It was many moons from buying our boat to the first sail. But sail it we did – sort of. Our boat is a gorgeous 1976 Westail 32 named ‘Makroro’ (how to pronounce that properly, we’re still not sure), complete with moon and sun lead lighted portholes!
We purchased the boat in Manly QLD, but we live down in Newcastle NSW. So after finalising the sale, it was some weeks before we excitedly travelled up to take her out for her first sail. When we got there, I decided that the first thing we should do was to plumb the head to the holding tank (that’s the toilet for all those non-boaties out there). This was a bad idea. About four days later, after many trips to the Chandlery (the boat supplies shop), and many bouts of swearing and being covered in poop, we realised it was a way bigger job than we’d bargained for. So we said “F*** it, let’s hold our bowels and just go sailing already!”.
Our boat is known for it’s poor manoeuvrability, so trying to get out of our berth without hitting our neighbours boats had us apprehensive. But we bit the bullet and did it, and it wasn’t so bad after all. So finally, we were out on the semi-open water in our brand new (old) 32 foot yacht, and then the wind pissed off and left us bobbing on the water “as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean”. We had no choice but to start the engine and motor off to Peel Island in Moreton Bay.
Apart from the beautiful sunset it was a little uneventful, so the next morning we started to motor back to the marina to plan our next trip out. On our way back the wind picked up a bit and we were able to put the sails up and do some actual real proper sailing. Now those of you who know us will probably know that Tom is the sailor and I’m not, in fact I’m terrified of the sea. So when the wind really picked up, I started to shit myself, despite the head still being disconnected. We heeled over to what felt like about 50 degrees but was probably only about 10 and I felt sure that I was going to go flying over the side of the boat. It was about this time that we started to realise that we’ll need to secure things inside the boat a little better. Our fruit bowl went flying across the boat with fruit going all over the place, our knife block (with all those incredibly sharp, heavy, slaughtering devices) took a tumble, along with almost all of our other possessions. Let’s just say I was pretty happy to get back into the marina and get all our deadly weapons packed up and put away where they couldn’t accidentally lop off one of our limbs.
