The Admiral and I drove down to the lake this afternoon and had one of our best sails ever! The forecast was for about 12 knots, which for me means the main and blade. Set it up and out we went. High 5 knots and 6 knots by GPS on our first run across the lake. As we continued sailing, the wind kept building to the point I was thinking about reefing. The Admiral said no, though, so we kept on sailing. GPS started to say 6.3 to 6.4 knots sustained speed on starboard tack, 6.1-6.3 on port. Heck yeah! Got a big sustained blast at one point and I eased the sheets and headed down to a broad reach. Next thing I know we're doing 6.7, 6.8 and even 7 knots - for more than just a blink of the GPS too. Yeee haaaa! :shock: 
We were a little overpowered through some of this, primarily because the Admiral didn't get the head of the sail up to the mark, and I hadn't adjusted the outhaul to flatten the sail. Once I fixed those issues the gusts didn't affect us as badly yet we were still maintaining speeds over 6 knots a lot of the time. :lol:
Biggest problem we had all day was getting the boat hove to so I could have a potty break. These boats just won't settle down and drift.
Icing on the cake is that it cost me all of about $8 in fuel (2-ish gallons of diesel) for the 90 mile round trip. Loving the new Jetta TDI!
We were a little overpowered through some of this, primarily because the Admiral didn't get the head of the sail up to the mark, and I hadn't adjusted the outhaul to flatten the sail. Once I fixed those issues the gusts didn't affect us as badly yet we were still maintaining speeds over 6 knots a lot of the time. :lol:
Biggest problem we had all day was getting the boat hove to so I could have a potty break. These boats just won't settle down and drift.
Icing on the cake is that it cost me all of about $8 in fuel (2-ish gallons of diesel) for the 90 mile round trip. Loving the new Jetta TDI!