June 1 - Return from Bristol and Mahogany & Steel Show I got under way from Bristol at 9:23p. It's always tricky departing from the wharf because the tidal current goes right through at full speed... It's particularly tricky single handed with the aft pointing into the flow. The Mahogany & Steel show had wrapped hours earlier. A faint glimmer of light lingered where the sun had already set. A cool night, following a comfortable day, requiring my well worn jacket under my PFD. The hush and sounds of water, wildlife, and a few people enjoying a late evening stroll or fishing gave the waterfront a calm that settled on it like a duvet. Moon was low, initially just a ball of pale light behind a gauze of haze, but the breeze picked up midway downriver blowing the haze out to sea. I didn't need to push the engine hard to get a SOG of 6.5-7 knots. The current was working in my favor the whole way... strong and steady, giving me a generous push. The air was calm, the water glassy. I'd have loved to sail it, but the wind was dead on the nose, showing 10-12 knots apparent so about 5 knots true. On a clear ocean passage, maybe you stretch out the canvas and take your time. But inland, at night, solo, it’s different. There's not a whole lot of space and every bend in the river holds surprises... entire container ships can suddenly appear as if teleported directly in front of you, a couple of hundred yards away. Debris was mostly cleared out since the upriver leg, but the traffic was not. I passed two large tugs, a police boat, and at least one small powerboat with no lights at all. More than a few moored hulls bobbed in the dark without anchor lights, barely visible until you were nearly on them. Inland night sailing can be wondrous but it's a constant challenge of looking at reflected lights and working out the puzzle of what each one means. Nav lights, building lights, cars, traffic signals, and brightly lit wharves all blend into a visual cacophony in the black. Still, it was quiet out there. First Light held her course, the engine humming low, her wake barely folding back behind her. The solitude of a night transit sharpens your focus. You scan the banks, read the lights, feel every subtle shift in current under the hull. Inland you're looking for an absence... a void... a place where there should be light, sound, or motion but there isn't one. It’s beautiful, but you earn it by staying vigilant. A Day in the Life Coordinating time in our household is barely managed chaos. Passage makers and vacationers have it easy compared to those of us who stay near home base. The boat had to be prepped for the show in the morning. Our daughter had her first ballet recital in the afternoon. I had a gear hand-off with one of my crew, and of course I needed flowers to give the new ballerina her roses. I also needed to get back to Bristol and get First Light ready to bring her home and then spend the time bringing her back. Mahogany & Steel was worth it. A mix of wooden boats, brightwork-polished hulls, and lovingly restored engines. Boats and cars, each with a story and an owner who has been up to their eyeballs in it. It's good to know I'm not alone in having to repair and fix and bodge every millimeter of a piece of engineering that has become something cared about and for. First Light got her share of compliments... She's a beautiful hull when, like this spring, I've had time to wax and polish inch by inch. Hours and days of work show, and people see it. People asked about her age, her lines, how she handles. Louis and Shelby were aboard Indefatigable and pulled plenty of attention too. We answered questions, passed out stories, and played host to anyone curious enough to ask. It's a good feeling letting people see what you’ve built, what you maintain, and what you carry with you. I tied up at our home marina and just sat with myself in the quiet for a few minutes. Put the boat in order and made my way to the house. Another day, another week, another season of being busy, perhaps too busy, but at least our daughter will have more opportunities to explore and experience things than not.

