"You must be very excited" - this was what people would say to us as we
waited for news of our new boat. No one said "you must be very nervous"
but this was what I felt, upgrading to a big American built boat and
then contemplating a trip to places on the South coast that we had never
visited before. "Why don't you call her Jenna-sis?" Des Founds suggested
at a NWVYC club event, "sister of Jenna?", and we agreed this was a
brilliant name and it was settled, except that we would spell the name
the traditional way - "Genesis".
A Promotional Picture of a Legend 38
While waiting, Spring and then Summer seemed to pass us by and editing
the Venturer we read all the sailing stories with envy. There were many
false starts with the timing which led us to wonder how it is possible
to not know whether a 38' Yacht is on a container ship or not, but
eventually the boat arrived on Britain and the real date was set for
18th July, and so we converged on Hayling Island for the mission of
bringing the boat back.
With Glen and I there was my father, Llewelyn, a very competent crewman
being an old hand at cruising. Between us we had a reasonable amount of
sailing experience and Glen had just passed his day Skipper theory, so we
hoped we could deal with most of the challenges that would no doubt get
thrown at us. Peter, the absent minded professor, would join us in
Portsmouth. Peter was the oldest and wisest among us and had the most
pure sailing experience, and would also turn out to be very quick at
grabbing things we threw over the side such as cushions.
Our fist challenge, on arriving at the marina, was working out which of
all the yachts was Genesis? Glen picked out a rather smart 50' one, but
no, I was pretty sure we would have only the one steering wheel. Looking
on the visitors pontoon, we saw one with the spray hood
still in its plastic that had a very new look to it - could this
be our brand new Legend 38? We already had the keys and excitedly opened
up the hatch to look below - to be greeted by a vision of polished
floors and gleaming surfaces. A walnut table, imagine that! This was a
different type of boat than we were used to and there was a long period
of gleeful oohs and aahs as each new cupboard was opened and various
things were ogled. We didn't dare switch anything on - that was to come
later, in the test sail, but Glen did try to adjust the table upward,
with unfortunate consequences. Putting the table back to normal was the
first thing the engineer did when he joined us on board.
We were apologetically shoo-ed off the boat as the trials got underway - 2 engineers took the boat out to take her through her paces - first under engine and then under sail. We saw Genesis flying across the harbour looking every inch the impressive sailing boat we had dreamed of. We were itching to be on board and have a go ourselves.
The trial revealed a few problems including one with the mast rigging, so an engineer was despatched 60' in the air to put things right.
Another
problem, this time with the engine air outlet was also spotted and put
right. Many more niggling problems would manifest themselves later on,
but for now the boat seemed perfect.
At last we were allowed back on the boat and the ensuing test sail went well, reaching 6.5 knots in a fairly light breeze and darting in and out of the dinghies sailing in the area.
We returned to the marina and
loaded the boat ready for the 600+ mile delivery trip. One of the things
we should have done at this point was to take careful note of the
locations we put tools and so on, as for the remainder of the trips we
struggled to find things that should have been to hand.