We launched the boat at Bert Jabins in April. The boat was located deeper into the marina on land away from the launch basin. I was walking back and forth doing tasks, and I didn’t pay attention to the crew that was doing the lift off the stands. I was happy to see the boat moving down the alley on the lift and reach the basin. Then I became very agitated because the crew set the forward lift strap right over top of my forward instruments. That really lit me up, because these guys are the best. They should have known better and checked this. I remember the words that I used, and I wish I wasn’t so vocal with them. Once the boat was launched, I quickly forgot about it.
The forward looking sonar instrument was straight and ready to read signals. And here is the new LIFT vinyl stickers that I added (long after the launch date). Hopefully, we don’t repeat that mistake in the future.
It was a quick motor sail trip up the Chesapeak from Back Creek to Maryland Yacht Club on the Potomac (Rock Creek). The boat sat for a while as we had so many land-based activities going on in April and May, and we still had to install sails and finish a few projects. We were gearing up for a 3-day shakedown cruise with our friends on Memorial Day weekend.
The Memorial Day cruise would include an overnight stay at Tilghman Point followed by an overnight stay in Lloyd Creek on the Wye River. Getting there was the fun part. We had excellent and steady W/NW breeze all the way down to Tilghman Point and sailed with 1 reef in the main and a partially-reefed genoa. It was a sleigh ride down with Skyward hitting 10.1 knots just South of the US50 Bay Bridge on a starboard tack. The new preventer system at the bow worked as designed.
We went well past Bloody Point and jibed to get on a port side beam reach on the East Bay. We just flew across that body of water. We caught up to sailboats running the Annapolis to Miles River race. They were moving fast, too! Unfortunately, we heard a May Day call with a Man Over Board (MOB), but the crew was able to rescue the MOB with no reported issues. We were happy that we were wearing personal floating devices (PFDs) since the conditions were a bit spicy.
We tucked into Tilghman Point and anchored up for the night in one of the deeper areas. I didn’t realize just how sun and wind burnt my lips got on that trip. Next time I need to use some suscreen. The anchorage was relatively calm and peaceful with mostly nobody around us. We spent the evening eating, talking and playing games.
The next morning, we took the dinghy to shore. Along the way, the water got to be about 2 ft deep several hundred feet off the beach. We were surprised to find numerous schools of manta rays resting in this area. As we slowly moved across these shallow waters the manta rays would accelerate and move in unison with some breaching the surface. The family walked along the shore and found the tiny stream and cut of water that leads to the pond on Tilghman Point. We got back to Skyward and towed the dinghy to Lloyd Creek for the night.
We rested in about 8 feet of very calm water. Our friends showed up and they rafted up together. We took our dinner to their raft party, and we ate and talked for a long time. It was 2 years since we saw all of these people together and rafted up in the same spot. All aboard Skyward slept well. Skyward was fully shaken down, and the only casualty was the freezer. We changed the seawater pump, but I will have to investigate the refrigerant levels. After a 6 hour motor sail back to Maryland Yacht Club, we were very happy with all that we experienced and also exhausted.
The Loxodograph 