Operation MUMfest Sail 2012

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Last year was the first Sailing Demonstration for New Bern's MUMfest (link). This year, we repeated this operation -but- (listen carefully here) two of our three boats were skippered by cadets! This is a big step up. Congratulations to those who have reached this level of skill!

We could have done better at close-quarters maneuvering; and at keeping the boats in close order to begin with. However the basics were all in place, and that is most important. We could have used more wind too, but that must be accomplished at a higher level.

Destination: Downtown New Bern! But wait... don't we have 3 boats? Where is the third boat?!? And aren't these 2 kinda far apart to be a "fleet?" Hey don't complain... we're working on the basics here. Can you see the Ferris Wheel?


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Our mission was to sail up close enough to the waterfront that spectators on shore could see the activity, and perform maneuvers in unison so it would look like more than just some random boats sailing by. But we don't want to get TOO close, especially at parts of Union Point where there are underwater remains of New Bern's industrial past just waiting to crunch & munch our nice fiberglass.

Speaking of crunch... here is a tour boat waiting to pass our fleet. Those of you who were HERE will remember it as much closer than it looks... which is true, photos never quite capture the actual distance between objects...

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All the boats were well sailed on a basic level...  points of sail were accurately followed, helm steady & sails trimmed... maneuvers were done relatively smoothly... very rarely did one of our boats get stuck "in irons" during this exercise. We've made good progress this semester, we now know a lot of terminology, we can rig & unrig the boats, and we can really sail! Are we done? Umm, no. We still have some more skills to learn & demonstrate including CAPSIZE (link) and man-overboard recovery, and we need to learn the Right-Of-Way rules (link).


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Look Ma! We're all CLOSE TOGETHER just like da Coach keeps tellin' us !!!




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This is as close as we got to close-order drill... tacking in unison? Hmmmmm. Let's work on this, it's not that difficult!


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Time for a lunch break! The cadets had a chance to enjoy Mumfest for themselves, after demonstrating how to dock a sailboat (this entails "how to stop" link).  Notice how easy it is to keep the boats nice & close together... when tied to the dock...

Meanwhile, New Bern's historic vessel the skipjack Ada Mae (link) sails by


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Great! Here's a photo of all our MUMfest fleet... can you tell what Point of Sail they're on? The wind is light but the boats are still moving. Accurate sail trim is the key to making a sailboat go!!

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Here's two of our fleet (ahem) sailing past New Bern landmark Persimmons Restaurant. At one point we had a crowd waving & cheering for us sailing past, or maybe they were rooting for the tour boat.

Anyway, after this, it's time to sail back to our base at Bridgeton Harbor.






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 Waterfront pastime... skipping stones
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Maybe some time we will go into the physics of how a stone can skip instead of just sinking like a... umm...  rock





The basic sailors today doubled their experience... after all this is only the 5th sailing session for this semester. How many more will we have? Well, we hope to have another tomorrow! R U ready?

... posted by Assistant Coach Douglas King