So . . . How Was Your Sail Today ?

[Ex-Calif]

My stupidest sailing day so far, almost

After 6 hours of sanding rewarded myself by joining my buddies Jenneau 35 for the club twilight race.

We get on the boat 20 minutes before the start - late but not a disaster. A bit rushed but set the tone for being "a little behind things" all through the race.

We get on the start side of the course, we have about 6-7 knots of wind and a lot of current running with us. We are depowered and a bit early at the pin end. Another boat is coming from the start side on port, barreling in. It's a club race but we had rights. I stupidly decide to bear away and let the barger through...

This put us outside the pin and early by about 15 seconds. We tack back on to port and we foul another boat who also has to bear away and he ends up cleared off the line at the pin end. Then the barger has made his turn and we almost foul him. He's yelling up a storm now that he has rights.

Oh, well first lesson learned. When you got rights sometimes it may be better to crash.

Now we are so slow we have to dump the genny completely so the bow doesn't blow down on the pin. The main eeks us through the gate and we are off - with about zero speed. Totally blown start.

The start gets underway and in about 5 minutes the fast boats are clearing off and the 3 high handicappers get into a bit of a match race. It was a lot of fun, we are really going pretty well upwind but aren't pointing. Someone finally looks and says, "Are those genny cars in the right place." - All the way back? Of course not - they are about 9 holes off.

Skipper blushes and says, "Oh, yeah. I moved them when I washed the boat last week." So we go through the rest of the rig. Reef 1 & 2 are tight on the leech & the topping lift is tight on the boom -

Lesson 2 rushing to the boat and flinging the sails up is not conducive to good boat handling.

We get the cars sorted on the first tack but we are way left do to the slow start and no pointing. The other Jeanneau has caught us as well as G24(?) closing - We execute a nice tack, cross behind the Jeanneau with intention of having starboard rights on the lay line - It worked out just like the book said it would and we take the mark in 5th - the fast boats all clearing out.

Downwind (white sail race) we are slow and couldn't figure out why all day. We change positions a couple of times and we just lose the overlap at the and of the ~2 mile downwind. Upwind we do well and at the second rounding we are strung out about 50 meters between each boat.

Conditions are very shifty and we have periods of drift and then periods of 8 knots of wind. We are also now fighting about a 2 knot incoming current (favoring the downwind) - At the bottom mark on lap two I make a critical error. The wind is DDW at the mark and weak. I decide to "round" the mark but after the tack we are set back by the current and have no speed. We almost get set back, on the mark and have to do another zero speed tack. We end up getting set about 100 meters below the mark before we get the boat moving. The right call was to simply harden up at the mark, get some speed and room and worry about making way up the course later. I knew that.

Anyway the other guys made it around but the are way left - I decide that now we have to split and we go right. We get across the channel, into shallow water with less current and a small thunderstorm (the reason for now wind) now starts dumping - we now get 5.1 SOG into a 2kt current - we are doing great and have made up all the lost ground from the downwind mark debacle - and we are on the club side of the channel and closest to the line.

Except we have little room from the shore. I keep praying for a lift but none comes. We decide to sail through the moorings - Big mistake. The short lived thunderstorm peters out and we do all we can to simply not hit moored boats. 5 minutes later we tack out and extricate ourselves from the moorings.

The Jeaneau gets past us and I think we can tack back in and make the line - Bad call again. We tack back and immediately get headed - we are heading 90 degrees to the shore.

I haven't been paying attention to the continuing clocking of the wind. we went from close hauled aimed at the line to close hauled aimed at the shore - like a 90 degree shift.

Oh, well - tack out - 4 more tacks to the line because of course every time we tack back toward the club line we are 90 degrees to the 2 knot current.

From 1 3/4 laps of "match racing" to dead last by a long way (like 12 minutes+) -

Very stupid, lots learned and remembered but it's OK - Went Sailing!

Today I think I will sand the boat some more - better at that lately - LOL

[mbianka]

Well I was all provisioned up to start a two plus week cruise. Noticed that the pull start cable on the Honda 2000 generator was looking a little frayed. Picked up a spare cable just in case. Went back to the mooring to use my electric hookah dive setup to do a quick clean of the bottom before catching the favoring afternoon current. Pull cord on the Honda generator snapped on the first pull. No problem I've the spare cord on board. Yeah right! Spent the last two days just trying to get the covers off. Seems five very reliable years in the marine environment has just about welded some of the cover screws to their fittings. Used PB Blaster, screw extracter, and drills. Oh yeah, some of the screws I destroyed are "special" items. So I will be waiting for the post man to deliver the replacements sometime this week. On the other hand I am on the boat so it ain't all bad news. I'm going with the flow and no schedule guiding my plans.

