Man, I shouldn't have gone out today

55°F and sunny. Warm in the sun. And windy. And there was to be a "polar bear" swim at my marina. Seemed like a great chance to kind of show off in front of a lot of people. That was my first mistake.

When I got there, I noticed that the wind wasn't blowing in the usual direction. Usually the wind is blowing offshore (as far as my marina is concerned) and that's convenient because it's kind of in a little rocky cove, so I can just blow backwards a bit and then tack around and zoom off.
Today the wind (seems like about 30mph) was blowing TOWARDS the marina. I thought that was better because I'd be able to fly a hull as I zoomed past the marina, impressing lots of people. I elected to not use the jib and go out with just the reefed main since the wind was so strong.
Some guys helped me launch but with the wind direction I immediately blew backwards into the rocky lee shore. I jumped off to push the boat away from the rocks, cutting my feet a bit. I had to do this several times because it seemed every time I started to head out, the wind would shift a bit and blow me back into the rocks.
So much for impressing the crowd.
Took me a good 15 minutes of wrestling with the boat to get out into the lake proper. Then I enjoyed several minutes of exciting reaching back and forth, just as I had imagined it, only to realize that everyone was leaving because the polar bear thing was over. *sigh*
Since I didn't have an extra line, I used some bungees to hold the boom up to the reefing grommets. After several minutes one of the hooks let go. Fortunately it was in the middle, but anyway I decided to head back because the wind seemed like it was getting stronger. Of course with a 30mph tailwind I couldn't approach the dock slowly, so I zoomed up to the dock and heaved-to, hoping to slowly blow backwards in irons to the dock. Sadly the wind kept shifting, requiring me to go out and re-approach for fear of blowing into the rocks again. Ultimately I got to the dock (wrong side though) and dropped the main, figuring after it was down I could pull the boat around the dock to my wet/dry slip.
NOTHING DOING. By this time the wind was so strong even just the windage of the mast, tramp, and hulls was enough to make it impossible to pull the boat against the wind. I wound up putting it in a different slip, where I'm going to have to leave it until the wind calms down.

Anyway, so much for being impressive. Instead I have a bunch of scratches in the starboard hull and several areas where the gelcoat is chipped down to the glass. Gonna take me maybe 2-3 hours to fix this up before I can go sailing again. *sigh*

But I (re)learned something today - never try to sail off a rocky lee shore in 30mph winds. Seems like common sense, but that can be overridden by an ego trying to look cool in front of a crowd of your peers. *sigh*

Learn from my mistakes, friends.

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Warm regards,

Jim

That blows although, I would have been right there with you. I spent the day installing port covers with bit of beer wishing the temp would go up about ten degrees, so I could lay some fiberglass. The repair to the delaminated hull went well but the resign is very thick, and very strong The bottom glass was cracked. I'm very impressed with GIt ROT I have to get longer machine screws to mount on my port hatch cover.

Which raised a thought on delaminated hulls? Is it more common on the port hulls or the starborad hulls to be delaminated on older boats? I would think that most of us favor the starbord tack. I know I like to have the right away The starbord hull was a 30 minute instalation. I am going to lay some glass inside the hull along the bottom and beef up the forward pylon just a little then its off to gel coat repair. Did I ever tell you how much I love summer time

Todd

I have to agree with Todd. I would have been right there with you. Its 31 degrees here and we got a nice 1 inch coating of ice all over the place. We couldn't even get that great snow the northeast is getting!!! (I know, everyone up north is probably hating it right now)

Oh well. Just thinking about summer time. Only about another few months away

Wednesday it's supposed to be mid '70s so after class I'll try and head over to do some repair work. Next weekend should be warmer so I'd like to sail again then if there's wind.

I tell you what, it's a lot harder to tack without the jib. Or at least, since this was only my second time trying to sail without the jib I was having trouble tacking. And with 18-24" waves life was pretty interesting. I almost pitchpoled from wind getting under the tramp from behind when my bows went down into a trough.

Your jib should be like your visa card. never leave without it. especially on a cat. Hard to tack and to back up. Where was the crew? BTW if your trapped in irons again scramble up to the leeward front of the leeward hull and start paddling big time( that's if you have a hot stick ).
Don't tell me about cold, even my huskies are refusing to go out today.
-30 C .

I was single-handing that day. No crew, so I was on my own trying to rescue the boat. Tried paddling, but against a 30mph headwind and 2' waves, I gave up quickly.

Today I went out and epoxied over the exposed fiberglass so at least it won't absorb any more water, but the starboard hull is pretty scratched up. I didn't want to paint the boat, but now it's kinda seeming like it might improve things if I can't buff the scratches out. We'll see.

Jim

That you didn't kill yourself

Nothing is much more frustrating than being beat to death by your own boat. Been there, in trees, on rocks, on other boats, in swim areas with the park lifeguards jumping to your aid ("HEY GET OUTTA THE SWIM AREA!!)

On Seneca Lake I have been in at least one microburst where the only saving grace was that with 40 miles of length and 3 miles of width I had a lot of room to go before abject fear and panic could set in One day I actually rode about 1/4 mile with both bows down, the jib and main as far out as they would go, both rudders up out of the water and me climbing as far aft as possible just to keep from pitchpoling frontwards. I couldn't pull in the sails and I couldn't steer. I could only hang on till the waterspout stopped and the God's stopped toying with me. Fortunately I was wet anyway so peeing myself went unoticed

Gotta run, but stay tuned for a couple comments on reefing. Peace out

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The fact that this windy world is largely covered in water obviously means that man was meant to sail.