Congratulations, J.D.,

I've no doubt that your going to have a lot of fun with this thing.
Judging from your posts, I suspect that you're going to be pretty
aggressive about spending time aboard, learning the ropes and most
importantly, learning the boat's limitations. If that's the case, don't
be surprised if you find that you're pushing it's design envelope in a
year or so.

Every one's different and I don't know the first thing about you're girl
friend, but unless she is pretty adventurous, take lots of baby steps
with her. Extend her personal sailing envelope just a little bit at a
time. Take it from me, sailing with the rail under water and screaming
with delight at the top of your lungs can be great fun, but it can also
permanently scare off the less adventurous. I've got one young friend
that I'm ashamed to admit when I introduced her to sailing, I had a
great time, but it scared her so bad that ever since, she has flatly
refused to set foot aboard a sailboat. That was about 8 years ago and
to this day, she has never again been aboard a boat.

As I said, everyone's different, but perhaps the tale of how my wife
developed into a sailor might be instructive:

The background is that I sailed a fair amount in my teens and early
20's, including some pretty competitive SF Bay racing. Then when I left
the financial wing of my parents, that pretty much came to an end except
for occasional day sails on a friends' boat. She had been day sailing
strictly as a passenger a handful of times, primarily on our friends
Cascade 29.

About 8 or 9 years ago, I decided that I wanted to get back into sailing
and bought a 25' trailerable (in about the same condition as your new
boat). My wife originally came with me primarily because it was a way
to spend some recreational time with me as opposed to any great love of
sailing on her part.

We started out slowly, sailing and overnighting on some fresh water
lakes around here. My wife, being an intelligent lady, soon figured out
that if anything happened to me (like going overboard), it was going to
be up to her to sail the boat back to me or at the worst, sailing the
boat (with her two young children aboard) back to the docks or launch
ramp.

Partially for this reason, partially because she was enjoying her time
on the boat, and partially because me being a lazy turd, I encouraged
her to become crew and eventually co-skipper, she left the role of
passenger behind and started learning all that sailing a small boat
entails. The more active her participation became, the more she enjoyed
it. As a result, we wound up sailing that boat at least 3 weekends a
month for the year that we owned it. By the end of that year, we were
able to handle anything SF Bay could throw at us and were making short
trips out the Golden Gate into the Pacific. And while I usually still
made the safety decisions (Do we go out the gate or stay inside today?
Should we reef or change headsails?, etc.) when a job needed to be done
(reefing, setting the anchor, changing headsails, etc.), whichever of us
was not on the tiller was the one who went forward to do it. After a
year, we moved up to a Catalina 30 and began exploring the California
coast in earnest.

Fast forward several years (past lots of coastal cruising and a 2 month
trip from SF Bay down around Baja and up into the Sea of Cortez).

We are standing on the bow of a friends Valiant, having just helped him
deliver it from SF Bay down to Santa Cruz Island (off Santa Barbara). I
had just set the anchor and we are enjoying a quiet minute up on the bow
in a secluded anchorage. She turns to me and says "Dan, I think it may
be time to get the bigger boat." Three months later, we purchased our
Tayana and started planning and preparing to go cruising in 2007 or 2008.

Fast forward again to a few months ago. I had recently been
hospitalized for a few days with a potentially debilitating illness. It
turns out that I narrowly dodged the bullet and am going to be OK after
all. We're sitting at the dinner table and out of the blue, she asks me
what I think about the idea of leaving this fall instead of later.

We are now T minus 17 days before departure, but whose counting?

Many marriages have broken up and/or cruising plans come to naught
because one of the partners wound up not enjoying it. It is no doubt
largely due to luck that my wife is so enthusiastic about my dream, but
I attribute at least some of it to the fact that I tried hard to make
sure that she enjoyed herself that first year.

Good luck, and hopefully, we'll cross wakes at some point - Dan

jds wrote:
well. im an owner. going to the bank in the morning. so , here we go. will
haul it down to my shop this weekend and start cleaning her up and do some
minor repairs. hopwe to have it on the water in less than a month. possibly
3 weeks. will take some photos and post them when i get her home. thanks for
all the input from you fellas. much appreciated. will keep you posted.
thanks again and best regards, j.d.



--
Dan Best - (707) 431-1662, Healdsburg, CA 95448
B-2/75 1977-1979
Tayana 37 #192, "Tricia Jean"
http://rangerbest.home.comcast.net/TriciaJean.JPG