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By Milt Baker
ed. note: Milt and Judy Baker have just taken delivery of their new Nordhavn
47#32 Bluewater.
We are proud to show off our saucy new Nordhavn 47, Bluewater, shown here at
the completion of sea trial # 2 at Stuart, FL. While there remain a
handful of loose ends on the punch list to attend to, we still expect to
sail her away from Stuart on schedule on or before Aug. 31.
The sea trial today went really well. PAE Vice President Jim Leishman
kindly flew in from California to provide what we needed most: a short
course in Paravane Stabilization 101. Jim, probably the world's most
foremost expert on paravane stabilization ("he wrote the book"), oversaw the
rigging of Bluewater's paravanes yesterday, then shephered us through final
rigging and hands-on lessons on deploying and retrieving the paravanes at
sea in the great Atlantic Ocean a few miles off the sea buoy at St. Lucie
Inlet -- in flat-as-a-pancake seas. Now that we're no longer paravane
virgins, the deep-diving paravanes seem much more approachable and workable
than we had supposed. A successful offshore sea trial in our wake, on our
way into Stuart we proceeded to run smack aground in mid-channel in
uncharted soupy mud, right between the red and green markers--no damage
done, save a bruised ego or two. Our new six-foot draft will definitely
take some getting used to!
See you out there soon!
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Milt Baker stands just aft of Jim Leishman by the pilot