Just thought I would share a wild ride we had this afternoon.
we teach sailing on hobie cats at a gospel camp. went up for the afternoon sailing classes and when we arrived the wind was cranking pretty fair. white caps everywhere on the lake waves going over the dock. The lake is 90 miles long and can form some serious water action in the wind.
Before taking any teenagers out for first lessons the three of us (instructors) thought we better make a run across the lake first to test things out.
Nairn took the helm, Bart took the wire and I sayed on the rim with feet hooked in manning the jib. Our combined weight was 625 pounds with about 250 out on the wire.
Well needless to say we took off flying and once out on the lake we were pounding through the waves working hard keeping the boat balanced and the fromm pearling (using a surfing term).
At one point we sent Bart flying off the boat and managed to keep afloat and drag him back up, Adrenaline rush. On the second run across the lake were were rippping fast and we went through a wave that knocked Bart back off the wire inocking nairn off the back of the hobie. Bart grabbed him and as the hobie was pitching back I had scrambled all the way up and over the front. back on course we had to come about and stalled in irons. We backed up and managed to pull away and launched into another tack crossing the lack on a bit of a run so we could haul back to the beach.
Well we managed to get back into shore just perfectly, pretty exausted. We decided to not take the youngsters out.
As it turned out the winds werre 40 km/hour with gusts up to 50.
It truly was a blast, deinite adrenaline rush!!
I was actually surprised we didn't pitch it over once or twice.
I hope everyone else is out there having a blast!!!
Gus
|
