One of the people that came to look at Seanility was a retired Eastern Airline pilot named Joe Parrott. His dream was to find a small pocket cruiser (more like Guppy) and spend time cruising the Florida Keys and Florida Bay, while he still could. He had grown up with sailboats and had sailed for many years with sail power only. Even though the Mariner didn't fit his wish list, we had a good time swapping stories.
A few weeks later, I called Joe to ask him if he would like to go sailing on Lake Norman with me. The invitation had a selfish motive. I had little experience and he had a lot.
Joe accepted my invitation and met me at Blythe Landing on the south end of the lake. Joe gave me my first lesson right from the dock. He showed me how to backwind the sail to get the boat out of the slip and we sailed away without firing up the outboard. A first for me.
Being a long time power boater, I was still skittish about letting the boat heel over too far on a reach. Every time it started to go over, I would roundup into the wind and level her out. Joe showed me that when she got to a certain point, the sail would dump the wind and bring her back on her own. The sphincter muscles began to relax.
It soon became obvious that I often tried to make the boat go where the wind didn't want it to go. I'd have the tiller pushed all the way to the starboard gunnel making little or no headway. "Where are you going?" he'd say. "You're making the tiller act like a brake. Come off the wind and build up some speed. Then maybe you can head that way a little."
Within a couple of hours, Joe had me turning smoothly through tacks and I was feeling much more in control of the boat.
We began talking about the prospect of taking Guppy to the Outer Banks for a few days. I was eager to go but didn't feel confident enough in my abilities to try it on my own. Joe was game.
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