What was in that Champagne? Rocket Fuel? Pixy Dust?



(Image courtesy of Kristen in the Media Relations Department)



After doing some research on the internets and given our recent streak of bad luck I decided that we need to do something drastic to appease Mother Ocean. We had to officially christen the Buena Vista by the proper, age old tradition of giving a blood sacrifice (or the next best thing).

According to my in depth research (a quick Google search), to change the name of a boat you need to christen it to let the Gods know that the ship’s old name will no longer be on the water and that they need to keep watch over the vessel under the new name. In order to do this, a captain gathers anyone and everyone that will come in contact with the boat and does the following…

1. He appeals to all of the Gods he can think of that deal with water (God, Poseidon, Neptune, Jimmy Buffett, etc.) and lets them know the boat has changed names.
2. In the old days he would give a blood sacrifice offered to the Gods and poured onto the bow of the ship, (we’re not that into the "traditional" so we went with the modern method of using red wine/cheap champagne)
3. Everyone in attendance toasts to the ship, the Gods, and overall good weather.
4. The captain takes the boat out immediately for the inaugural voyage.

Now that the traditions were out of the way it was time to hit the seas. It was a full crew today with me, Kristen, Grant, Sean, and Courtney on board. Once we were on the river the wind was in our favor and blowing out toward the ocean. We had the wind to our backs and we quickly got the sails up.

Why yes, these shades are awesome.

Now we were sailing and it seemed like everything was working in our favor today. Maybe the christening really worked?!? With both the sails up we quickly gained some knots and were sailing in the desired direction. At this point we were able to do something that has never been seen before on the Buena Vista…relaxing/chilling/taking it easy.



Is this what sail in supposed to look like?

By this point we already made it further downriver than ever before and were headed toward the open ocean. But all good things must come to an end because we had plans for that afternoon so it was time to come about and motor back (or so we thought). Once we got the sails down and the motor fired up another sailor started gaining on us from behind. About that time the entire crew looked at me and the race was on…

Workin’ like a well oiled machine.

We hoisted the sails and caught the wind off of the port rail. After double checking we were holding our on with the other sailor and were actually moving FASTER than our speed with the motor. We were sailing somewhat into the wind to boot. What was in that champagne? Rocket Fuel? Pixy Dust? I don’t know but whatever it was it was working. Everything was going so well that it even gave Sean some time to enjoy his new hobby of spying on people with binoculars and scanning the Coast Guard channels on the radio.

Creeper.

Once the wind died down and the sailor was out of range we decided it was time to fire up the motor once more. With many hands on board we got the sails down and covered in a flash so we could enjoy the cruse back into port. Sean even got to take the tiller for a while to test out his skills at the helm.

Don’t get too excited Sean

Overall I was a great day for the Buena Vista and crew. Following the christening everything seemed to work in our favor. We had the wind at our backs, the ability to go where we wanted to go, perfect weather, and the beloved motor actually ran when asked. The only thing we had to worry about was our sunglasses tan.