May 29 - Philadelphia to Bristol We slipped out of the marina right around 14h, timing our departure with the inbound tide. The sky was surprisingly clear above us, even though clouds and scattered showers had been forecast. I was solo on First Light. Louis and his wife Shelby made their way aboard Indefatigable. We had decided to aim for 5 knots SOG, which the current gave us easily. Between tide and engine, I held between 5 and 6 knots, with about 4 knots through the water. Winds were predicted to be light. As we left, the water flattened out and the sky opened into that bright, backlit blue that never fully commits. Clouds built in from the southwest as we made our way upriver, but we only caught a few brief sprinkles. The worst of it stayed behind us. I tried to sail early on. I raised full main and jib and shut down the engine. Wind was there at the start, about 5 knots, but it dropped steadily over the next hour. Modern autohelms are good in most conditions, but in this light air, with following current and eddies from the river bends, piers, and bridge embankments, it became impossible to rely on. At one point, while I was cleaning up the cabin, the off-course alarm went off... when I looked around, I was literally side-on to the current. Once the wind dropped to 1-2 knots, I furled the jib and brought the motor back up. I let the main catch what little following wind there was, which added a bit of apparent wind and gave a small boost. Louis tried staying under sail with his code zero, but couldn’t make consistent headway. He fell behind by a couple miles, caught up, tried again, and fell back again. The river was full of debris... logs, branches, big half-submerged trees floating and drifting mid-channel. Delaware torpedoes. Nothing dramatic, but enough that I had to keep scanning just ahead of the bow constantly. One container ship came downbound with two tugs. It had a rather blunt and fat bow... like a pug sniffing its way through the channel. I passed her on a straight stretch, and as I looked back, I saw her take an ungraceful 20-degree turn, nearly crossing out of the channel. Groundings aren't unheard of in the upper Delaware, and it's pretty easy to see why. Jet skis and small motorboats plied the river up and down, throwing wake and noise as they went... but everyone is friendly on the river, waving as they pass. We arrived at Bristol without incident. I tied up in my spot for the boat show and started tidying up. Indefatigable arrived shortly after I secured my lines, and I helped Louis into his spot just in front of my bow. As we finished up, another sailboat, an older O'Day with signs of being a liveaboard, came downriver and pulled into the dock across from me, starboard-to. The captain leaned over the rail and looked at First Light. “She's beautiful... I’m almost embarrassed to be pulling up next to you.” We talked for a bit. Friendly guy. He regaled Louis and Shelby with stories of his boat history and admired Indefatigable as well. My buddy boaters and I grabbed post-trip drinks at King George II Inn and made some plans for how to show the boats.

“You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.” - Cormac McCarthy Repair log #3 - The Noise Fall 2023 – Heading Home from Lankford Bay The alignment was right. The engine was purring. For the first time since I bought First Light, it felt like the boat and I were speaking the same language. So I cast off from Lankford Bay and started the trip home. Singlehanded. Weather looked good. Water was flat. I had time, food, tools. Confidence. That lasted maybe five hours. Somewhere near the mouth of the Chester, I started hearing it... rocks in a tumbler, but I wasn’t mixing a Manhattan. Not constant. Not urgent. But wrong. Like something brushing metal, or spinning uneven. The sounds of a boat underway have a familiar, soothing quality, and when it changes it’s instantly something you notice. I slowed down. Put the engine in neutral. The noise softened. Started again. Changed with speed. I went through the usual suspects... lines overboard, gear shifting, loose mount. Nothing made it go away. Checked the cabin, less noise. Checked the engine compartment, just an engine beating. Hung off the stern with a flashlight in my teeth, trying to see the shaft, the strut, the alignment. It didn’t take long to guess. Cutless bearing. It didn’t feel catastrophic yet, but it was clear. Something had shifted. Probably just enough... enough to start wearing where it shouldn’t. The sort of thing you monitor until it gets worse. And I was hours from anywhere. So I kept going. By nightfall, the Chesapeake was glasslike. I was motoring through the Bay, mid-channel, alone... thinking about being immersed in the galaxy, with stars above and below. Then the sound changed. Not the bearing... the engine. Louder. Drier. Hollow in a way it shouldn’t be. No water moving through the exhaust. The cooling had stopped. Suddenly I was scrambling... mental triage firing fast. Throttle down. Flip the lazarette open. Reach for the kill switch. The engine still ran, of course, but it was heating up fast. No water belt, no raw water pump, no exhaust cooling. You’ve got maybe a minute before heat damage starts creeping in. I killed the engine. Let her drift. Swore under my breath and opened everything up. The belt was gone. Snapped clean. The water pump pulley was dry, scorched from friction. I knew immediately what had happened. Back at the yard, they’d overtightened it. Probably meant well, make sure it didn’t slip. But a belt that tight sings itself to death. And mine chose 1 a.m. in the middle of one of the busiest shipping channels in the world. My quick mental inventory told me I had spares on board... but I’d have to dig for them. And like I said... busy shipping channel. Imagined images of my hull getting run down by a Liberian freighter bound for Delaware City while I was upside down in a locker looking for a small V-belt wouldn’t let me think it through. Slack tide. Literally zero wind. I was a sitting duck. I rigged what I had to hand... a few zip ties in place of a belt. Just needed to run long enough to get out of the channel. I fired the bodge job up and water flowed. I had a few minutes to gather my thoughts. Aimed the boat out of the lane and motored slowly until the zip ties failed. I stayed at the helm to make sure I drifted a good bit out of the channel. And once I could breathe again, I found the spare belts, a wrench to tension the pump, and the time to bury my head in the engine compartment for a few minutes. I turned the engine over. She coughed, then started. Water moving again. It wasn't exactly the edge of life and death, but at that time of day your body is likely to say it is anyway. I didn't have anyone with me to clap me on the back and tell me everything worked out well. Just the slow rhythm of things returning to normal... the engine purring, the Bay dark and empty, stars above, and nothing but the sound of water against the hull. I stopped about halfway home at a fuel dock in Chesapeake City. I’d already arranged to be joined by some marina neighbors for the rest of the trip home. It would be a cold and tired trip, but I got a couple hours of sleep and welcomed the relief when they came aboard. Shelby and Louis would help me get home, but I will always remember being buried in the stars and fixing my engine.

