‘The Force’
We have a new sailing addition to the family. If you’ve been keeping up with our blog, you will recall that on July 4 we sailed past the Jr Sailing Olympics happening on Pensacola Bay. At that time, Blake (my son) recognized that the kids sailing were about his own age and he then asked if he could have his own boat to learn to sail. After that, I set out to find him a boat that would work well as a beginner boat, but yet wouldn’t have a lot of money into just in case he ran it into rocks or decided that he didn’t want to sail on his own just yet after-all.
Fast forward about a month and I received an email from MikeG over at SailingPensacola.com who said he had an old Naples Sabot that his son was too big for and he would just like to recover his garage space. The boat did need a little fiberglass work, a leeboard, running rigging, and a mainsail. My brother Brice and I went over Monday to take it off Mike’s hands.
Blake and I spent Tuesday evening making the minor fiberglass repair, fabricated a leeboard, and even fabricated our own mainsail. Blake christened thee ‘The Force’. We still need to paint and pick up a trailer to transport, but the vessel is seaworthy.
Brice came over Wednesday morning to pick us and ‘The Force’ up with his pickup. We then headed to Bayou Grande in Navy Point for a test sail.
Here Blake and I are getting situated.
Blake’s at the helm, although you can’t tell from the pic.
We sailed back in so Blake could take his Uncle Brice out for a sail.
Here’s a video. Keep in mind that this is a Jr Sailing boat, so it will sail (and sit) much better with just Blake in it. We plan to have me follow in our dinghy next time and let him sail by himself.
