So I got out today and it was my first time in heavy (over 10mph) winds. Winds were about 12MPH according to Windfinder.com and took a friend out that I hadn't sailed with before. Being that we hadn't developed any skills before, today was all a learning curve.
We were using a GPS to track our speed and while we were at 16MPH, we pitch-poled and capsized. Water was relatively shallow (12-15 ft?) and the mast was speared into the floor! Turned out to be quite a challenge. Eventually after some creative maneuvering, my buddy, Eric swam out to the mast and assisted to push it up while I pulled on the righting line and success.
Unfortunately, we learned the hard way the following:
-Consider utilizing a lanyard on ALL retaining pins: I lost the lower retaining pin to the main's block when I released it. It now belongs to the Atlantic.
-If you have a friend throwing the mast up while you use the righting line, ensure they have a line to the boat; We could have used the mooring line, but didn't realize that in the heavy winds that the boat would drift faster than he could swim back to the boat. Eventually everything was fine, but it was a definite challenge to deal with that could have been avoided.
Now, these are my lessons learned today. What recent have you learned that we can all learn from??
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Fair Winds and Following seas,
Scott