May 25 – MEMORIAL DAY SAIL We've been on the water around here for more hours than I can count, but today I decided to explore behind Petty Island for the first time. Past the wreck markers and dotted shallow depth indicators, checking what the real depth was where the map says shallow. We quietly motored past the derelicts off Pyne Point, Lightship Barnegat still holding what’s left of herself and masts and hulls sprouting up from what looks like solid ground. We were out as a family... my wife, my daughter, and me. The sky was blue and white... patchy fluffy clouds roiling across the city skyline. Wind was... unpredictable... 8 knots steady, gusts to 20, then dropping to 3. We came back out from behind the island and decided to actually do some sailing. We put out the full main, first reef in the jib. It's often half teaching and half enjoying when we go out. The boat is, like most boats, particular... its idiosyncrasies are familiar to me, not the least because I created some of them. I took the opportunity to introduce my wife to the new Dutchman flaking system on the main and how to operate it. Our daughter demanded to help me raise the main... hauling with all her tiny might on the halyard while I cranked the winch. After we were done it took quite some convincing to get her to accept that she'd actually done it. I don’t remember the first time I was on a boat, but I remember the first time I was at the helm. Five years old, being loud and impatient on a fishing trip. My grandfather turned a bucket upside down, stood me on it, handed me the wheel, and said: “Steer for those rocks.” That was how it started. I remember he didn't leave my side until he thought I would be better off building confidence. Then he stepped back... a half step out of my peripheral... just far enough to be out of view, but close enough to catch me. I was concentrating too much on what was ahead though... and how to keep a straight line. Our little cabin cruiser up on plane and bouncing across the Patuxent. He was an Army mechanic. Met my grandmother in Japan. Photos of when they first met that we found for their funerals show instant and lifelong fascination. They deployed to Korea after they got married. They didn’t talk much about the hard parts, but they passed down the things that mattered. How to fix what’s broken. How to steer straight when no one else is paying attention. What it means to be responsible for those on board. They taught with care and a sense of sureness that we could do whatever we thought we could. We sailed south from Petty Island, down past the Coast Guard station. Came back upriver past Penn’s Landing. My wife’s still learning the finer points of sailing. She's very good at learning things. If it's in a book and she tries it once or twice she's usually got it. Problem is I’ve been doing this long enough that half of what I know, I don’t explain. Other problem is I can be a little too general with my instructions. Teaching a partner is different than teaching a student. You already have a shorthand communication style. We've been married nearly nine years so we can condense an hour long conversation into a few looks and groans at this point. When you're trying to teach though you can't rely on the person learning to read your mind. All in all we had one mishap of the wrong lever pulled at the wrong time. Nothing broken... and plenty of time spent learning and sailing. She said it was a perfect day. I say almost perfect. I'd like 10 knots steady and no gusts every day though. Memorial Day is not about uniforms. It is quite literally about memory. My grandfather. My grandmother. My dad. People who steered me toward craft, purpose, and water. They’re not here. But I’m still sailing. And my daughter’s watching. That’s how I got here. That’s what I remember.

