Winds up to 23kts! Hold On!

[Dan Pitman]

This past weekend after walking through the Newport Boat show on Saturday and drooling over the Hunter 420. My wife, son and I cruised to Wickford, RI to get out of the crowded harbor. The forecast for Sunday was WSW winds 10-15 knots diminishing to 10 knots by evening. So after breakfast in town I rigged up our Genoa for a nice sail back to Newport. We left Wickford and sailed SE to Hope Island to Clam and explore the WWII Navy ammo bunkers. On our way downwind to Hope the winds were 18-19 knots, we dropped the main and sailed to the southern end on the island for protection from the three foot waves and dropped the hook. Because on the forecast and the fact that our barometer had been steadily increasing since Friday I was confident that the winds would die down by late afternoon. We left Hope at 4 pm under main alone and as soon as we rounded the western side of the island we where hammered by winds averaging around 18 knots! With my wife trying to steer the boat as best she could under main alone I went forward to change the Genoa to our 100% Jib. This took me what seemed like 30 minutes. Besides the wind we where getting hit with 6-8 waves. Every time we rode up one wave the bow would crash down 6 feet and the next one would come right over the deck, of course that is where I am trying to change sails, Fun! I finally got the Jib up and it greatly improved our control over the boat. We tacked to the SE and proceeded to sail close hauled all the way to Newport. After passing the Northern tip of Jamestown the winds died down to 14 knots. We passed a boat heading S and shouted to them "get ready for 23 knots of Blow!" They smiled and said "Ditto!" My wife and looked and each other and thought Oh Boy! As we approched Newport we where the only boat out(this is odd for a Sunday evening). We continued to sail and close to the wind as we could constantly burying the toe rail, the winds were 23-26 knots! Our 26 year old Hunter 25 was reaching speeds of 7 knots! We made it to Newport in just around two hours! After we cleaned up our boat at the pump out dock(the interior did a little redecorating for us) we proceeded to tie it to our mooring ball and go home. As we where leaving the marina I checked the wind readings they post at the office. 26 knots and steady! Needless to say we all were proud of our boat and our ability to sail her under control in Force 6 winds. We never felt nervous or scared, we just stuck with the basics and brought her home. Even my 11 year old son who was scared when I was changing head sails was having a blast sailing into Newport! We are looking forward to taking Essayons out again this weekend!See ya out there!Dan PitmanEssayons - 1974 H25

 

[jcherubini]

I learned about boats from that

Nice story, Dan!!!As you may or may not know my dad received delivery of a 1973-74 'bubble-top' or 'blister-canopy' Hunter 25 as payment for designing the 27. We never really took it out of the river but we learned quickly how well it stood up in a blow– that is, how well it held its heel angle! For the pretty little sucker would roll right over 15 degrees or so and then just sit there, taking all the pounding of wind and water without flinching again. The three of us boys would sit on that slanted side deck with our feet through the lifelines and hang on, fearing that we'd go right over, but I only ever remember us wetting the windows two or three times, EVER.Years later the Raider 33 we had displayed the same phenomenon. 'Antigone' was a custom version of the stock boat, with her engine over the keel and an abbreviated interior resulting in a full 1000 lbs weight loss. At 9500 lbs and with 455 ft of sail she would go right over to what at first seemed like a frightening heel angle– probably not over 15 degrees– but then never seem to move in the roll axis again. Like a freight train she would charge right through everything, pitching a little over the big ones, but taking every gust like a trouper (storm trooper?). In races I would sit over the coaming and play the mainsheet as a throttle. Everyone hung on for dear life! But the beautiful part was that once learnt, the boat was one hundred percent predictable, which is what all recreational boats ought to be. We knew her and she knew us.My dad insisted on performance in boats but performance takes on many guises. In all, the greatest forte of the older Hunter boats was the bang-for-the-buck ratio. You got a real sailing yacht with an excellent design pedigree, a full set of accessories, and plenty of room for your family, in a safe, affordable, simple package. Only a full-blown idiot gets into serious trouble on a Hunter– and never because of the boat (that's a statistic). It's like rolling over the family's Subaru Legacy– come on, how bad do you have to be?J Cherubini II