One Step Forward

and a step or two back again. That's how this mothing stuff seems to go. You start to feel competent in one aspect of sailing the boat, and then conditions change and suddenly you realize you didn't know quite as much about things as you had hoped.

As usual the forecast was wrong yesterday and a nice southwesterly came up just as I arrived at ABYC. Having never sailed from there before I launched and proceeded to sail out the channel. This was more than a little challenging, as it was basically upwind in this sort of breeze:



made even more interesting by the eddies on the back side of the windward jetty. In any event there was more clowning around than usual just getting to a place where I could foil without running into a pile of rocks in five seconds.

There was some serious lumpiness running; I have never sailed out of a wave going to windward before but definitely ventilated the main foil at least once and I wasn't flying very high. So I pointed up behind the outer sea wall where the water was flatter, practising some tacks. I was just starting to get into a rhythm with this when I noticed the mainsheet was parting; it had about four strands of core left at the block. I guess end-for-ending it the third time was a mistake. Anyway capsize, tie knot, end for end again, and sail home. Downwind.

I have been pretty happy with the gybes lately but I drifted far enough down in the mainsheet fix to get out into the lumps again and I have to say with gusts definitely over 20mph and the newly reknotted mainsheet about a foot too short it was a handful. Downhill speeds are just fantastic in the puffs and combined with lumpiness, choosing the point to gybe is key, along with the usual adjustments to keep the boat in the water when the forces of aerodynamics are trying to launch everything into the sky.

So I capsized more than usual with the mainsheet coming out of my hand on the gybes, but managed to make it back in OK. New mainsheet on order.

Next item of business: new trunk.