“Learn and run your own ship.” - Octavia E. Butler Repair log #2 - Centered in the log September 2023 – Lankford Bay I didn’t see her lifted... I saw her standing. Up on blocks, dry, still, black bottom paint dulled by months in the water. No slime. No barnacles. Just a few patches where the antifouling had worn thin. I hadn’t planned to haul out. But when the chance came to install Finsulate, I made space in my schedule. Too good to pass up. A friend introduced me to Rik, the inventor, and his business partner Bernard. They’d been building this thing up for years... starting with small boats and pushing steadily into oil rigs, sea platforms, heavy commercial traffic. What they needed now was more adoption by private boats. Yachts. Marina fleets. The kind of traffic that dumps a steady cocktail of toxins, copper, and microplastics into the rivers we claim to love. Finsulate doesn’t leach. No paint dust. No slow bleeding into the current. You don't have to suffer for days in Tyvek, goggles, and a mask while putting on layer after layer of poison. Fixing small patches and damage that happen short of its 10-year life span doesn't require a shop vac, tarp, and HEPA filter... just a sharp knife and a squeegee. It’s ideal for fresh water, and for anywhere that sees pollutant accumulation... places where what scrapes off your hull today ends up in a kid’s fishing net tomorrow. It means the marina stays clean both in the water around the piers and in the runoff from the yard. I needed to touch up my antifouling, had a space in my schedule, and enough curiosity to say yes. They did the install themselves. Slow, methodical work. Each textured panel laid by hand. They’d done this dozens of times, and it showed. I took some photos... got a bit of video. Not because I thought it’d be some magic moment, because it felt like something worth remembering. While the hull was dry, I kept stacking jobs. I replaced the standing rigging. Measured for new sails from Precision. And I told the marina I wanted an engine alignment. First Light had never run clean at wide open throttle. From day one, she topped out at 4.7 knots. The engine sounded fine. Started like a charm. But something was dragging her down... and to me, it felt like alignment. There was drag on the prop or the shaft and there are very few possible culprits. I told them. They gave me that look... the one you get when you’re younger than they expect, and Black in a space they don’t associate with you. They nodded like they were listening, but they weren’t. They assumed I was wrong. That I didn’t know what I was asking for. That I’d seen one too many YouTube diagnostics and confused it for experience. “Alignment doesn’t cause that.” “Could be the prop.” “Could be the engine.” It wasn’t. I knew it wasn’t. The alignment got done late... on the morning I was set to leave. In the water, like they recommend. The mechanic came with me for the sea trial... just a loop through the anchorage at Lankford Bay. We throttled up. And she ran. Hull speed. Clean exhaust. No smoke, no hesitation. No drag. Just a diesel engine, finally sending power where it belonged. For the first time, First Light moved like she wanted to go somewhere. There were no grand revelations. Just a quiet, unmistakable moment of being right... after months of being dismissed.

