Two dynamic couples visiting Williamsburg from Greensboro took a short sailing vacation on the York River.

Having never been on a sailboat before, they did a fabulous job running the rig, raising the spinnaker, and conducting a man overboard exercise to rescue a hat—my hat actually. We saw a half dozen dolphin, who trailed the boat perhaps for the last time this year as the river water begins to cool.

Kelsey White is an RN going for her master’s in anesthesia. Her husband Justin is a public accountant. Kate Sigmon manages a department store, and her husband Greg is in optician sales. He’s the first sales rep we’ve had on board all season, so we regaled each other with stories about clients.

Greg’s was the first ballcap we lost. Typically the procedure is to do a heave-to by locking up the genoa and returning to find the man overboard, ie. hat. But we were under spinnaker sail and couldn’t simply turn 180 degrees without mashing the sail all over the shrouds. By the time we got the chute down, we were a quarter mile from the hat. Despite our best efforts to recover it, it was lost. Perhaps it will show up on a dolphin’s nose. Later my hat blew off while near the channel, and because we were under conventional sail it was easier to fetch.
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