It’s August 7, 2016 and time for vacation. We hire a night time cruise on a sailboat for family fun.  The captain is a nice and enjoys sailing. He explains whatever the client wishes to know in enough detail to satisfy the clients. We talked about my curiosity, that being Hurricanes and Tropical Storms and how he handles them. We discussed his sailboat and what I would look for in a sailboat that I want to purchase someday to cruise the islands and live aboard. I got a lot of useful tips from him.

The Daedalus is based out of Gulf Shores & Orange Beach AL. http://www.sailthedaedalus.com/ is their webpage for booking trips. I had an easy time getting it booked and would do it again.

As we’re introducing ourselves, he asks questions of the passengers and discovers I have a small Pirateer 13 sailboat, and that I’m a private pilot. Once we clear the shallow water where it would be easy to ground, he asks me if I would like to sail it. At first, I tell him it’s much larger than anything I’ve been on and I’m not sure I’ll be safe. He says that if I can do the small sailboat that I can do the big one. Thus, I accept his offer and for the next 3 hours I’m sailing this much larger sailboat.

The family is enjoying the dolphins and I’m enjoying handling a 50′ sailboat, more than the dolphins. However, the time is just not long enough for me, but that is how vacations flow.

What I learned about the larger sailboat is that it is easier to handle in higher winds, much more stable, and tends to stay put on the heading one chooses. The heeling is quite a bit more stable and acts like its on rails. Contrasted to my small sailboat which loves to move, this one just sticks. It gives a sense of calmness to be on it.

The handling of it is very sluggish compared to my 13′ sailboat, one starts a turn and waits for it to occur, and one stops a turn before you reach your heading. It doesn’t take long to catch on to it. My small sailboat is like a sports car, it’ll turn on a dime, and so fast a jet ski might be hard put to turn that fast. Well, perhaps not that fast, but I like to think so.

The family didn’t want to take the helm, but they did wander about and loved the water, soda, and snacks provided. They didn’t mind how a sailboat feels either. There’s a different feeling with a sailboat, compared to power boats.