I took mine one the first time with nothing more than some youtube / book knowledge and a prayer. Since everyone said to go out with someone that knew what they were doing and to stay away from the ocean, I decided to go out with 2 of my friends, neither of which knew anything about boating at all and sail in the ocean for a 3 day island camping trip. Made perfect sense to me... At the time I actually thought I did a decent job but after a few more trips out I realized how many things I had done wrong in rigging and sailing it. Here's a little taste of the trip.
Had to stop and restart stepping the mast I think 2-3 different times because we had shrouds hooking the back of the hulls, forgot to attach the jib halyard and the shackle got sucked up to the jib halyard block.
Amazingly I also didnt realize the forestay adjuster plate that goes into the furler....goes INTO the furler, so even though I knew it couldnt be right I layed it horizontal across the top of the furler and pined it lol. Hey we were tired and ready to get this island party rig going.
I also didnt know the jib luff zipped around the forestay so we sailed the whole weekend with one mega cupped jib as the jib halyard was the only thing holding the luff shape.
By the time we finally got it rigged I realized I had never wiped down the luff track on the mast. We sprayed the sail with lube but it made no difference from all the dirt in the track. Took 3 of us on the halyard to get the main to within a foot of the hook. I just put a knot in the halyard and we were off. Someone took a picture of us and sent it to me. As you can see we looked like pros...
The next day we took the main down and soaked the luff in the ocean and raised and lowered it a few times to scrub the mast track out. It worked and we finally were able to get the main hooked. We didn't know how to get it unhooked though at the end of the trip and just took down the mast with the main still in it. Yet another moment where all the beach babes could see what experts we were.
Launched into 1 foot deep water where I couldn't keep the rudders down. I didn't really know about steering with the sails at that point so when the wind picked up I was literally doing a lateral squat on the hiking strap trying to pull the non locked down rudders enough to keep us straight. It was a pretty annoying experience as my buddies who weren't doing anything kept telling me the boat wasn't going straight as I was breaking a sweat pulling on the tiller as hard as I could. "Then you come back here and pull on this thing!!",.....so if you don't know, if you cant lock the rudders down then let the main sheet out and in to steer the boat. The rudders don't work sticking straight out the back of the boat...
Also set the boat up loose just in case, I didn't know anything about flattening the sail and spilling off power with the setup so I was running my diamonds tight like guitar strings, no downhaul, tight battens etc. We took it a few miles off the coast like any smart total beginner with no radio should do and were having a blast going back and fourth on beam reaches until the gusts hit and we almost would go over or pitch pole every time. Good thing I didn't have any righting ropes.... That money went to a few extra packs of beef jerky
Still had one of the best 3 day island camping trips of my life and it probably got me hooked on beach cats for life. Don't be scared the first time out, just bring some dirt to rub on any cuts and bruises and probably try and be a little safer than me...
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