[GeoPowers]

Had a real nice sail today- winds were North at 15-18, with gusts to about 23 or so. We made a fast passage across the Chessie from Herring Bay to the mouth of the Choptank river. We met up with a BIG race headed down Tilghman Island near Sharps Island light, and I really enjoyed watching up close the different classes of boats give it their all. Makes me want to crew on a racer! We stayed with the race fleet for a bit (much to the joy of my 4-year old son who swore we were in the race and winning to boot!) and then split from them when they headed to Oxford and we went on to Cambridge. Then we heard a dockmate of ours talking to the USCG on VHF- sounded like one of the racers lost their rig but were ok thankfully. We dropped the hook in town as the free wall was occupied. The town had a nice "End of Summer" festival/ street party today. It was good stuff- small town main street America enjoying beer, food, music, and some shenanigans. Made the 27 nm trip in 4 hours 15 minutes from our slip to anchorage in the basin, not bad considering we only used the genoa the whole way.

Frank

[centaur]

Just tidying up today after a couple of good mini cruises during my three weeks holidays.
Sailed to the Tall Ships in Dublin and had a really good time overnight in Poolbeg Marina, Had a sailing pal with me who unfortunately is well past his best, lots of health problems and can no longer go it alone, hope its a long way off for me.
After a break headed north to Carlingford Lough. Great sailing weather for 5 days living aboard, even managed to get the the wife and her pal who drove up for a visit out for an hour on the Lough, she don,t sail. Had a few drinks to celebrate, Carlingford village and surrounding area is just fantastic and not to be missed. It also appears to be the hen party capital of Ireland so no shortage of scantily clad young ladies to admire.
Headed further North to Ardglass, fab views of the Mountains of Mourne tho Ardglass its self is very quiet. Wind gusts picked up well over the forecast 5/6 and I surfed on Dundrum Bay with the wave tops being blown past. Was glad to pass the light house that guards St Johns point.
Heading back was refused entrance to Annalong, busy with trawlers, so back into Carlingford just before the ebb made it a struggle.
Had a great time on board for 5 days of peace and quiet, had great weather after such a rotten summer and only got wet from sea spray for the whole time.
Magic.

[centaur]

Late Autumn, Howth, Ireland.
Great weather for a late weekend sail.

[Ex-Calif]

Beautiful - Thanks for sharing!

[ctl411]

Good wind nice waves love fall on lake Michigan.

[SV Siren]

ctl411- Looks great Terry...glad you got one last one in..LOL

[ctl411]

Thanks Scott , last minute decision to go. It was supposed to be rougher, forecast wrong again. Wind only 20 waves maybe 6. Probably go next Friday afternoon also give me a email Friday morning if you want to go.

[Ex-Calif]

Nice - Looks cold...

[GeoPowers]

It was a great weekend of early fall sailing- a warm breeze took us to Dividing Creek off the Wye River, where we put the finishing touches on our Halloween decor. . Had a much cooler and wetter sail back today, but it was still nice and reminded us of our days in the PNW. Good sailing both days.

[davefromoregon]

On the Columbia river this weekend, 30 knots PH wind yesterday and near calm today.

A good weekend.

[Bash]

We've been sailing with a lot of guests recently, so it was lovely yesterday to sail without crew: just me, Wonderblond and the cat. Only problem is that the wind never really showed up.

So at one point we're sailing through Raccoon Straight, close-hauled, and Wonderblond, at the helm, announces that her boat speed matches the true wind speed.

I tell her that she's cheating, of course, and check the current chart. Sure enough, we've got a .5 current going with us. The knotlog confirmed that our STW was .5 kts slower than our SOG.

Still, in 6 kts true, we were making 5.5 knts STW. Close-hauled. With the 110% lapper.

Not bad on a lived-aboard boat with two kayaks on the foredeck, at 10' RIB in the davits, 300' of chain, a solar bimini, offshore dodger, permanently mounted BBQ, wind generator, loaded up with 200 gallons of water, et cetera.

[davefromoregon]

This thread has gone quiet so I figured I would restart it.

I was out on the Columbia river today. The temperature was in the mid 80s and winds were up to about 18 KPH.

It was magnificent. I was sailing with a frequent sailing buddy and my daughter. It was just great.




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