Picked up the boat from Schooner Creek Boat Works on April 1, 2010. She looked very happy to have a clean bottom and waxed sides. The greased prop helped. I noticed immediately the difference when the engine turned off. There was vary little drag and her carry was much more. Very nice.

We held our practice sail this Thursday, April 15th. We had our misadventures. Really only two. The crew, Bill, Chuck, KD, and myself are adjusting to each other. Bill and KD made a good cockpit team with Bill leading the pair. Chuck took to the foredeck to avoid the chaos of the cockpit. The San Juan 28 has a small cockpit for a 28 foot boat. Four people can sit cosily in it, but sailing gets it quit crowded very fast.

The first misadventure was when the port jib sheet overran itself on the wench. At least it happened at practice. We were able to use a fid and pry the sheet over the wench to get a loop free. Once that happened, we were able to get another loop and then free the line. But not after having the several hundred boats out there pass us in the non-race (just kidding).

The second misadventure was suddenly presented us by a long loud toot from a tug. Those barges on the river are ever present and sneak up on the unaware quite silently. We had just practiced rounding the upwind mark at buoy 2. We were headed over to the Oregon side when after just settling in to a broad reach, the toot happened. The tug with 4 barges was about 500 ft downstream and coming at us pretty fast. So we turned tail and ran back to above the buoy for another practice rounding the mark. Discretion being the better part of being run over by a barge.

The practice weather could not have been better. There was the normal evening breeze of 5 knots from the west. There were a few other boats out there practising or at least enjoying the evening. The wind died about 7:40 so we were out there about two quick hours. We then retired to the marina where we enjoyed a round of beers to celebrate the beginning of another racing season.

Thanks, crew to a great evening. I am looking forward to the season even more than before.