Long Point - Goodbye Meridian

Today was the closing of the sale of our boat. We have shared the responsibilities  costs, anxieties, adventures and fun of owning Meridian with my brother and sister-in-law, Simon and Danielle. Si and Dan are on to another boat and George and I are going to be boat-less  for at least this year, while we decide what we want to do re a boat.
I have mixed emotions about this. On the one hand it was a lot of money to shell out for a short sailing season, I was quite an anxious sailor in windy weather (which of course is when sailboats go out) and we tended to feel we should be sailing rather than doing other things in the summer. However I do love sailing, racing (in less than 15 knot winds) is fun, improving and learning more is gratifying and there is a great group of people involved with the Port Dover Race Committee. I hope we will be able to continue with some of the pluses.
So in honour of Meridian and to wish her new owners much luck and enjoyment (three young guys from Simcoe who are novice sailors) I am posting some pictures of our experiences with Meridian over the last 5 or so years.

Meridian was docked at LaSalle Marina, Hamilton Bay, overlooking Stelco, when we bought her.
Our first adventure was bringing her home through Lake Ontario, the Welland Canal and Lake
Erie with the help of John Morey. In this picture we are fending her off the walls as the lock fills.

We have some lovely pictures of her, mostly taken by whoever was the committee
boat for the race that night, as they are the only ones who have time to take pictures.

In the thick of things, racing.

We didn't know this picture had been taken until we looked up the weather, on the internet,
the next day. It had been posted on the Weather network website. Almost looks like we have no
boat under us at all.

We raced Monday nights in June and September, Wednesday nights from June to
September and raced the two weekend races (June and September). Full schedule.
This is taken at the dock in Dunneville. For the Hewson Regatta, in June we race to where the
 Grand River flows into Lake Erie. Stay in Dunneville over night and race
 back the next day. Fiona is usually happy to be part of this race as they have a great
firework display on the Saturday night.

The trip up and down the river is very pretty and peaceful.

The last two years we entered the Lake Erie Interclub race which is a 5 day race from
Erie PA, to Dover, Pt Colborne and Buffalo. This is the crew picture at the beginning
of the 2012 Interclub.

This shot took 3rd place in the Interclub photo contest. I took it of Meridian flying along in the
midst of a lot of bigger boats, from Zatarra, a cruising boat. Simon said I had gone to "the
dark side".  This was during a very windy Long Point Bay race (part of the Interclub) and
the spinnaker was looking great.

Of course it doesn't always go well. I stopped taking pictures at this point.
In fact I stopped watching too.

The day she is lifted into the water and the day she is lifted out mark the
beginning and end of the sailing season. We have had some horrendous
weather on some of these days but this year, May 1, we had a beautiful
day to put her in and even went for a short sail/motor (not much wind).

Of course the day the boat is taken out of the water is the day all those
off season chores start.

I hope Meridians new owners enjoy her as much as we have and find the Port Dover area sailors to be as helpful and generous as we have.