Well, my friend Steve Unlineowski finally splashed his brand new 32'
Hydra-Sports this afternoon at 2 PM. We thought for a while that it
wasn't going to happen - the launch was scheduled for 12:30 PM, but
the carrier thingy had a hydraulic leak and the mechanic wasn't sure
he could get a replacement hose on Saturday.

Thank the Gods of Boat Launching that NAPA not only had the hose, but
the fittings.

We moved out of Mystic with the 250 ETECs humming along - it was nice,
not too much activity. I let Steve handle the boat along the Mystic
Harbor Channel after we cleared the Brewer's Marina - he got the idea
pretty quickly.

Once clear of the harbor, we opened the ETECs up and started flying.
The value of the four blade props proved their worth as the boat, big
and heavy as it was, fairly leapt out of the water and on plane as
quickly as I can say it. Once trimmed out, we moved down Fishers
Island Sound towards The Race and the old abandoned Navy pier near the
Indian Grounds for docking practice.

I have to hand it to Steve - this is his very first boat and he caught
on quickly. I had him move in from all sorts of angles, simulated
winds and odd angles - he got it mostly in one shot.

At that point we decided to head over to Watch Hill. Along the way,
we stopped in Stonington Harbor for ten minutes to grab a quick bottle
of soda (I had sweet tea) - he docked himself with a little coaching
which made me comfortable with letting him take it pretty much from
there.

Along the way to Watch Hill, he decided he'd like to head to Block
Island we did that, took a quick tour of the Block Island area and
headed back to Mystic.

We did have one problem along the way - for some reason, the depth
sounder started acting up - need to have the techies look at that - I
couldn't find a loose cable or transducer.

Finally, on the approach to Brewer's in Mystic, he gave me the wheel
and went below - came back up with two new 6' medium Ugly Sticks with
Penn 4300 SSG reels as a thank you for taking him out.

Great day over all even if I didn't get out to do some bassin' this
morning.

~~ crossposted to http://boatingforum.proboards91.com/index.cgi ~~