So . . . How Was Your Sail Today ?

[Ex-Calif]

56 nautical miles? That's 7 knots. Wow you were flying...

Glad you had a great day...

[Allan S]

Well we didn't sail today but last saturday was a blast! High winds coupled with gust on the South Western area of lake Ontario in Canada. The wife and I had way too much sail up for our experience, but did that stop us? No way! Question; Is 25 degrees heeling too much? We sail an old tank called a Coronado 25. BTW, we tore the headsail, but that could have been because its old....oh, yea, the next day we went out just under the main and noticed a 3 inch tear just above the top batten. Long story short, both sails are in the loft, we'll pick them up this weekend. Note to self...get spare sails. Any regrets? Not a single one, I just hope we don't get addicted to high wind sailing or it's off to thre Roaring Forties for us!!

[Ex-Calif]

Once you get to hull speed you end up heeling without any more speed. Of course as you point out it is a lot of fun! Definitely didn't have too much sail for your experience but maybe too much for conditions.

If your wife is enjoying 25 degrees of heeling, she sounds like a keeper!

Glad the sails are repairable - that gets pricey$$$$$

[Connemara]

Had the day off.

Forecast called for sun with patchy cloud, temps climbing from 12 to 22 (whatever that is Fahrenheit for our US brethren) and most importantly eight to 10 knots of wind building to 12 or 13.

Undocked at about 10:30 to circumnavigate Toronto Island (an annual ritual that I hadn't got to yet this year).

Wind, as promised, was a nice steady 10 from the southwest. Not much wave action for the first three or so miles, because I was sheltered by the Leslie Street spit. Once past the spit, I was getting about a metre with a fairly short period. Some breaking waves, but not a lot. Bouncey but great fun.

For those not familiar with the area, my course was roughly southsouthwest until I cleared the spit. Once I got enough offing I could alter to roughly westnorthwest to sail along the south coast of the island.

Banging into the waves, I was still making about five and change, SOG.

OTOH, when the wind started to pipe up, I was heeled a bit more than was comfortable for single-handing, so I hove too and stuck a reef in the main. When I resumed sailing, I was still making about the same speed, but it was a shade easier to stand up.

Have i said it was a glorious day?

Turned the corner at the west end of the Island, on to a beam reach, and picked up a knot of speed with the waves on the beam as well. 6.2, 6.5, thereabouts.

Very confused seas entering the Western Gap, but good old OMC handled it with no trouble. (Again, for those not familiar with Toronto, the Western Gap is just what it says, a narrow channel that takes you to the water north of the Island, which we call the Inner Harbour. You're required to be under power in the Western Gap.)

In the harbour, I pulled the main back up (still reefed) and reset the genny. Flat water meant I was screaming across at about 6.5.

Out the Eastern Gap and was met by 12 knots right on the nose and waves now about 1.5 metres. Three or four tacks in succession and I was back out on the lake. Turned for home and with wind now on a beam reach or a bit further back, evereything started to calm down. The waves were kicking the stern around a bit, but they weren't breaking any more. And the apparent wind dropped to about eight knots. Boooring.

Anyway, great day. If you were out there, congrats on picking the perfect day to play hooky. And if the guys who tacked in front of me coming out the harbour are reading this, that was close, but I was on the starboard tack.

Connemara

[mike d.]

i hope you all had a lousy blustery day if you sailed !!!! i had to work!
beautiful bright clear skies and nice wind (oh did i mention i had to work today.
it's been like this all week. oh don't mind meeee it rained hard with no wind all two weeks of our vacation. all i can say is i hope the wind !!!???? dies before you get back to your mooring/dock

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by Connemara

Anyway, great day. If you were out there, congrats on picking the perfect day to play hooky. And if the guys who tacked in front of me coming out the harbour are reading this, that was close, but I was on the starboard tack.

Sounds like fun.

The hardest thing I had to get used to was actually talking to the other boats. The reality is that not everyone knows the rules and many people know them but will take advantage.

Yelling, "STARBOARD BOAT." Has been effective.

Also when tacking out of a channel and you are about to crash into the sea wall waiting for the guy on your upwind quarter to tack, it is perfectly acceptable to tell, "WATER. TACKING." Unless he is a complete git he will tack and give yuo room.

[markpj23]

I know this is an old thread... but a good one.

Saturday we had steady winds 10 - 15 from the SE, clocking to the south later in the day. That put us on a broad reach from our slip out to Egmont Key at the mouth of Tampa Bay.

I'm admittedly not a very experienced sail handler, and we have owned Nauticat for just over a month now. I gotta tell ya that it's a HOOT to be sailing at over 8 knots while the boat is perfectly FLAT. This is with 7 adults aboard, enough food, coolers & beer for the day and the tanks topped off. I'll bet a more practiced eye than mine would have coaxed more speed out of the sails.

The rig on this boat is like having an automatic transmission.... just pick your heading, let the boom brake and camber-spar self-tacking jib do their thing and then trim the sheets. WOW....

Anchored at the NW end of the key and ferried everyone ashore to explore the old gun batteries, etc. within what is now a State Park. This was a new experience for us and well worth the trip.

