Welcome Aboard Gedonk | |
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My brother from Albuquerque brought a family entourage to the San Juans in July 2002 to enjoy the quiet beauty of the islands and the new sailboat. Fortunately, he was able to find accommodations in Friday Harbor for the week. I don't think Gedonk could have handled twelve people, even if four of them were under ten years old. Or maybe especially if four of them were under ten. |
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 After having experienced some disagreement in navigation in the San Juans, I decided to enhance my pilotage with a GPS chartplotter, which I describe in a little more detail under Electrical Projects. The published data from Garmin has the disappointing news that the NOAA chart covering my home port isn't included anywhere in their electronic database. I am therefore limited to finding my way home using the unit's basemap. They will probably incorporate chart 18543 into their Blue Chart database eventually, but I'm still disappointed. I have a copy of the river cruising atlas, which is based on the chart, and I have a copy of the paper chart on order, but I also have a downloaded graphic image that I can look at on my computer. That's a captured snippet showing the Columbia Point harbor and the Richland Yacht Club. |
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Copyright © 2010 Jack Chandler. |
Gedonk arrived in Seattle on schedule, and the delivery took place on time without a hitch. The MacGregor is everything I expected it to be, and I'm enjoying sailing more than ever. I will always have a warm spot in my heart for Pogy Bait and her San Juan 23 sisters, but Gedonk is clearly a step upward. 
Just as people often asked me the significance of Pogy Bait's name, I expect to be questioned about the source of this one, too. An informed source once told me that gedonk is pidgin Chinese for ice cream. In navy slang, a gedonk (pronounced GEE-dunk) is a junk food snack. A pogy bait is a gedonk you offer to someone else as an inducement. Before deciding on the name, I also considered Pogy Bait++, Goofy, and Generic. I also considered a Hawaiian phrase that translates roughly to "duck fart," but it was never a serious choice because a boat by that name has already been immortalized in the pages of Cruising World. Maybe if I could have gotten a Yakama translation...
Something unusual about the MacGregor is that she has a planing hull and enough auxiliary power to get her up on the plane if the water ballast tank is empty. If you see a boat with a mast going across the water faster than any sailboat has a legitimate right to go, it's probably a MacGregor. Witness the unbelievable photo of water skiing illegally without an observer in the boat. No, that isn't my boat, and I'm not going to buy any water skis. Maybe I'll get an inner tube so Patrick (my four-year-old nephew) can take a ride.