All good stuff, thanx.
This afternoons outing being the reason for the querry. Weather temp here was in the mid sixties, tide was right for a beach launch, and the forecast was for variable winds 10 ish. I got to the beach and it was blowing 18 and gusting in the twentys. I went anyway. Winds out of the northwest, the snipe is a crab sailing pig without the board down. By the time I got the boat over the bar and the board down I was well south. Out of the shelter from the ocean dunes it got nautical. 1-2 foot chop with some whitecaps, and I am desperately trying to beat upwind to abort the day. I beat upwind and tacked well for a down wind run back to the launch point. All went well.
When I launched their were a few kite boarders out, by the time I got back, maybe 1.5 hours of white knuckling the tiller, they had called it. The snipe is a hard bitch to self rescue in good conditions, so one tiller slip and I would have wanted to reach out and talk to someone.
I will take a hard lookat the sh hx870.
Thanx for the help!
Eric