The forecast was for about 12 knots, which for Verboten means the main and blade. We set it up and out we went. High 5 knots and 6 knots by GPS on our first run across the lake. That's a good sign!
As we continued sailing, the wind kept building to the point I was thinking about reefing. Deborah said no, though, so we kept on sailing. GPS started to say 6.3 to 6.4 knots sustained speed on starboard tack, 6.1-6.3 on port. Heck yeah! Got a big sustained blast at one point so I eased the sheets and headed down to a broad reach. Next thing I know we're doing 6.7, 6.8 and even 7 knots - for more than just a blink of the GPS too. Yeee haaaa! We're planing!
When I checked after we got home, the wind peaked at 13 knots with gusts to 19. With our tall rig and no reef. Whoa!
We were a little overpowered through some of this, primarily because the head of the main sail wasn't up to the mark, and I hadn't adjusted the outhaul to flatten the sail. Once I fixed those issues the gusts didn't affect us as badly yet we were still maintaining speeds over 6 knots a lot of the time. That's pretty good for a boat that's not supposed to do more than 6 knots!
Biggest problem we had all day was getting the boat hove to so I could have a potty break. These boats just won't settle down and drift like a full keel boat.
Icing on the cake is that it cost me all of about $8 in fuel (2-ish gallons of diesel) for the 90 mile round trip. Loving the new Jetta TDI!
