Well we put her through her paces yesterday
Small craft warning were up yesterday but we have a big boat so I figure that can't mean anything for me right...
..Well we get out there and were all having a pretty good time ..the girls are smiling moms a little nervous but confidant in me ( I think )..Im thinking boy this seams like more then a small craft warning but I dont say anything...I didn't find out till an hour after we got home that it was upped to a full gale warning by NOAA.... here I am with my all Newbie crew whom are out for only their second sail of there life... and to-boot I said just a few days ago here that I'd be taking it easy with them for quite a while too...
they got a little more then they or I bargained for...but other then mom all had pretty big grins on..Mom wasent terrified but pretty uneasy when we hit 30+ degrees a few times..
A couple of mishaps were in the wind also ...first my swing keel would not lower..Its only our second sail and we didnt have enough wind to even bother dropping it last week but it would have helped us point today and heal less..and would have helped ( I think ) moms nerves a little..she still isn't convinced were not going to just fall over because of it or once we get to a certain point..
Anyway.... It was really howling buy this time and we took in some more head sail for the second or third time..we were again only out with Genny today , I was hoping to hoist more sail today but decided against it right away...The plan for the day was to head 18 miles south to Coupeville eat lunch and sail back but we were battling almost directly into the wind at this point and local features mandate you stay in a narrow slot of about 1/2 to 3/4 mile wide for a good 3 + miles or so... so we had really zero sea room to tack in...I finally made the decition to abort destination Coupeville and just play around right where we were at.
The second mishap was while plunging into the waves on a close haul the
anchor gets knocked loose from its tether and heads for china...It took several seconds to figure out what the heck that ripping tearing noise was ..I thought we were loosing the head sail..one of my daughters zeroed in on it and yelled DAD!. the
anchor is dropping..Im glad we took another adult friend along today as I had my strongest daughter , my wife and my friend Steve all on the bow hoisting up who knows how many feet of chain and a 45lb
CQR back on board..I veered off the wind to try and keep them dry and stop the plunging as best I could.
After they succeeded in stowing the
anchor we spun around and ran with the wind on a deep reach where we had more sea room ..not much mind you but about a mile and a half.. but as I was to find out.. when we finally decide to call it quits after the wind built even more... and turn back into the wind we were caught in Irons... trying to bring her bow around into that wind with only that tiny patch of head sail out... after several attempts in both directions I knew we were done for the day at this point...So I fired up the Iron Genny and we headed her up... rolled in her tiny little patch remaining and scooted in for home. Boy did we get soaking wet..
I will post the wind record for you to look at..My newbie crew ended up in a full Gale our second outing...47 Knts gusts..
OH...Docking was a little interesting too.....
That beer in the Pub looking out the windows at what we just came in from sure tasted good...
Anyway it was a heck of a second sail...
Sorry no video or pictures we were a little busy..
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