I volunteered to skipper a boat for a sailing event for children in the foster care system being advocated for by CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates). Kelly was my volunteer crew. We were paired with a middle-school-aged boy, Q, and his CASA chaperone, J. Q was fairly quiet but very responsive and enthusiastic, asking many questions. We had partially rigged the (J/22) boat before they arrived, but I had Q help us finish rigging the boat, and included a quick overview of the parts of the boat in the process. I handled the helm during departure, had Q raise the jib, and demonstrated tacking and jibing, and Kelly gave Q a lesson in trimming the jib. Afterwards, I handed the helm over to Q and guided him through the manuevers. We managed to go out further than any of the other boats, making it it halfway between Canton and Fort McHenry before we needed to turn around in order to get back by our scheduled docking time. The wind in the Fort McHenry channel died shortly after we turned around, which put our return at risk, but picked up again as we approached Fell's Point. As we approached the docks, we lowered the jib, then I took over the helm for the docking. Q took care of dropping the mainsail, while Kelly handled stepping off and securing the boat to the dock.
We left the boat rigged, since I had it reserved for the afternoon. After lunch, I met up with Asher and his wife, Sophia, and we headed out. By this time, the wind had picked up considerably, and we made it through the Northwest Harbor and the Fort McHenry channel at a pretty steady 5 knots. Once we reached the Fort, I handed the helm over to Asher, who manned it for the rest of the trip, while his wife managed the traveler and I trimmed the jib. We tacked upwind to the Key Bridge at around 5.5 knots, first making a stop at the star-spangled Key Memorial Buoy, then, after a short detour due to Fort Carrol blocking our wind, looped around the bridge supports. We headed back downwind toward Fort McHenry, then back through the Fort McHenry channel toward Canton and then Northwest Harbor. We dropped the jib, then I guided Asher through the process of a crosswind docking in our slip. We completed the trip in just about 3 1/2 hours.
The weather was quite hot, around 90F, but the increased wind in the afternoon kept it from becoming unbearable.