“The sea is the same as it has been since before men ever went on it in boats.” - Ernest Hemingway Repair log #1 - July 2022 - Bringing First Light Home She was on the hard when I found her... up on stands, quiet, clean, a little faded. But not abandoned. You can tell the difference. Some boats rot into the yard. This one was just waiting. There were signs she’d been loved. Soft floor mats in the galley and at the helm... where you’d stand the longest. A custom dish rack and microwave shelf over the sink, built like someone cared about life aboard... about cooking, moving, being at sea... it mattered. Her lines were coiled well enough, nothing frayed, no mildew funk in the cushions. Whoever owned her before me wasn’t careless. They just ran out of time, or wind, or maybe both. It creeps up on you quietly... someday you won’t be able to keep up. In those moments when you're pondering your new-to-you boat’s life, you see the hands that cared for her before, growing older, slower, letting go. One day you’ll make your last upgrade, hang your last lines, and start ignoring the leaks instead of fixing them. When you buy a boat from someone who cared, you feel your own calendar pages flipping. You know you’re just the next steward. You know the clock is ticking. I cleaned her up. Reinstalled the canvas. Put on fresh bottom paint... temporary, quick and dirty, but enough to launch. I overhauled the rudder, which had water seepage that could’ve turned cancerous if I’d let it. Now it doesn’t, thanks to countless hours with a shop vac howling in my ears and a sander in my hands, layer after layer of fairing compound and fiberglass. I replaced what needed replacing. Ran the engine. She started fine. Everything ready. Getting her in the water took more labor than I’d like to admit. Paperwork. Rewiring. Checking hoses and systems I barely trusted. Crawling into corners I hadn’t learned to hate yet. But eventually, she floated. The first few miles felt like a victory lap. Wind on my face. Sun on the deck. Wheel in hand. She tracked true. The shakedown started... what doesn’t work and you know it, what doesn’t work and should, and what works surprisingly. But when I throttled up... nothing. Four point seven knots. That was all she had. No vibration. No alarming noise. Just a dead zone where horsepower should’ve been. I stared at the wake... flat and apologetic. Checked the exhaust. No smoke. No stink. No drama. But she wasn’t moving like she should. I leaned on the throttle. Nothing changed. It was like dancing with someone who forgot the steps... beautiful, familiar, but just a beat behind. I made it to Philadelphia. A little slower than planned. A little more anxious. I didn’t know what was wrong yet. But I had a boat beneath my feet, the whole river ahead of me, and the promise of real sailing days still to come. Friends. Family. Sunlight on the water. That’s what I’d come for... and I wasn’t letting go of the plan just yet.

MAY 12 - BIRTHDAY SAIL, LOW SKY Sky like brushed steel... gray, unbroken, with the sun behind it somewhere, diffused and filtered to be bigger than its cousin set in the bright blue, but somehow both less bright and more heavy. Fingers of clouds from a distant storm made marching furrows through the scene. The breeze came on strong. Ten, fifteen knots, with occasional gusts near twenty. The kind of wind that keeps you honest. A younger couple came aboard. Her gift to him... a surprise birthday sail. We'd rescheduled once for rain. She thanked me again for holding out for the right kind of day. To be honest they're all good days, but I like people to feel happy and relaxed and dodging showers just doesn't usually make people feel good. He was curious. Not just about the sailing, but the business. How long I'd been doing it, why I started. It wasn’t nosy, just a quiet study. Interesting for me because I talk about it so often and yet so much of it is left unsaid. The mood stayed light. Some back and forth with me and Tim, today’s captain on record. Sometimes it’s Lori, sometimes Gerhardus. I single-hand most of the work, but for paying passengers I always have another captain on board. The wind was supposed to drop down to nice comfortable and solid 8 to 10 knots. Every forecast said so... every time I checked throughout the day and even to moments before we left the dock. It didn't. I trimmed conservatively. Full main, and the jib went out to its first reef. I set the sails just north of the bridge, but the wind was coming oddly from the direct south as opposed to it's usual sou'westerly or easterly track. Eventually we settled in to wide tacks downriver, back past the bridge, past the now defunct Philadelphia Marine center, the Pier 5 and Pier 3 marinas, the massive construction project for The Park at Penn's Landing, the Independence Seaport and the neat edge of the waterfront near the condos. After that, the polish fades. The river starts to show its seams. The river carried more than just current. Debris everywhere... branches, scraps, waterlogged litter. Upstream rain opens the dams. Everything that doesn’t belong to anyone finds its way down. It’s always the city that ends up holding what the suburbs can’t be bothered to keep. Stormwater runoff and system failure disguised as driftwood. A reminder that everything above rolls down... trash, politics, people. The twin piers, 38 and 40, supposedly back in use but looking for all the world like their abandoned cousins. Bought by a big developer in 2022 for $18 M. The Coast Guard section. Washington Avenue Green, a patch of land that feels intentional from the street but disappears into the background from the water. And then, the long chain of what the city doesn’t talk about: abandoned piers, the hollowed edges, forgotten bulkheads. The river keeps going. It doesn’t filter. Doesn’t sort. Just carries. They noticed the encampments behind the piers, behind the new Giant and the long residing Walmart that was supposed to help revitalize the waterfront with Pier 68 and its sanitized concrete experience of the river. They didn’t point. Just talked to each other quietly. No performance. No posturing. Like a lot of people their age, they seemed to be carrying the weight of noticing, without knowing what to do with it. I don't think there is a way to know really. Life didn't come with a manual. The rain held off, but the city felt like it was waiting for it. Very few boats out. Not much movement on the piers. Even the birds seemed unsure whether to settle or stay aloft. We docked just after the light went flat. She offered a hug, unexpected, but not unwelcome. Then they were gone, back into the evening.... plans for dinner or friends to see... a life to continue living. I gave Tim the day’s pay from the cash still in my pocket from the prior trip. He doesn’t always take it, but I like having it there. Tide was too low to bring First Light home, so I tied her off again at Penn’s Landing. Coiled lines, dropped halyards, closed the covers. The small rituals you don’t skip. A way to say thank you without words. Moved her home the next day.

