A great Sunday sail

Sunday, September 5th, 2010

This afternoon Deborah and I drove down to the lake for an afternoon sail.  Things turned interesting right from the start, as the wind, which was from the east when we got there, came around to the northeast as I was backing out of the slip.  We got forced in close to the other boats and ended up scraping the bbq on Stairway's solar panel.  Luckily no damage to either.

The wind was blowing pretty hard and forecast to be up around 14 by 5:00 PM, so I left the reef in.  The initial run out of the bay was the usual shifty pain but we eventually found clear air and had a great sail.  Even with the reef in we were maintaining high 5's and sometimes mid-6's on the GPS.  The wind was strong and gusty but with the reef in the boat handles it well.  Deborah said afterwards that she had fun too, unusual given the wind strength.

I tried taking a page from Don Guillette's sail trim lessons and used the traveller to bring the main as close to mid-line as possible.  I also played the traveller more instead of the main sheet with the gusts.  Seemed to work pretty well but I think I'll have to replace the traveller line in the spring as it's showing its age.

Saw Dean when we were almost ready to head in so we chased him down and told him about the solar panel.  He took some pictures of us before we got close enough to holler, then followed us across the lake.  I threw in an extra tack so he caught up and beat us in to the slip.

Photo by Dean Grabski

We chatted with Dean for a while, then closed up the boat after he went back out.  The folks on the other side of Stairway came in as I was finishing up the boom tent so I ran over to lend a hand.  Good thing as the wind caught them and they mostly missed their slip.  I ended up on the 4th boat down trying to fend them off.  Not sure, but I think maybe the woman was Darcy from the ASBC at work.