Beautiful day of sailing yesterday!!
It started off a little rough, sailing solo offshore with about 10 to 15 from the South. I pushed off with the jib furled but as I headed off the wind kept unfurling it. So the first twenty minutes or so were a battle of trying to keep some control on the boat with little control over the jib. (does this happen to anyone else??) I had a very hard time tacking with the jib unfurled and got stuck in irons on every attempt. It seems that the combination of the waves and the jib would stop me every time. Finally, I headed straight offshore (East)and in a lull between waves Pulled the hell out of the jib furling line (my hands still hurt from that one) and knotted it off to prevent it from unfurling anymore. After that the sailing was awsome!!
For the first time I flew a hull and felt I was in complete control of the boat. I was headed SE. Not a lot of speed. but the hull just went up slowly, and stayed there very balanced. I had the main in pretty tight, traveler in the center, and was doing all the balancing with the steering. It felt perfect.
Anyway, after that I got hit by some rainstorms (no lightning yet) which were very refreshing.
I finally came back to shore and then some serious Lightning storms kept me from going out again.
After about a month of an intense work schedule and not having time to go out on the water, that Hour and a half of sailng really cleared my mind. What a great sport sailing is.
Hope everyone else had a good sailing weekend.