Sunset Charter - Drexel Law The sky looked brushed on. Blue thinned by high white strokes... like someone had dragged a sponge across the top of the world. A light breeze marked the day. Not still, not strong, just enough to let the sails breathe without snapping. They came aboard just before 6:30. A boating couple and a classmate of the wife’s. Both the husband and wife carried British accents softened by years on this side of the Atlantic. The classmate’s voice was local... northeast American, younger, sharper. They’d won the charter through a silent auction supporting Drexel’s Public Interest Experience... stipends that let law students take summer placements doing pro-bono work instead of chasing clerkships and billable hours. I donated the sail this year for the first time. Not for marketing, just because someone should. I gave the safety briefing. I always do. This is a boat. They're beautiful, dangerous, warm, and lively in all the right ways. Treat her right and she'll get you home every time... but you have to treat her right. As Mal said of Serenity, “A ship like this, you treat her proper, she’ll be with you the rest of your life.” We got sails up early. The Raven, wings stretched against the sky, black on white, spread wide against the soft-filter light of lacy blue. I aimed for my usual stretch north of the bridge... best view of the city if you can find it. Tried to beat to keep North of the Ben Franklin, tacking again and again. The wind picked up... ten, maybe twelve knots, steady. First Light heeled gently to starboard, hull squatting as she accelerated. You could hear the hull settle into motion, that soft tickling wake, the shift in resistance as she neared hull speed. There’s a feel to a close reach when she’s trimmed right... it’s not noise, exactly, but motion that hums through the wheel. Everyone aboard can feel it... like racing through a mountain pass with your hair blown back. Then I looked up. The bridge line hadn’t moved against the sky. Looked left... same section of shore... Five and a half knots of boat speed against five knots of current. We hadn’t gained a yard. One of those nights where motion lies to you. Eventually I bore away and ran her downriver wing-on-wing. Jib to port, main to starboard. Spread wide, balanced in the lull. The kind of motion that quiets people, even if they don’t know why. A tug and tanker came downriver, raising a sudden signal, half a dozen quick short blasts on their horn. I checked AIS, hailed them on 13. "Were you signaling intent?" The reply came back easy: “Just honking at the neighbors. Saw you already, we’re keeping clear.” Then they followed with a melodic honk from multiple horns... showy, cheerful, bouncing off the condos like river jazz. Politics surfaced for a moment: China, Trump, the trade war. None of us knew how negotiations had gone that day, but no one expected competence from that corner of the world. We moved on. We docked just after the last edge of color left the sky. They lingered at the gate, chatting in low voices, watching the water go dark. I stayed aboard and coiled lines, ran halyards down, straightened the cockpit. There’s comfort in the ritual of making a boat ready for sleep... like tucking in someone who carried you all day. You don’t rush it. You do it right. They waved as they left. I waved back.

