Day 3: 10-September-2017

We planned to be out on the water by 8:00 AM, so all of us were up by 6:30 AM to make that deadline. We all ate our bagels and gulped down a short draft of coffee, and quickly motored out of our slip to head back to the ship channel.

Back alongside the Ship Channel

The plan was to sail upwind parallel to the ship channel, which would take us most of the way in. If the wind was blowing in the ideal direction, we could maintain the same point of sail for the entire time without much need of tacking to maintain course. The wind was a strong 15 knots, so it was a very exciting upwind course. On the water, we learned that when sailing upwind, it can actually be smoother and faster to sail with the sails up, than to drop sails and try to motor upwind. We spotted a sailboat with sails dropped, pointed in the same direction as us, about 300 yards ahead. But they not only seemed to be making a very slow go at it, they were also bobbing back and forth quite wildly with the waves. By contrast, our boat was heeled over to one side, but the ride was clearly much smoother than our non-sailing comrades. And in short order, we not only ended up passing them, but by the time we left the ship channel we could not even see them behind us anymore! We really left them in the dust, so to speak.

Bringing it Home & Wrapping it up

The final hour of sailing is when we turned away from the Houston Ship Channel, and we made a direct course towards Kemah. The big challenge on this final leg, is to maintain a beam-to-broad reached point of sail, with a steady compass heading. The others were fairly good at this, but I was pretty terrible at it. I don’t really enjoy sailing downwind, so I always have a tendency to steer more upwind, which brought us way off course. At one point I realized that I was as much as 50 degrees off course! By the time Captain Jon had come back on deck, he was disappointed to see how much off course we had become after 40 minutes or so. No worries though, we were not in a huge hurry so the slight delay was not a big problem.

Our final approach to the marina via Clear Lake was under motor, so we dropped sail and headed in towards our designated slip. I was supposed to take us into the slip, but after an initial mishap, Captain Job took over as the reverse ‘parking’ maneuver was quite delicate in the moderate wind & current conditions. Once secured to the dock, we had our lunch, prepared for a 1/2 hour and then took both written exams back to back. Each exam was 100 questions long!!! I was a bit worried because although I had read both books multiple times, I did not have much time to review the material before taking the tests. But I ended up doing quite well, and in fact I got 100% on the chart navigation questions! (There were only 5)

All three of us students passed the 103 and 104 certifications, so after a final knot review we gathered our belongings, exchanged phone numbers, and parted ways.

Was it worth it?

When I decided to take this ASA 103/104 combo certification course, my motivations were three-fold. First, I had never been on a 36-foot sailboat with toilet, galley, in-board motor and staterooms. So the course would help me gauge whether that class of boat is my preferred class. Second, I had never been on a multi-day sailing excursion. So the course would also provide insight as to whether multi-day excursions are something I will enjoy, or if day-sailing is more my cup of tea. And finally third, I definitely want the freedom of knowing that I can charter out a boat unsupervised. And the ASA 104 certification provides just that.

So all in all, the course was well worth the money. As for the boat class, I have mixed feelings. There are a great number of things to maintain, but in such a small vessel, the maintenance tasks do not seem to be too overwhelming. On a 36-foot boat, the other drawback is that it is not trivial to sail the vessel single-handed. So solo excursions may prove to be challenging and slightly risky. But I suppose that finding people interested on going out for a sail as crew should not be too difficult 🙂

In the way we structured it, the multi-day excursion was just fne, and a nice stay-cation.There is no need for a hotel as you can sleep on the boat, and if you want to sneak off to a full-service restaurant or bar while docked, that is also an option. Another bonus, we never were forced to use the head on board– the Galveston Yacht Marina had toilets & shower facilities, so that was also painless. The beds on the boat were surprisingly roomy and comfortable. In fact my only issue was the snoring between Eddie and I kept me up on the final night. So I enjoyed the multi-day adventure. I think that the longer you are at sea without docking, the less glamorous the adventure becomes, though.

So I learned a great deal on this 3-day course, and I am now ready to start getting my practice hours in so that I can sail independently with confidence!