In 1993 my folks came into some money and decided to buy a sailboat. They had a Santana 22 in the early �70s, but decided to sell it after I played �let�s test the lifejacket� when I was about 4 years old. Dad had read about the MacGregor 26 in a magazine and decided to check it out. I�m not exactly sure what sold him on the boat, but nevertheless he and Mom traveled down to Ashland, Oregon, in their �85 Toyota van to pick one up and towed it back home to Grand Ronde, Oregon with nary a problem. After buying an outboard, getting the necessary supplies, and painting antifouling on the bottom and �Wake-Up Riley� on the transom, they took the boat to Astoria where they kept it at the West Basin marina for the next two years. They hauled it out in the fall of �95 thinking they would like to take it somewhere with mellower weather than Astoria. However, in the spring of �97, they decided to take it back to Astoria where their friends were and the marina rates were very reasonable, but this time tied up at the East Basin marina. The hauled it out again the next spring after a severe windstorm knocked the Wake-Up Riley loose and it bumped into their friend Jerry Ostermiller�s boat. In October of 2001, my dad died of complications due to multiple myeloma, a type of cancer. Mom was going to sell the Wake-Up Riley, but when she found out I was interested in it, she gave it to me. With the help of my father-in-law, we hooked the trailer up to his truck and towed it from Grand Ronde down to Siltcoos Lake. We launched it at the Lane County boat ramp and took up a slip at the Westlake Resort marina, just south of Florence, Oregon. It was the spring of 2002
The whole summer I had a great time sailing. Everything worked great and I was learning new stuff all the time.
In October of 2002, I organized a �Men�s Sailing Weekend� for my friends from work and me. The weather surprised us � it was gorgeous the whole weekend and we had a great time. Unfortunately, on the last day as we were getting ready to leave, I broke the centerboard. I was backing up under power with the centerboard down in an area I thought was plenty deep when there was a loud crack. I went down to see what had happened. The cleat where the centerboard raising line was attached had been pulled clean through the fiberglass where it had been mounted and there was a huge hole where it had once been. I tried tugging on what was left of the raising line and nothing happened. I was worried the centerboard itself had detached from the boat, but when I got back to my slip I could see it was still there.
Later that month I hauled the Wake-Up Riley out. I was worried about damaging the centerboard some more, but it kicked up just fine and the boat went on the trailer without a hitch.
Our second son, Trevor, was born in June of 2003. Since I didn�t have much time on my hands, I decided on a quick fix for the centerboard. I tied a long rope between the two farthest stanchions aft, going under the boat. This kept the centerboard up. When I had got the boat off of the trailer and into deep enough water, I would untie the rope, let the centerboard loose, it would kick back up as I got on the trailer, and once out of the water I would tie the rope back on.
The first time I tried to go sailing that summer my Mom and I went to Devil�s Lake (http://www.oregonstateparks.org/park_216.php), near Lincoln City, Oregon. The wind was perfect when we got there. We got the boat in without a hitch. I had it tied up at the dock, and was getting ready to raise the mast, when Mom noticed one of the spreaders had broken. I had never thought of that happening, so I had no spares. I thought we could just go out for a motor on the lake, but then realized it would be very difficult to steer with the mast in the mast crutch. So, really disappointed, we decided to pull the boat out. When I tried to get it on the trailer, the bow smashed into the �v� part of the trailer, breaking the bow light. The boat ramp at this lake was steeper than usual and I hadn�t got the trailer far enough in the water. When I started winching it up it I cranked in the wrong direction and had to hold onto the winch handle as my Mom towed the boat up the ramp so the boat would stay on the trailer (I didn�t figure out what was wrong until we parked the trailer). All in all it was a very bad and somewhat embarrassing day.
Though it wasn�t as bad as the second time out that summer.