Mark, We have a 95 H26 that we sail on a 130
mile long lake in eastern Washington State. We very often have winds in the 15 to 20 MPH range and usually have 5 to 6 days a season where the wind is 20 to 25 MPH with gusts to 30. Because of the fetch we often have waves of 3 to 5 feet, strong white caps and current of 2 to 4 mph counter to the wind. Almost always we are either close hauled or running. We must sail 65 miles before the direction of the river is such that we can sail beam reached. Never have we let the wind or wave condition stop us. We don't do this to be tough or cool, we do it because this is the weather we have. Without trying to learn how to sail in these condition I would have to settle for being happy reading sailing books while at anchor. Because of this pattern in weather I had a second reef clew and tack installed 4 feet above the standard Doyle first reef. The Doyle reef point is mounted quite high on the sail in what would be considered a normal second reef position. I found that some type of moveable jib sheet block assembly was required to allow use of the roller furled 100% Doyle jib sail. With the moveable block I can use my jib down to 60/65%. Any lower than 60% jib deployment fails to fly without severe leach flapping. The water ballast and centerboard system works very well regardless of where sailed. Our boat sails and points better than 95% of the sailboats on our lake. The trade off is that I usually reef about 1 1/2 to 2MPH lower than deeply ballasted boats. The bright side of this trade off is that the Hunter is one Hell of a lot faster on all points. If I was you I would sail anywhere, anytime I felt safe with my abilities and those of my boat. WATER BALLAST IS NOT A HANDICAP. The boat sails just like ANY OTHER SAILBOAT. Heck, there are a lot of lead ballast boats that are more tender than mine and there are a lot of lead ballasted slugs. Ray S/V Speedy