All in all a PERFECT day on the new boat. We even returned to the dock with the same number of people aboard as when we left...

[Intentional Drifter]

Pretty nice day, and a beautiful sunset. Photo courtesy of George on Sunspot Baby. Thanks, George!

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by Intentional Drifter

Pretty nice day, and a beautiful sunset. Photo courtesy of George on Sunspot Baby. Thanks, George!

Great photo!

[Portobello]

Circumnavigated Bruny Island - a 100+ nm trip over 3 days. Day one brisk run down the Derwent River to be hit by an equally brisk southerly - on the nose for 4 hours to Adventure Bay - arrived well after dark. Bottle of red and sleep! Easter Saturday - headed out early south to the southern tip of Bruny - through the Friars
Google Image Result for http://sail-world.com/photos/medres_9The%20Friars.jpg
... and on to the shelter of The Quarries in the D'Entrecasteaux Channel. Being Easter the anchorage was busy but caught up with some sailing mates. Easter Sunday - the 30 nm back to Geilston Bay - easy sailing reaching - running all the way.
A beautiful way to spend Easter!

[Ex-Calif]

Our Easter cruise was fun. Singapore to Sebana Cove, Malaysia. The club had advertised the trip and ultimately we ended up with over 10 boats there.

I arrived at 8:30 and got the boat off the mooring and to the dock. We hadn't scrubbed her for a while and in 26C temps I got the deck and cockpit scrubbed. We had installed the new genny after our furler repair and I hadn't really been out for a good sail in weeks and weeks. I drug the old genny out of the forepeak and Josh and I folded it up and stowed it in the sailbag that the new one had come in.

We loaded bags and coolers and launched in a fleet of 3 J24s and 2 maxis. The winds were very light as we are in the doldrums now so we motor sailed to keep a breeze on the deck in the now 30 degree temps.

In Singapore you clear immigration at sea and it was cool to see 7 boats floating around clearing immigration. We cleared 3rd and wandered slowly off on course as we were buddying up with a J24 that was still waiting to clear. Condiitons were sailable for the next 45 minutes as thunderheads were bulding up (we'll take any winds we can get - LOL) and it was nice to have the drone of the engine off for a while.

The skies really overdeveloped and we furled the genny and spent 40 minutes penetrating a huge thunderstorm. The "cold" fresh water was a relief from the heat and we stripped down to bathers and enjoyed the wet.

The J24 had been having engine trouble so as we cleared the t'storm we circled back to look for them. They came out of the gloom and with the post thunderstorm calm decided it was time to set up the tow. We rigged up a line and set off for the river mouth a short distance away. At 2600 RPM our 10 horse Volvo started to send a lot of steam out the exhaust so we reckon we were over temping a bit. I dialed back to 2100 and we cruised the next hour, fighting the current, to the resort.

It was great to be on the water. I had to get back Sunday night and had arranged a ride back on the now engineless J24 with Josh as Relax Lah! was heading for Indonesia for the week. However, engine repairs were not forthcoming on the J24 so the J24 crew ended up coming back by ferry. The good news is I have an excuse to go over and recover the J sometime this week ;-)

Saturday we set up Easter egg coloring events and an easter egg hunt for the 15 or so kids that were there. The kids also enjoyed fishing, swimming, and hiking.

The highlight of the resort trip was 9 holes of golf in a light drizzlling rain. I had let my 11 y/o drive a golf cart with his 10 year old buddy and for 8 holes they did great. Coming down a hill with a left hander to a bridge was his undoing. He over cooked it and drove the cart off the bridge and into the creek which was full of rocks, mud and slime.. The amazingly good news is both boys were completely uninjured, missing all the rocks, but were probably totally shocked by what happened.

The other good news is that with the help of a couple of spectators we were able to lift the cart out and place it back on the path. Unbelievably the cart was unharmed. The front plexi had popped out and the seat came off but after putting them back on the cart fired right up and drove us back to the clubhouse.

Note to stupid dads - let the kid drive but always accompany by an adult.
Other note to stupid dads - don't let your wife read CF for a while - LOL....

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by Ex-Calif

.
Other note to stupid dads - don't let your wife read CF for a while - LOL....

She don't need to. I'll email her your post

Great story!


Our Midnight Adventure!

The Fitzroy Island anchorage became a washing machine as the South Easter pulled due south. We switched to the north end of the island just on dusk, carefully, as one does when its not our own waters.

I didn't like the 16 meters depth on an incoming tide and had all our 42 meters of chain out but no rope... its too difficult to get it in.
Took hand compass bearings to other boats, waypoints on the plotter and anchor alarm on the hand held GPS.... and plotted an escape route to Cairns 17 miles away.
Also plotted what would be the earliest time I could leave but not get to Cairns till daylight. Unknown port syndrome.
So both our funny bones' niggling had been satiated. How could we drag?

At 2am Nic checked the hand compass bearings and thought they were off and woke me. Wind change from S to SE and coming from the other side of the island so we hung back off the chain on the other side.

Too short a rode would make difficulty for the anchor resetting... but sleepy and hopeful I said 'I'll reset' just as the anchor alarm sounded and showed a clear purple track away from the waypoint.

