First Flight of First Light

The plan had been to spend one more day in New Bern, meet some old cruising friends for dinner, blow that pop stand the next morning and head to Oriental. But this morning's check of the weather suggested that today was the day for making good our escape. A few phone calls later and new plans were made for having the car catch up to us. With goodbyes said and hands shaken with the folks at Duck Creek (who have been as helpful as they could be for the last year) we headed down the dock to get underway for the first time in just shy of 4 years.

First sunrise on First Light. And a beautiful first light it was.
One of the reasons we love the boat name and didn't change it.

We scurried around trying to remember all the “heading out” chores that needed done, and to figure out which ones apply to trawlers. Obviously uncovering the sails and running the sheets and halyards wouldn't be necessary. Engine oil checks? Yep, x 2 though all the fluids were changes yesterday so that seemed redundant. Still, Deb suggested I look over the engine room anyway. I did: and put away the fan that had been left in there, stowed a half bottle of coolant sitting by the port engine, picked up some stray wiring, and moved a tool box back to where it belongs. Pre-engine start engine room check is now on the departure “must do” list. Then we talked over how we were going get out of the slip, down the creek and into the Neuse River. It has been a while since we reviewed nautical charts.

Painting the stripe is very very high up on the Captain's to-do list.

 

When we couldn't come up with anything else needing done, I fired up the engines(!) while Deb pulled in the lines. A few bumps forward with the shifter levers, a few bumps back, and we cleared the dock without much ado. It was a slow and careful crawl down the creek as, along with the gen-set, the depth gauge that had worked during the sea trial stayed dark and dead in the panel. First Light draws less than four feet, but it is still spooky poking along without knowing just how much water is under the keel. A cool thing was that the upper chart plotter, which didn't work yesterday, lit up this morning without hesitation. RADAR! For the first couple of miles the helm felt very weird. Hydraulic steering takes a little getting used to. What took zero time to get used to was bringing the auto-pilot on line and just punching in the required headings. At some point we will figure out how to make it track a route, but for now, after the years of wrestling Kintala's wheel for hours at a time, heading hold was more than enough of a giggle.

The Neuse taught us some pretty harsh lessons in the past. More than once we limped into Oriental beat up, broken, and looking for a place to hide. But today? Today was as perfect a day as one could have for first trip in a new-to-us boat. Traffic was light, as were the winds. The slightest swell rolled under the bow while wavelets from the port side didn't move the boat at all. After the truncated, rigging-blocked view from the aft end of Kintala, the expanse of water visible over the bow of First Light was nothing short of amazing. At one point a King Pelican took flight off our bow. The only thing missing was a visit from a dolphin, welcoming us home. The hours strolled by as some of the very best we have ever enjoyed on a boat. It was hard to grasp that we made it, that we were back on the water and moving at our own pace.

 

 

 

Back in the day, when a marina came into view, the adrenaline started to flow and the brow started to furrow. Getting Kintala onto anything but a face dock in a calm wind was far more luck than skill. As great a sailing boat as she was, docking was a nightmare. Backing into a slip was generally completely out of the question. In fact, as I sit writing this and looking at the boats around us (with one exception) the only ones stern-to are trawlers and catamarans. And I know why. Deb talked me into the marina and down the right fairway. We counted slips and spotted an empty one that looked to be ours between a Lagoon 40 Cat and that stray sailboat parked stern-to. Today there was a little wind blowing but it made no difference. First Light obeyed my commands without complaint, eased back into the slip and stopped right where I asked. Deb set a couple of lines to hold the boat still, I shut off the engines, we set fenders, added lines, hooked up to shore power, and called our first trip a complete success.

For the next couple of days we will enjoy one of our favorite towns from our previous cruising days, get some more work done on the boat, and marvel at just how lucky we have been. 

The reflections from the sun on the water in the cabins is one of the things I missed most
when we returned to land. It's amazing how much these little things all add up to make
this life as wonderful as it is.

Launch Day...