RETURN FROM DELAWARE CITY I got a ride home from Delaware City from another charter owner. He’d called while Louis and I were still inbound. He wanted to borrow a couple of my child-sized life jackets for his charter... Type I's and Type III's. I had them on board so he came to meet me, pick them up, and gave me a ride home in return. I spent the night and the next day with my family... gymnastics, breakfast, a stretch of quiet time at home filled with toys and tangled routines, then ballet rehearsal in the afternoon. I was watching the clock to time the tide while trying not to make the countdown obvious. That kind of time pulls in both directions... getting ready for a trip while not wanting to leave. The things that need doing never line up cleanly with the moments you’d rather spend time in. That evening, the three of us drove back down to Delaware City. We had dinner together, then headed to the dock. Louis and his wife were still there when we arrived. It's funny how sometimes it's not about planning it's just people who are around boats often enough to end up in the same place. They’re our marina neighbors. Friends, too. And for a little while, standing there on the dock with lines in hand and gear half-stowed, it was boating community. The Wharton Sailing Club has an incoming president, and he’d reached out earlier in the week. Last year’s group sail had gone well, and he was interested in doing another. In the course of conversation he'd asked what I was doing and I told him I was making the run from Delaware City back to Philly that evening. He asked if he could join me for the trip. I let him know it would be a long one... underway around seven, not tied up until after one. He was in. My daughter shifts gears completely around boats. Confident, in command. While I was looking for the Wharton Sailing Club president-elect, she spotted a looper couple returning to their boat after dinner. She didn’t hesitate. She began boisterously peppering them with questions: “Do you want to see my boat?” “Can I see your boat?” “Can I pretend to drive?” “Can I push the buttons?” “I’m calling you,” she said, holding the VHF mic, looking straight at the husband. She had full permission before we even realized what was happening. I don’t know that adults ever tell her no in those situations. She made friends fast. When it was time to go, Cassie offered Louis and his wife a ride back to Philadelphia. They packed into our car. Hugs were given at the marina gate, goodbyes were said over the gap from the dock to the side of the canal where the car was parked. I cast off just as they pulled away. The river was calm. Clear sky. Light breeze. Steady traffic. We talked most of the way: sailing, politics, business, family. All of it. I'm not shy about my opinions and I don't feel like any topics need to be off limits on my boat. Commercial traffic was active. It always is in that stretch. I’ve been running AIS, so most of the big ships call me by name. One hailed me early... easy exchange, no friction. Another came through with less patience, asked me to move in closer to shore, tighter than I’d prefer. I adjusted course and brought us within a boat length of the docks. Keeping that close to the shore means avoiding moored container ships, barges, and random sandbars... more than what the charts show. Once they passed, I worked back toward the edge of the channel and kept on. The wind had come up to around five knots true, about 120 degrees off the bow, so we decided to raise the main. We'd been running the jib off and on as the wind speed and direction lined up with our course. It seemed steady enough and out of a good angle to grab an extra knot or two with the main. The Dutchman reefing system is new to the boat. I made a mistake. In the dim light, I unclipped the spare halyard from where it had been stowed, but didn’t realize I’d also unclipped it from the loop on the pennant the Dutchman is rigged on... and which is the only thing going back to the boat from that end of the halyard... I joyfully hoisted the halyard, and it ran free... nothing attached. I realized what had happened just in time to stop it before it reached the masthead. But not soon enough to be able to reach it from the deck to bring it back down. It wrapped once or twice into the upper rigging. We tried to retrieve it underway... different angles, different tools... but couldn’t reach it. I left it alone and kept going. You come around Horseshoe Bend and there it is... Philadelphia, stretched out before you. Towers and girders, the long span of bridges holding weight above water that does not stop. The cargo cranes, the washed-out amber of sodium lights bleeding into sky and river. A city glowing green and gold. A view of the city that has been imagined more often than people have actually seen it. Before you're willing to admit it you've fallen in love with it. She's all steel and grit and water, and she doesn’t care if you’re impressed. We reached the marina a little after one. Once tied up, we got to work on the halyard. My crewmate helped while I rigged two gaff hooks together and fished for the line. Patiently, awkwardly, and eventually with just enough luck, I caught it and pulled it back down. Cleaned up. Covered what needed covering. Coiled the lines. The air was still. The boat didn’t move. I was asleep within minutes, and didn’t wake up until the light started creeping through the forward hatch.

