Darren from Cool Cat

You've already heard about Darren in previous posts, he's been generous with his time and so helpful during the kevlar application project (which is 3/4 complete at this point). Here's a bit more to his story.

Darren arrived in Guaymas from Queensland Australia while I was in La Paz. His boat, Cool Cat, was already here. After careful thought, a survey, and long-distance negotiations, Darren purchased Cool Cat. He has a lot of experience with power boats but this is his first experience owning a sailboat.

After about 4 weeks in the workyard, Cool Cat, was launched. Now Darren needs to learn how to sail this boat and his learning curve needs to be quite steep since he wants to leave for Australia sometime in April.

Lesson #1: There goes the teaching team. L-R: George, Dick, Rupert (who really knows what he's doing, a naval architect with 50 years sailing experience. He first single-handed a sailing dinghy when he was 7 years old), and Darren.

The first lesson was quite successful. Later in the evening, Darren got his first action-packed event. Fifteen minutes after he returned to his boat, around 8 pm, his anchor dragged and his GPS alarm sounded. Luckily he was not drifting toward the other boat anchored in the bay, nor the shrimp fleet, nor the naval dock, but out into open water. His port engine would not start, so he had to maneuver the cat using only starboard power. After many attempts to reset the anchor, he was successful, but decided to sleep in the cockpit. Of course he didn't sleep very much. Welcome to the world of sailing.