We have been through a lot of launch days; Nomad, then Kintala, and now, First Light. Each has come with a certain amount of trepidation, which I find odd. I flew airplanes for a living, still do once in a while. Literally thousands of launches were made into stormy, or ice filled, or minimums weather skies. There were maintenance flights and first flights on just built or heavily modified airplanes, some of which limped home with engines shut down or other abnormalities. (Probably why they are called “test flights”.) There were delivery flights in neglected airplanes that had been sitting on the ground for years and were no longer “serviceable”. Those flights required special permission from the Federal Aviation Agency and came with strict limits as to when, where, how high, in what weather conditions the plane could be moved, and who was allowed on board, always minimum crew only. A mechanic (me) had to certify that the aircraft would (likely) make the flight in more or less one piece. Then the pilot (me again) would jump in and go. As might be expected a lot of those flights involved a certain amount of...shall we say, “adventure”? Then there were the flights into some of the busiest airports on the planet: Chicago, Denver, LA, DC. And flights to and from dirt runways with questionable lighting deep in the Rocky Mountains. Yet never, in all of those thousands of “launches” into a possibly hostile sky in sometimes questionable equipment, did I experience the kind of butterflies that come with launching a boat.

Of course the lift time was delayed. Though we were first on the day's schedule another boat pulled into the pit late last night. It was suffering some kind of a failure that required it be lifted first thing in the morning. By the time it was out of the water, bottom scraped and pressure blasted, and sitting on stands, most of the morning was gone. We had been up since 0600 getting First Light ready to splash. All we could do was take walks around the yard and try to ignore the butterflies.

 

Eventually it was our turn. First Light was eased off of the stands, moved, then lowered gently into the water. Except for the sea trial it was the first time the boat had been floating in nearly 4 years. She has been on the hard nearly as long as we have.

 

Then came the fun part. I got to drive the boat through a very crowded marina and back it into our temporary slip-for-the-day (or two). It was a chance to warm the engines and transmissions as we had an engine expert standing by to change all the fluids and filters once tied to the dock. It was also the very first time for your's truly to helm a twin-engined trawler. Caution was the word of the day, but the minute we cleared the lift pit something became wonderfully obvious. One has far more control over where this boat is going when slow and in tight spots than was ever available on Kintala. It was a 180° turn out of the lift pit. Then it was a run down a narrow fairway lined with boats to be followed by another 90° turn to port. After that it was time for a 90° swing, bow to starboard, while backing into the slip, this in a fairway only slightly wider than First Light is long. And it was no problem at all. Mind you, the wind was less than 5 knots so no “big boy” points were accrued. But...DAMN!

 

We were both a little buzzed after tying off in the slip. The engine expert took over. It was near the end of the mechanical work when the first problem reared is head. There is something wrong with the ship's generator starting circuit. Though the gen-set worked just fine during the sea trial, it is now an inert lump sitting at the back of the engine room. After a bit of poking and prodding deep in the tangle of wiring taking up space in the control unit, our expert engine guy allowed that he was getting out of his depth. (The mark of a true expert is someone who knows what he doesn't know, and is willing to admit it!) But he happens to know an expert generator guy. But it all came out even as our expert engine guy is also an air-con expert. He cleared a simple airlock and showed me how to properly power up the system. Shazam! Cold air. (Not that we plan on using it much. But it is nice to have.) 

Our engine expert, Darrel from Foster's Mobile Marine

 

The next problem to peak over the transom was a recurring glitch with the Raymarine plotter at the upper helm. In this day of smart phones and iPads, such is not much of an issue insofar as navigation goes. But it is also the screen for the onboard radar. RADAR! How cool it that? Turns out the engine guy also knows a Raymarine guy. If we can't figure it out, someone will. 

So, at this very moment of typing, I am sitting in the covered Fly Bridge, enjoying a cold one, feeling the boat move gently, and listening to the wildlife playing in the sea grass. Around me is a venue of pure joy, afloat in a marina once again, surrounded by water, and boats, and trees. I walk a dock to get to the boat, step on board without climbing a ladder. It is hard to explain just how perfect it all feels.

 

  

In the next day or two we will head down to Oriental where First Light will stay until Spring. In between, St. Louis still calls (though at least two trips to the boat are planned). There is family I am already missing a little. There is also an income that will help cover those last few items I would like to have working before we head off once again. But, at least for now, it feels like we have made it back. And it feels good.

 

 

The painter's dog seemed a little nonplussed at the removal of his shade boat