“The journey is part of the experience... an expression of the seriousness of one’s intent.” - Anthony Bourdain When I bought First Light in 2022, I didn’t expect a perfect boat. I expected problems. I just figured they’d be mine. What I got was a boat that had been loved... maintained, outfitted, respected... but not sailed in over a year. She was on the hard when I found her, quiet and clean. A little faded, but not forgotten. And like every used boat, she came with a few unknowns baked into the fiberglass. The past three years have been spent chasing those unknowns out into the open. One at a time. Slowly. Methodically. Sometimes the hard way. This isn’t a how-to series. It’s not a teardown or a list of product reviews. It’s a story... about learning, about trust, about getting dismissed by people who are supposed to know more than you, and about finding out you were right. It’s also about work. Actual, hands-on, in-the-bilge, swearing-at-a-bolt work. If you’ve ever felt your boat vibrating at speed and had four mechanics tell you it’s “probably just your prop,” you’ll understand this. If you’ve ever had a shaft back out in the middle of a maneuver and thought, “Wait, wasn’t that supposed to be fixed?” you’ll definitely understand this. And if you’ve ever had to be the most patient person in the yard while also being the only one who knows what’s actually happening under the waterline... well, then this story’s for you. This is First Light. This is the real maintenance log. And this is where it starts.

After much too long a time on the hard and a minor setback in the form of a leaking thru-hull, First Light is back on the water and under way.

After the fuel dock incident, Mark and I made it to Worton Creek marina to get First Light hauled and to redo the work that didn't last from the previous year. I will be posting the repair log of First Light and tell you all how it took three years to get to where we are today.

When going to the fuel dock after the winter sometimes it causes your tank to stir up dirt and clog your filters. This track only tells half of the story. After filling up I got a half a mile down the canal and the engine started acting up. Eventually after finding my way back to the fuel dock I thought the problem had cleared up, headed back down the canal and then had to turn around again. I ended up spending the morning changing the fuel filters and leaving to Worton Creek after a few hours of delay. We ended up making it to Worton Creek by sunset and got the boat ready to be hauled

As a commercial boat, First Light has to be surveyed every three years. Took a marina neighbor and started our trip to Worton Creek with an ignominious grounding at the exit of our own home port! Needed to leave just a half hour earlier and would have made it out, but seeing as I was one of the first boats to leave the marina this year the silt was a little higher than I was expecting. So we left a few hours later giving me a chance to do some pre trip maintenance... Changed the oil and cleaned up the cabin. Overall a nice trip. Not much sailing as the 1-2 knots of wind didn't mean anything to our rate of travel. I think the max of 7.4 knots was from the current which ran opposite the predicted flow direction and rate.

Took out some family friends for a quick look at the SS United States before she's hauled down to Norfolk on her way to becoming the world's largest artificial reef. Light variable winds meant the sailing was tame but a good day for new people to try their hard at the helm

At this point I can do this part of any trip practically asleep. It was overall a good day making an average of 6.5 knots in a 32' boat takes timing the tides just right. Usually a 9 hour trip becomes 7:15. Back home and time to do some regular maintenance, change the oil, check the fuel filters, and clean up the travel detritus. Such a great way to experience the Annapolis sailboat show, but it's good to be back home

A day in port. Spent the day cleaning the boat and bumming around town in Chesapeake City because the wind was so high that there were white caps on the canal. After experiencing 8' standing waves at the Delaware end of the C&D this spring I figured I'd delay a day and let the wind die down