Up anchor and away into the night downwind. Readied the headsail, but turned the engine off and found us doing 4kts! Too fast! We had 25kts behind us now!

CapeGrafton would have to soften the wind so I guessed we would slow down.

Bare poles, wind at 120 degrees on the port quarter and the boat was gently 'sailing'.

We sat in the tropical warmth chatting about whatever people chat about when they have nothing to chat about but do anyway.

Hit the Cairns leading lights right on dawn and motored in as the greens and reds gave one last flick and died.

Glorious tropical adventure sailing - with no sails!



Mark

[Amgine]

Had to be up very early this morning anyway, so I checked the weather for Georgia Strait - strong wind warnings, low 3 high 12, mostly sunny - and decided that might mean just a touch of wind in the Indian Arm where my boat is moored. So I jumped on the scooter and drove through rush hour traffic (dumb, really dumb - I hate traffic of any kind) to get to the boat.

At first it looked like I'd guess wrong, that there'd be no wind at all because as usual the direction of the fjord nearly completely blanked out the wind. The sun was turning the frost on the docks directly to vapor. But every so often ripples would spread across Deep Cove from the mouth at Burrard Inlet. So I cleared up various half-completed projects, stowed tools, washed dishes, cleaned up, dumped the dinghy on the dock, and bent on the new sails.

Hoisted sails in just a bit more than ghosting - ripples on the water but not yet wavelets, 3 maybe 4 knots. Wind out of the SE, so I headed downwind a bit and spent an hour playing with the set of the new sails and dealing with the wakes of a dozen darth vader yachts whose owners either had taken a 5 day weekend or decided to play hooky on such a great day. GPS said I was making nearly wind speed over the ground, which had to be wrong somehow 'cuz I was opposing tide.

Turned around and headed back up, and this is where the new sails clearly showed what a dog she'd been with the old bags. Startling accelleration - almost felt like a J24! and clean smooth curves with little or no heel! Almost looked over the side to make sure it was still the full keel under there. Wind was picking up, maybe 8-10 in gusts, and the boat was getting hull speed.

Which had me back at the marina far sooner than I really wanted to be - I wanted to be irresponsible and spend the rest of the day on the water. Maybe the wind would continue to climb, and I could try out the new working jib sheeted to the inside track... But I didn't. I dropped sail and carefully flaked everything out, motored in to the slip (which, for once, wasn't a three-ring circus event), bagged the genoa, coiled down, cleaned up.

Scootered off to the desk just after lunch after only a short while under sail, but a great start with the new sails and lots of motivation to get out there every day this week I can.

[SV Someday Came]

in sharing a real sailing experience.

Took the boat out for the benefit for my daughter and her friend a couple of weeks ago. I do not know San Diego, and this was my first solo sail in the new bay. I checked the weather, looked at some maritime weather charts, imaged a couple of satellite passes, did a radio check, and check all the fluids.

I did not however check the Military Carrier Guide.

I was taught "red right returning" And to keep the green on the STARBOARD side of the boat upon departure.

I was already very nervous since I had two inexperienced teenagers on board on one inexperienced adolescent (me!). As we werr approaching Point Loma, the channel markers seemed to get more narrow.

And there was this really really really big boat coming into the Bay. And it was heading right at us in the middle of the channel. I moved over and over and over steering at this point right toward the green buoy so that I would pass it on the starboard side. And that boat just got bigger and bigger and bigger.

Then coming at us were two very angry small boats yelling at us to stay 500 yards away. I explained that I could not stay 500 yards as I had no idea how 500 yards looks like in open water. Does anyone here know how far 500 yards looks like on water? I am not even sure I know what that distance looks like on land.

Anyways, they became more angry because I would not pass the green buoy on the right side. I explained that I was new at this and that I was SURE I was obeying the laws. Nonetheless, one boat came right at us and sorta helped guide us to the other side of the buoy -- where we soon encountered some kelp and that made the girls happy.

My daughter I found out (unknown to me) had been taking pictures.

After they passed, I was rattled, I turned around and very slowly sailed back to the slip.

[markpj23]

Spent the night anchored just north of Boca Grande Pass FL on Thursday. Next morning we had the forecasted east winds at 15 - 20 kts. We sailed with the 1st reef in and were humming along on a southerly course towards the inlet - at 7.5 kts. There was another cat about 2 miles ahead of us as we made our turn to the west and entered the channel.

I've read lots of books on catamarans that say you can't go wing & wing. Guess they never sailed aboard a Manta because we did exactly that and loved it!. Wind was nearly dead astern. Once the camber spar jib found its place we just went.... man I love this rig and it's "point and shoot" simplicity! We closed the gap between us and the other cat to 800 yards by the time we cleared the channel and made our turn north. They had a blanketed / luffed jib the whole way downwind.

Saturday was more of the same with 20kts steady on a beam reach. The GPS hit 8.9 kts and it was a blast. Too bad the winds died late morning as we were clicking off the miles. I've got to look at weight distribution and see if we can't get some steady 9s going here....

Have I mentioned that I really like this sailing flat stuff?