Our New Boat!

On 6/7/2009 we launched and sailed our new (well, new to us) West Wight Potter 19 sailboat. We bought the boat from WIlliam Dooley of Wolf Creek Montana. Bill was kind enough to meet us in Spokane to finalize the sale. He and his wife had trailered the boat to Florida for several years and lived on it down there in the winter. Our plans are not quite that ambitious, but we are happy to have the boat. This larger model Potter will allow us to stretch our boundaries a little and do some camping on the water and cruising around Puget Sound.

We don't have any big trips planned yet, but we have had our first overnight stay on the boat. We attended the Olympia Potter Rig and Sail Event on Friday and Saturday June 12 & 13, 2009. We got to sail with about a dozen other West Wight Potters and had a great time getting better acquainted with the NW Potter group.

getting a bigger boat is making us re-evaluate our ground transportation alternatives. I am presently borrowing my Dad's truck to get the boat in and out of the water because this boat is just a little too heavy for my little pickup, though I am sersiously thinking about trying it to see if it will work.

We managed to sell our Potter 15 about 3 hours after getting home with the new boat. It was purchased by a local sailor, Raymond Smythe. Ray is an old salt at the local marina in Olympia and seems to be pretty well known in these parts. Ray is 89 years young! He is down-sizing from a 28 foot pilot house sailboat. Ray joined us at the Rig and Sail event and elected to ride along with one of our boats as his crew bailed out on him at the last minute. Ray's was riding with a new skipper and probably provided lots of help in the afternoon when the wind picked up enough to scare most the boats back to the marina.

The name is probalby going to change. If for no other reason, I think it will be prettier if it doesn't have the large letters on the side like that. I have a short list of possible names so far that includes: Mistress, eTime, iBoat, iSailboat, Blues Traveler, Gust Buster, and Longboard. I recently stated that windsurfing had been my mistress for almost 30 years. Now I have a new mistress! "Longboard" also comes from my windsurfing experience. A longboard is something you can sail and have a nice relaxing time. I'll keep you posted on the progress. Feel free to offer your comments about boat names.