Around 2 in the afternoon, my lovely wife Heidi mentioned that we would have a babysitter on Saturday evening. We sure as wildfire hadn't made any plans. So, we packed up a picnic dinner, headed to the boat and went sailing.
When we got to the marina, I noticed that it was blowing pretty heavily. Being instrument-challenged, I estimated about 15-20. Subsequent research shows 18-25 to be the real numbers. Regardless, I knew that I was looking for a fun relaxing early evening sail not a bone-crushing bash into that ebb tide chop. So I reefed and elected to keep the jib safely on deck. We weren't fast, we couldn't point, but we did have a much more pleasant sail.
I just hope nobody saw my sail trim. The leech line needed tightening and I could have had a few extra cranks on the main halyard but I just didn't care. We were sailing a bonus day that I didn't expect and our whiny boat-hating son wasn't with us. Heidi had a horrible glass of rose (don't know how to put that accent in html) but even that didn't destroy the beautiful scene.
If we'd had a few more hours we could have waited out the wind for an even more pleasant sail but this is exactly the reason we have a boat. We got to do a spur of the moment, just short of romantic, sail in the most beautiful place in the world. And even a loose luff and leech couldn't spoil that.
5 comments:
So much of real-world sailing seems to be balancing the ideal with what's practical.
If I want to sail with my wife, the boat needs to be comfortable. In 20+ knots that usually means dropping the main altogether and going under jib. Despite what the gurus say, my boat's better under jib alone than main alone on most points when there's tons of wind.
I now ignore the telltales and set trim by the lines on my wife's face. It's been one of the hardest lessons to learn. But, we've just returned from a two-week cruise to Monterey (one thirtieth of the Pacific Ocean) and she actually asked when we could go again.
o-docker, there has to be a formula there: square footage of sail area / concerned looks * wind speed = marital bliss
Hey, that means you were out and part of the Summer sailstice!!
Congrats!!
Hmmmm... I get in trouble with my wife if I don't get the shroud tension right or if I can't jibe the pole smoothly enough. Different strokes....
Yes, but Pat gets impatient with me in airports when we're traveling, and I have to find how to get from one place to another without using escalators, by finding either the elevators or the stairs that aren't moving.
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