Woo hoo! Great day today! It's been cold for the last week but today it was 71°F and 20 gusting to 27! I insisted to Ming and my mother that we go out!
The wind was blowing in just the right direction, too! (The usual wind direction requires lots of tacking and gybing on long, narrow lake Nasworthy.) Today, however, it was blowing across the lake so you could easily reach back and forth!
The most difficult part about the day was having my mother aboard. She spent a lot of time crewing for my dad on this boat 20 years ago, but she's a little rusty and so she was mainly tasked with trying to keep the boat balanced and keep the mainsheet from dragging in the water. Also, tacking in heavy winds with three people is interesting. We got stuck in irons several times and finally I decided gybing would be easier and so we stuck with that.
After 45 minutes my mother was freezing because the lake temperature reflected the last several weeks' cool weather and the high winds made for lots of spray. I agreed to head in, but she was a little slow grabbing the dock, so we circled out into the lake to make another pass and, while hauling butt, we experienced my first pitchpole!
One second we were on a beautiful reach and the next I'm hanging from the trap wire, feet kicking, on a trip around the forestay (which I grabbed.) Ming caught the shroud across her tummy and was hanging there as I looked up from the water. "Get in here!" I said. She dropped into the cold water. I looked around for my mother and saw her bobbing on the other side of the boat. Not exactly sure how she fell but she was okay.
Fortunately during the capsize the boat tipped from the bows onto its side into a perfect bows-and-sails-45°-each-off-the-wind position and I grabbed the righting line and leaned out. Before Ming could even get up to help me, the boat righted. We all climbed aboard and after jury-rigging the trap wire return bungee (which had broken) we made a second approach to the dock, which was successful. I was laughing. Ming was smiling. My mother was shivering like we were in the arctic.
Anyway we all had a great time even though mother said she hadn't been that cold in years. And of course now I can say I've pitchpoled! Hahaha
Just felt like sharing!
