Again I was supposed to have a full boat.. I had invited some friends out and they called saturday evening and canceled. Then I invited my neighboor and his wife that have the slip next to me to go out and they said yes but canceled at the last minute. I ended going out with Mark a newer member of the club that was at breakfast.
We put sails up just outside the intrance to the marina and sailed the five miles down the waterway to the inlet and onto the ocean. Winds on the ocean were running 15 to 18 through early afternoon and then picked up to 20 to 22 mid afternoon when we were headed back in. Once out on the ocean we headed torward southport and ran about 6 or 7 miles up the coastline and then back.
With the new head sail arrangement I didn’t feel as if Sea Puppy were overpowering and wanting to head up quite as soon as she used to. Mabye the slight change in rake is responcible for that or maybe the fact that I put a lot of bend in the mast with the backstay adjuster when the wind started to really kick, as well as pulling in on the cunningham and flattening reef to flatten out the main. I would say the wind was 18 to 20 when we finally put a reef in the main and running a little more than 20 when we pulled the jib into 100% down from 150%. We didn’t reef the jib because we felt we needed to but simply because I had not tried sailing her with the roller furling reefed before and wanted to see how the sail set. I was very impressed. The luff of the sail has the foam strips sewn on to help with furled sail shape as well as the furler being designed to take one whole wrap in the middle of the sail before it starts pulling in on the foot. Between the two I had a very decent sail shape when brought down to 100%.
We were running between 6 and 7 knots over the water most of the day and when reefed in the heavier air with both the main and the jib reefed we still were doing a solid 6.5 knots over water. The seas were running about 2 to 3 feet. Probably more on the 2 feet side than 3 feet.
Mark needed to meet Richard to measure his mainsail in order to get some work done on it.. So when we went back in mid afternoon we stopped in at Mariners Point where Mark has his Morgan 31 or 33? It is a beautifull boat that he has put a lot of work into. I got to tour it and was impressed by it and how roomy it is. I also got an invitation to go sailing on her one day soon which I am looking forward to.
So I tied up in the slip beside his boat while we waited on Richard and we gave Sea Puppy the scrub of her life while waiting on Richard to get there. Sea Puppy is looking very spiffy at the moment 🙂
My engine died when I idled way down and flipped into reverse as we were coming into the slip and we almost went bow first into the dock. Luckly i was just barely moving andMark was on top of the situation. He ran up to the bow and went right over it and onto the dock as Sea Puppy drifted up to it. He was able to hold her off so we didn’t t-bone in 🙂 Positive side of situation was that I came in slow so even if I had hit it probably wouldn’t have done any damage. Negative is that this engine is getting quirky. It is stalling at an idle (if you idle back to quickly). It will work fine most of the time and then when you forget it … it bites you..
Later after helping Mark and Richard, measure the main, I had to hustle out of there and back to my marina. A large and dark storm front was coming in, thunder and lightening included and I wanted to be tied up in the slip when it hit. Oddly it came up while i was still in the waterway and misted on me and then just dissapated… One moment it was tall, dark, rumbling clouds and the next it just vaporized and within 15 minutes we had blue skies showing through light white clouds.
Dog Days in the coastal plain of the Carolinas! I’ve seen it thunderstorm down the middle of a road. One side was dry and sunny and from the middle of the road over, it was pouring rain. It looked like someone took a ruler and drew a line down the length of the road in the middle and said “water is only allowed on the other side.” I was standing 15 feet from where it was raining and was dry and sunny. The other side was just getting hammered with rain.. Heavy enough that if you had been driving you would have had to pull over till you could see again. This happened 30 years ago and I can still remember it like it was yesterday.
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