My mother offered to drive my wife, son, and I to Port Ludlow to pick up the boat on Saturday, April 9th. We made good time driving early in morning and arrived at the Port Ludlow marina at 8:15. The weather was very foggy on the way and by the time we arrived in Port Ludlow, the fog still hung heavy over the water. We decided to eat breakfast at the Port Ludlow resort while waiting for the fog to lift.
After a great breakfast, we went down to the boat, still with the name "Dream Weaver" on her, and started to try and get oriented. After a couple of hours of poking around, the fog had lifted enough that we decided it was time to get under way.
Although Trevor Brice from North Pacific Yachts had taken a lot of time to show me the NP43 systems during the survey, I had forgotten much. It must have taken me 10 minutes to figure out that you have to push the Vetus Thruster power button twice for it to activate. Eventually, we figured it out enough to attempt to leave. Fortunately, the wind was calm and backing out into the fairway and turning to leave the marina was a non-event. I only had the touch the thrusters a couple times since the boat spins to starboard nicely with just backing and filling.
We left Port Ludlow under clear skies and a bright sun. Very odd for early April in the PNW. There was a solid bank of fog East of us in Admiralty Inlet but it mostly dissipated as we approached. We ran at 1400 rpm which gave a 2 gph fuel burn and about 7 knots of boat speed. With all the currents we have, I found that I really did miss a boat speed indicator. The GPS SOG is great, but only tells me part of the picture.
The day went by wonderfully. The weather was great with little wind for the first half of the trip. We started on the fly bridge but then moved to the pilothouse as we started to get cool. What a joy to be comfortable and warm while out on the Sound!
We were passed by a freighter just North of Seattle and discovered that a semi-displacement power boat handles large waves a bit differently than a sailboat. I need to be more careful about how I take those.
As we approached Seattle, the wind was starting to pick up. I am guess between 10-15 knots. Another thing I miss is not having a wind indicator. At one point we were being ever so slightly outpaced by a 50' sailboat on a close reach. I found I didn't mind at all.
Given our late start, we decided not to stop for fuel. I hated to pass up the good fuel prices in Des Moines, but with no starboard Nav light, I needed to get into the slip in Gig Harbor before dark.
Getting into the slip was a bit more of a challenge than getting out. Our home slip is angled since the fairway behind us is extremely narrow. The fairway is actually narrower than the length of our boat. By this time the wind and current were playing tricks and I had a hard time telling how far forward I needed to be in the slip, and really didn't want to run into the piling at the forward end of the slip. After messing around for a while, we finally called it night and drove home.
It was a great day. All three of us kept commenting on how good a decision this was to move to power from sail, and to buy this particular North Pacific 43.
