Sailing

We went out for a sale this afternoon.  It was not without it's foolish moments, but went well over all.  The wind was strong enough for good sailing without being worrisome, about 10 knots.  The biggest complication came from the wind being directed right at shore.  The "dock" is just a concrete pier with some wood beams on the side at the river's edge next to the launch ramp.  It's exposed to boat wakes and you can't really safely tie up to it.  As a result, launching is a pain, because one person basically has to watch the boat while the other person parks the car.  The wind was directly onshore today, so it was tough to even get over to the dock, because the boat was just getting blown back onto the ramp. There was some worry expressed as we were rigging, as their was what later turned out to be a kid sailing a Lazer and having a bit of trouble.  I find I have the most trouble when the sails aren't up. The oars kept jumping out of the oarlocks on me, and we drifted into some rocks after leaving the dock that I had to push us off of with the oars.

We rowed away from the rocks and raised the rig.  The top yard wasn't being held right and we had way too much twist, which made sailing upwind difficult.  The current had taken us downriver from the ramp, so we had to sail upwind and upriver to get back to our starting point.

You can see the twist in yard by the curve of the sail on the left side.

 Eventually I dropped the sail and changed the halyard (the line for hauling the yard up the mast) and moved the location of the block.  This allowed me to set the yard better and get some downhaul tension which greatly reduced the twist in the sail.  Our pointing ability immediately improved.  The wind kept changing directions.  One moment we'd be sailing close hauled, and then the sail would be back-winding so we'd take it to the other side and tack without ever turning the rudder.  We did get hit by a pretty good gust coming out of a tack at one point, necessitating me dumping the main sheet to keep from heeling over enough to put the decks under, as my first mate is still learning to use her body weight.

the first mate.

After an hour or so we noticed the sky was darkening so we decided to head in.  As we docked a power boat that was putting in couldn't get their motor started, so they ended up being held off the end of the dock while we had to sit and wait holding ourselves off the dock until they got power.  The launching area really is terrible.  Most people have power boats and start the motor running while still on the  trailer and back off.  Then as the driver takes the trailer to the lot, they idle nearby and then come in for a quick pick-up before backing away.  For a boat that isn't launched without someone sitting in it it is a real pain.  There is a marina 5 miles up the road that has protected water and floating docks that charges $10 for launching and same day retrieval that I'm going to try.

By the time we got the boat on the trailer and un-rigged the wind had come up considerably.  We definitely pulled at the right time.