-County Diesel in Bellingham. He was awesome!! Wayne immediately walked us through Duke’s symptoms, quickly identifying the most probable causes. Picking at the mixing elbow with a coat hanger, we finally broke through the carbon build-up. With sparse parts onboard and no local Yanmar mechanics, we didn’t have the parts needed to put Duke back together.

Thankfully Wayne had everything we needed. Hearing we had no local transportation, he graciously offered to meet us in Blaine. He swore it was “kind of” on his way home. Refusing to take money for the above and beyond delivery, I happily sent him off with our last three cold Sam Adams. We were back on the water and back in vacation mode by noon the next day.

Larry Husty
While fishing with other boats in the area, one of them cut across my bow and I knew my downriggers would catch his line. I waited till I heard his reel start to sing and then pulled up my downrigger. There was a fish on his line, so I flipped it into my boat and dropped his line into the water. I don’t think he even knew what happened.

Irene Sandberg
Okay, in the early ‘70s, I had a Penguin sailboat, which I just loved. So, being a new and very excited sailor, I invited two of my dear female friends to go sail on Lake Union in Seattle with me. It was a nice, breezy Seattle summer day. We got out into the middle of the lake and I couldn’t figure out why we kept slipping to the east side of the lake, where there were some very large boats! Finally a Kenmore Air float plane taxied by and asked if we ladies needed help!

It was then that I noticed that I had FORGOTTEN to put down the center board!! We all had a good laugh at my expense. The rest of the day went very well. I will never again forget the importance of that centerboard!

Deborah O’Connor
The first year of “woman-owned sailboat:” anchoring practice is “picnic anchoring” with lunch, then there’s “practice heave-to” with lunch, sailing with just the genoa – with lunch, and sailing under just a reefed main, with snacks.

In the first year, the perfect pump has been purchased and installed by the alcohol tank, so now the stovetop works for the kettle and the oven heats pastry. The first year every moment is practice, punctuated by food. All this practice, with all this food, yields a sense of comfort and confidence finally.

But of course the real work of the first year is learning to dock the boat in various situations. Confidence improves!

Springtime in the second year of ownership arrives: When backing confidently out of the slip, a stern line still attached gives a mighty pivot to the departure. Men surround my slip area and one is right there. “You might want to take this with you,” he says, handing me the stern line.

Everyone loves to feel useful and needed, so I think I made his day.

About Deborah Bach

Deborah Bach is the editor and co-founder of Three Sheets Northwest. She is an avid sailor and long-time professional journalist. You can find Deborah aboard Three Sheets, an Island Packet 38, with her husband Marty and their cat Lily.

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