Conditions: chilly, though the rain stoped last night, but wind was 20-40kt SW and we felt it. Departed Norwalk 5am, immediately Spencer asked if we were dragging something in the water because boat was sluggish. Couldn't find anything visible though. There was a lot of wind and spray making visibility iffy through the dodger until the sun came out near manhattan. Got some wind break along the buildings, but it really picked up as we got towards the lower end. I was driving at that point and saw 38 true at least, but was pretty focused on the speed ferries (WTH are those things even?! They hardly leave a wake from planing I guess, but Jesus...) and then the massive Staten Island ferry showed up just as our speed dropped into the 3s. Skipper said that was when I started to look a little nervous, haha. We had room to bear away a little and got by before he got too close, but eeesh. My new profile pic for a while will be my selfie with that thing behind me. Wind picked up to 40 at that point and I didn't know where we wanted to duck into, so gratefully I handed off to the skipper. What a day. The diver just came up and said he pulled a balloon string off that was wrapped around the prop and shaft, as well as a bunch of barnacles. I can't wait to see the pics. Staying the night here in Jersey and will start again at daybreak.
Century Club: Rebekah Bromwell
Steve, Richard and I made it out to the bridge quickly, (gusting over 20) but had to beat back pretty hard. We did get a couple good long port tacks, but the other way was almost backwards. Wind was 14-22 WSW, low 60s, sunny. A little over 3 hrs
Richard, Robert & I made a bridge run this morning on a J, and got there in 50 minutes! Beam reach pretty much the whole way after dominoes and our SOG topped out at 8.7 kts. Wind was 14-23 W. Very sunny but chilly out there in all the breeze. Did the whole thing in about 3 hrs. Also stopped by Akimbo before leaving to swap the speedo for the plug so I can clean the wheel later and have James do some tech trouble shooting. Bleh. Was very smooth at swooping though, minimal water spouting. :-)
Sailed w/Harish and Shawn for Arabella's BC OTW day. We took out the Beneteau 33 at J-world. I did get to back into the slip for practice too. There was absolutely great weather but the wind was fairly light. Maybe 5-10SW. Sunny, in the 60s. ≈7hrs
Beautiful morning in Baltimore with gentle wind. Took everyone on a little tour down through the inner harbor before setting out. Wind from the south was blowing a bit more continuously, but sailing was very fun, just had to do a good number of tacks. Hit 20kts around 7ft knoll so we reefed, and continued on. As the wind rose, we decided to head over to get a little shelter over along the western shore and approach the bridge from there. By the time we were close to the center span the wind shifts were quite significant and kept heading us enough that it pushed us over near the support a couple spans in. Switched the engine on just to get through the wind shadow and then continued on sailing past Annapolis. Was shocked to see a couple of kayakers heading towards us and on through the center span. They were barely visible with the waves and spray until they were already beside us. I can't imagine what they were going to do if a big ship came through at that point. Wind continued picking up further, we reefed a couple further times. Waves were very close together and seemed disorganized, mostly from the SE, but a couple more directly from the S, I guess following the wind shifts, but it was hard to maneuver through them without slamming. They calmed down substantially after thomas point though and also skipper got annoyed as my swerving and just out the autopilot on and we went straight through. Around thomas pint we also decided to just bring the sails in and motor the rest of the way since our racks were making little progress and it was getting dark. Saw 30kts apparent occasionally by then so even with our powerful engine we were making 4-5knts. Anyway we eventually got in with only a brief hiccup outside HH. An exciting successful adventure bringing Huzzah home. Warm sunny day, but wind was 17-30 true from the south right on our nose. Took almost 12 hours.
Had a rushed (botched) spin hoist at the start (have been going over that one in my dreams, ugh.) that really screwed up an otherwise excellent start. :-/ Basically all the spin/code zero swaps killed a lot of time and we ended up 27 minutes corrected behind our theoretical competition. (Different class though, so technically we got 1st, but I'll take it for our first try.) Better wind that anticipated, and if we had known the course sooner I think we might have gotten the spin swapped in ahead of time. I've gone over and over it and am fairly certain that the lazy sheet got pulled around in front of the tack (TACK OVER EVERYTHING) and wrapped around the whole spinnaker and then we couldn't even douse with the sock promptly to fix it b/c that caused a freaking bubble.
Anyway, we learned stuff, got a bunch of good practice under pressure, and had fun. Finished in 4:09.
Great up wind jib practice all the way up to the bay bridge in 9-17 kts N. Then wind died down substantially, and we did some back and forth with the code 0. Jibing with it worked out great.
Turning back down towards the Magothy with the spinnaker ... did not go so great. Idk what exactly keeps going wrong. I think this time it was the lazy sheet fouled under the tack, but it didn't look wrong when I went up to jibe. Don't feel confident at all that I actually will catch a problem with it tomorrow now, so probably will leave it to J.
Felt shitty after that mess but the anchorage in the Magothy is beautiful and a new one to me so I got to have a gorgeous day sailing and learn a new spot to overnight. Also we learned a lot with the jib (port tack significantly better for some reason) and everyone got much faster at handling the sheets, and the whole time using the code 0 was exhilarating. If that's the word for going 3-4 knots lol. But when boat speed almost keeps up with wind speed that's pretty awesome. And hoisting, jibing , and furling all went smoothly.
cool, sunny, breezy until it wasn't. ≈8hrs
Fabulous weather, cool but clear and sunny. Wind was 10-20 N so we started out reefed and were cautious. We got out last ft mchenry so fast that we were halfway out to the bridge within an hour or less, but we knew getting back in would be more challenging so turned around and had an impromptu race w/#5. (Scott, Robert & Richard) However, they lost the bottom bracket on their rudder so our complete trouncing victory was a little hollow. Out and back in just over 2 hours. Excellent sail.
Took Sandy out for some zesty wind practice. Got a successful quick stop done after a couple of misses. We reefed quite heavily and I think maybe there was not enough sail out to keep steerage at the end. He seemed to be on a good close reach at the end, and was set up properly, but got blown away. He got it the 3rd time though. Also hove to and went to the next reef on the main. Also did some docking at the T-head and then he did a perfect docking in the slip.
Wind was 10-15 NE but lots of extended periods of gusts in the 20s. Beautiful weather though. ≈2hrs
Lovely evening in spite of the continued pistachio tide in the harbor. We motored out past ft mchenry to find the wind, and then did a few POB's and a couple heave tos, and reefed. It was very pleasant weather in the mid 60s, sunny, and wind was 5-10 NNE once we got well away from the peninsula. ≈3.5 hrs