In Her Wheelhouse
Admiral Biscuit
H/T ROBCakeran53

Five AM.

The first light of dawn was in the sky, washing out the stars. A few early-rising birds had begun their song, while the last few bats made their way back to their roosts.

Morning, almost. Jackdaw yawned, opened her eyes, stretched, and hopped out of bed.

The cabin floor was almost still under her hooves, yet overhead she could hear the musical clanging of the topping lift and main halyard against the mast. The boom had its own creak, swaying as the boat rocked on the little wavelets in the harbor.

A quick trip to the head, then the galley. The stove ran on bottled gas and lit itself when the knob was pushed. A single kettle would heat enough water for coffee and hot oatmeal.

While the water warmed, she brushed her hair and coat, then stuck her muzzle out the cabin hatch. The sun was still below the horizon, but already boats were leaving the harbor, sport boats eager to get to their favorite fishing spot before anybody else did.

The kettle started whistling, and she finished preparing breakfast. The coffee and oatmeal were both instant, essentially making themselves with only a little stirring. The spoon went in the coffee first and then the oatmeal.

She settled down at the chart table and studied the charts for the Michigan coast, making sure that there were no unexpected shoals or wrecks along her intended course.

She’d spent all day yesterday tacking up the St. Clair River, fighting the current and dodging the monstrous lake freighters. The twin spans of the Blue Water Bridge had been a welcome sight, although it had taken several hours between when she spotted them and when she was passing underneath, out of the mouth of the river and into the open waters at the base of Lake Huron.

She could have dropped anchor at Fort Gratiot, but wanted to get some more water under her before anchoring for the night.

Jackdaw rinsed off her dishes and put them in the draining rack, turned off her anchor lights, and made her way up the short ladder into the wheelhouse, then onto the main deck.

Her boat had an electric windlass for the anchor, but she didn’t like it. Lines were meant to be hauled by hoof or mouth, not by pushing a button and letting a machine do the work. If she’d wanted to be a lazy sailor, she’d have bought a motorboat.

Weighing anchor and setting sails had to be done quickly, before the boat drifted and grounded itself or allided with the rocky jetty. The protected harbor gave her a bigger cushion of time, blocking both waves and current.

The weathervane atop the mast showed her wind direction, and back on the steering pedestal, a digital readout would tell her the wind speed, if she turned it on. She usually didn’t; there was nothing she could do with that information.

The time to pull the anchor was also time to plan her departure, to calculate the best set of her mainsail to clear the harbor. The sailboat had a diesel motor tucked away behind the aft cabin, which could be used for close-quarters maneuvers or if the wind wasn’t in her favor, but she preferred not to use it.

•••

With its sails furled, the sailboat was no better than a barge, but as she released the boom vang and began cranking the main halyard, it came to life, the wind gently luffing the sail until she began to set the main sheet.

As the boat started to move, Jackdaw aimed for the harbor entrance, angling just behind a departing powerboat with fishing poles racked across its stern. She passed the harbor light as the sun finally broke the horizon.

The first leg of her trip was southerly, back the way she’d come, giving her clearance from the harbor entrance and the relatively heavy traffic there.

As soon as she had enough sea room, she tacked around to her intended northerly course, angling off into the open waters of Lake Huron. Tempting though it was, she didn’t unroll the jib until she’d passed clear of the harbor jetty and gotten herself that much more open water.

If the winds were in her favor today, she intended to put up in Harbor Beach for the night. If they weren’t—there were a number of other ports on her route, or she could just anchor in shallow water offshore. The pantry was full, the freshwater tanks were nearly full, and she even had a spare gas bottle for the stove.

It took the boat a minute to really be in its element, time for the sails to fill and the hull to heel in the water, and then she was racing across the waves, watching the sun climb over the lake and the seagulls start their morning beach patrols.

A speedboat roared past her stern, slapping across the waves. There was no art to that; its captain had set his course in a straight line. He wasn’t accounting for the wind or the waves at all.

Jackdaw frowned. He was having his fun, just as she was. It was a beautiful day already, and there was no need to be in a negative mood. The lake was plenty big enough for everybody to share.

•••

Small cabins lined the shore, some of them with boat lifts of small docks jutting into the lake. A few early-risers who had come out to see the sunrise were on the beach, but for the most part it was given over to the seagulls.

That would change; as the day went on, more and more boats would take to the water and more and more people would be on the beach, sunning themselves or swimming.

Jackdaw preferred seeing more wild coast, but she couldn’t begrudge people the desire to build homes overlooking the water. If she didn’t have a boat, she’d do the same.

Plus, it was reassurance if something went wrong and she had to swim to shore that rescue was close. She could also call the Coast Guard or other boats with her radio if she needed to.

She tacked around, letting the wind push the other side of the sail. Now she was headed back in to land, and needed to be more alert for the bottom. Sandy beaches usually meant the water was shallow quite a ways out, and while her boat didn’t have a huge draft—just under six feet—it was better to have more water under her keel than less. There could be unseen rocks or an uncharted wreck.

