NYYC Race Week 2022 – 5 Minutes of Sailporn
So many great memories of sailing in Newport, Narrangansett Bay and paties at Harbor Court. Miss it bigly 🙁
Read More Exciting conditions on Sunday. Good steady 10-12 kts from the SW which set us off on a steady broad reach East'ish on Raritan Bay. Gibed a few times. Beam reached a bit in southerly direction. Messing About was hitting a steady 6kts. All was peachy.
Then Alice noticed dark clouds and what could be rain to the West, where we would be heading. We gibed and headed West on close haul under full sail. For a while it was fine then the wind picked up another 5-7 kts and some challenging gusts just in case we were getting bored.
Put in a reef. That was when the fun started. The previous owner told me he never reefed the main, just dropped it and sailed off the genoa. I am not a fan of that arrangement. It feels unbalanced and too rolly. The problem was that the main reefed weird. I have never needed to reef if before. It has one deep reef that would reduce the sail area by at least a third. Ample!
The problem was that the boom dropped to eye level and was angled downwards. Not good. We decided to drop the main completely and just sail off the jib.
Next problem. As we focused on the main, the wind had picked up a bunch and the jib had flogged a sheet out of its block and it had blown round to the other side and twisted around the other sheet, i.e. no way we could sail off the jib.
Cranked up the outboard, which has been on best behavior since I gave it a good talking to. We motored into darkening skies, a choppy bay, a significantly more exciting wind than we had counted on and a bit of rain. It was basically a light squall. We donned foulies and life-jackets to be on the safe side.
After a while, we figured the jib could take it and I ahd sorted out the sheets so we let the big flappy thing out.
Next problem. The sheet caught under the winch handle which was not locked in and flipped it into the bay. Bugger!
I only had one winch handle. Double bugger. This was basic stupidity and a lesson learned here. we sailed off the genoa poorly sheeted in, so not pointing that well but enough to head home. By the time we reached RYC the conditions had calmed down.
Lessons learned:
- 1 winch handle!!! What was I thinking? I will buy two this week
- Practice reefing in calm conditions. It was just dumb to work out how to reef the boat in these conditions
- Reef earlier. Alice pointed out the weather issue but I was too cocky
- Messing About had no problem with the conditions. She sailed beautifully
- Neither of us panicked. We just got on with it. Confidence is returning
Then Alice noticed dark clouds and what could be rain to the West, where we would be heading. We gibed and headed West on close haul under full sail. For a while it was fine then the wind picked up another 5-7 kts and some challenging gusts just in case we were getting bored.
Put in a reef. That was when the fun started. The previous owner told me he never reefed the main, just dropped it and sailed off the genoa. I am not a fan of that arrangement. It feels unbalanced and too rolly. The problem was that the main reefed weird. I have never needed to reef if before. It has one deep reef that would reduce the sail area by at least a third. Ample!
The problem was that the boom dropped to eye level and was angled downwards. Not good. We decided to drop the main completely and just sail off the jib.
Next problem. As we focused on the main, the wind had picked up a bunch and the jib had flogged a sheet out of its block and it had blown round to the other side and twisted around the other sheet, i.e. no way we could sail off the jib.
Cranked up the outboard, which has been on best behavior since I gave it a good talking to. We motored into darkening skies, a choppy bay, a significantly more exciting wind than we had counted on and a bit of rain. It was basically a light squall. We donned foulies and life-jackets to be on the safe side.
After a while, we figured the jib could take it and I ahd sorted out the sheets so we let the big flappy thing out.
Next problem. The sheet caught under the winch handle which was not locked in and flipped it into the bay. Bugger!
I only had one winch handle. Double bugger. This was basic stupidity and a lesson learned here. we sailed off the genoa poorly sheeted in, so not pointing that well but enough to head home. By the time we reached RYC the conditions had calmed down.
Lessons learned:
- 1 winch handle!!! What was I thinking? I will buy two this week
- Practice reefing in calm conditions. It was just dumb to work out how to reef the boat in these conditions
- Reef earlier. Alice pointed out the weather issue but I was too cocky
- Messing About had no problem with the conditions. She sailed beautifully
- Neither of us panicked. We just got on with it. Confidence is returning
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