Last Friday was a day with light winds off the coast of Half Moon Bay. It was a good opportunity to finally try the big spinnaker. And try we did, and more!
The last time the big spinnaker was on deck, it went (partially mind you) in the water: the foot of the sail spilled overboard and caught loads of water. Well, I didn’t learn my lesson. It happened again. I did recall what I did to fix it so recovery was a little faster. Once that was sorted out then, finally, the big white spinnaker went up without a hitch. Here’s a small video about that:
Before the big guy went up I also got the gennaker out. Like this:
And I ended the day with a run with the code 0’ish.
So that’s two days of practice where I went through the sails. I think these two days had something in common: lighter winds and smaller seas. It remains to be seen if I’ll be this bold/strong when the winds/sea build up.
I think I have my sailing buddy NB to thank, as well as the monkey on my back, and maybe a bit of lackadaisical fitness work I’m doing.
Now there is a catch: I am well below the boat’s capability. I have actual polars for the boat (see here for a quick explanation) so I can easily compare. The instruments may need calibration but still that’s a bummer. I’m not sure how I’ll harvest those last 10-20% of boat speed.
Keel work
I have started discussion around the keel and some of the concerns I have about that. I tried filming the keel like I was with Double Espresso, and the result is not really useful. That’s all for this blog post …