Once the water started to lighten, she tacked back out, setting a comfortable course with the wind and waves. For the moment, she was the only boat she could see around her; all the motorboats who’d left Lexington were too far off to see, and no sailboats yet had departed the harbor.

Most sailboaters weren’t as eager to get an early start as she was. Not unless there was a race—she’d wound up passing Cleveland during race week, and Lake Erie was cluttered with sailboats of all sizes, some of them racing, some of them spectating, and others just joining in on the fun. Getting a berth had been impossible; there weren’t even any good anchorages to be found. She’d wound up mooring to a sixty-footer, and promptly been invited to a boat party. That had been a lot of fun; people liked to tell stories about sailing, and they had plenty to share. They were interested in her experiences as well, both in Equestria and here on Earth.

There was some lighthearted critique of each sailor’s boat; she didn’t know all that much about the different makes. Hers was big enough to sail across the ocean, and had enough features to let her sail single-hoofedly and that was all she needed. She would have preferred a proper wood hull instead of fiberglass, but on Earth wooden sailboats were ludicrously expensive.

A fast-moving thunderstorm had ended the race early, and the crowded harbor got even more full with all the boats seeking shelter. Anchors dragged, and extra fendering got put over the sides.

As quickly as it had come, it was gone again. The competition picked up where it had left off, and she sailed out of the harbor at the tail end of the race.

Sometimes it was nice to have company; other times it was nice to be alone on the lake, just her and her sailboat.

•••

Port Sanilac had a proper lighthouse, the first she’d seen since leaving the St. Clair River. They had both a lighthouse and a lightship there, although the lightship was no longer used.

Similar to Lexington, the harbor opened to the south, and there was a wide, sandy beach to the north of it. Her charts warned her that the bottom was shallow, so she kept herself out in the lake, keeping her keel away from the bottom and keeping herself away from any boaters who might be coming out of the harbor.

Some motorboats and jetskis paid little attention to other boats in the water, roaring along seemingly aimlessly. Sailboaters tended to pay more attention, at least as far as she’d noticed.

Maybe that was why the fishing boats preferred to try their luck further offshore. Or maybe that was just where the better fish were.

She had both a fishing rig and a fishing license, just in case she wanted to try her luck. Jackdaw had little interest in fish; they tasted weird, were filled with sharp bones, and were difficult to clean. If she ever got herself stranded at sea, though, it was good to know how to catch a meal.

Sometimes there were floating mats of seaweed, which tasted better and were easier to catch.

Getting lost in Lake Huron wasn’t that big a worry. Coast Guard boats patrolled the water, and she had two radios to call them if she needed help. One was built in, and the other one was portable and ran on batteries.

Jackdaw kept the built-in one turned on all the time, usually listening to the boating channel when she was under sail, and using its weather forecasting channel every morning before she set sail. Humans were not very good at scheduling weather, and what had been published in the newspaper sometimes changed significantly.

She tacked back in towards shore, aiming for a cluster of mobile homes butted up to the beach. The bottom came up slowly, and she held her course until the water started getting shallow, then tacked back out into the open lake.

The Great Lakes were known for shoals. Plenty of ships had been wrecked in shallow water; sometimes their bleached bones could even be seen on shore, drifted over with sand. She had no interest in becoming another one of them, nor discovering a previously-uncharted shipwreck. Thousands of ships were undiscovered, and their masts might be reaching up dozens of feet from the bottom, ready to snag an unwary mariner.

The wind shifted, and she instinctively tugged in the mainsheet to keep her course. She didn’t have to; she wasn’t confined by any land to the immediate east. She could alter her course to starboard and get some more speed out of the wind she had.

She glanced at her chart, weighted down in the cockpit. It would be hours before she got far enough north to worry about missing Port Hope or Port Austin and have to sail across the mouth of the Saginaw Bay, and it had been a while since she’d been far enough offshore to lose sight of land.

It was a pleasant day, sunny and breezy, perfect for sailing. The waves weren’t too choppy, and the weather forecasting channel hadn’t indicated any storms.

She nudged the helm over and let out the mainsheet, until she was satisfied she was getting the best wind in her sail. Now instead of concentrating on a course heading, she’d let the wind be her guide.

•••

Even though the sky was clear, there was a light haze over the water, and before too long, the shore had almost completely disappeared from her sight.

Author's Note

I think I mentioned in the notes for In Her Wheelhouse that the story was the third iteration on the theme . . . ROBCakeran53 suggested that I ought to write a story about a pony in her wheelhouse and that it was an actual wheelhouse, and of course my thoughts first went to a boat.

I actually went and researched what kind of boat she has; I'd have to do some digging to find it again, though. Something like a Beneteau, IIRC.

This is another one of those stores where I might wind up finishing it someday; I don't get to sail on the Great Lakes as often as I'd like, but it's fun every time I do.

Source

Also fun fact: in nautical terms, an allision is when a ship strikes a stationary object (like a bridge over the Chesapeake Bay), whereas a collision is when two vessels strike each other.