The infamous saying about the best laid plans always being the ones that fail has never been more true then when it came to trying to get off the dock for the shake down/first sail of the season. The first weekend we had planned to go had no wind, the second weekend had too much, luckily for us the third weekend was finally just windy enough to get off the dock and take the boat for its first sail of the season.
For this sail we had originally planned on only going for around an hour: getting out of the marina, making sure we could put the sails up and then coming back. But once we were out there it was too beautiful to return that soon. We ended up going for a couple hours, doing a loop around the Toronto Islands and harborfront area (where the infamous giant duck was last year) and then returning to the marina for a lovely barbecue.
I’ve been on boats as long as I can remember, with my parents participating in a time share for most of my childhood, multiple sailing trips to the Caribbean, with the goal always in their mind that eventually they would buy their own boat and retire on it. I always loved the seats in the front where you can watch the water rush under you as the boat cuts through the waves.
Catamarans are two hull boats joined by a frame. They can be sail or motor powered or a hybrid of the two. They have been used in Oceania for many centuries but only became popular in western sailing in the mid 1800’s. Catamarans are more stable than monohulls and often are able to go into shallower water than their single hull counterpart.
Although sailing in Toronto has less locations for you to jump off the front of the boat for a swim than more southern locations might, it always provides a gorgeous view of this city. With the first sail completed successfully and all pieces working the plans for the rest of the summer sails will begin to fall into place.
