Saratoga Sailing

In the beginning of September we got a treat that would lead to something even bigger. 

Our friend Rick has a beautiful 26 foot Hunter sailboat.  It was kept inside a storage unit so it had been well protected but it had not been sailed in 7 years.  We had both agreed that was unacceptable. 

He organized the trip for us to fly up to upstate New York and go sailing on Saratoga Lake where the boat is kept.  

A couple years ago he and another friend Josh had went through the entire boat fixing things and refinishing all the wood. She only needed to be rigged correctly since things had been disassembled for the redo.  She has new gps/depthfinder, new compass, new heeling gauge, new radio with new speakers, new 9.9 horsepower yamaha kicker motor with a bolt on remote throttle in the cockpit.  Basically she was fresh as a daisy and dying to get her keel wet.  

It took us the better part of the afternoon to make this happen.  We did a test raise on the mast to make sure everything was right.  Then because we didn't want to go through the whole process again we laid the mast down while still pinned in the block and drove down the street to the marina with the mast hanging way off the back of the boat.  It was a little tense. Then we scrambled to raise the mast and splash the boat at the ramp.  

It was labor day and Saratoga had its share of people and every type of watercraft represented.  We actually weren't the only sailboat out that day and tacked back and forth across the lake on similar lines next to some other daysailers.  The boat handled beautifully and was really spacious and enjoyable for the 4 of us.  We spent a few hours the first day and then an hour or so the next day sailing and cruising around Saratoga.  All too soon though our time was up.

It was on the last day before heading back to the airport that out of the blue an offer was made to us.  It was an offer we couldn't refuse and it was determined that the boat would be ours!  It was not something we were expecting we would be able to do and we were overwhelmed.  As we flew back to Florida we began hatching plans on how to get her back home. It's only a 1200 miles trip right..... Stay tuned!