Westsail 28

Fisher, Stan, Lauren and I went out in solid 35+ mph winds yesterday with gusts hitting 50 and a few periods of solid 40.  Pretty fun.

We put in one reef and, under main alone, it was too much even with out the stay sail up.  So, we put in the second (and last) reef and raised the stay sail and things were a bit more manageable.  I should have reefed the stay sail as well but couldn’t figure that out in those conditions – being on the bow of the boat was kind of insane.

We had the rail well below the water several times when huge gusts hit us.  We were heeling over around 45 degrees at times.

Lessons learned:

• Need to learn how to reduce the stay sail and go out and test
• Even over canvassed in 4-5 foot chop we were able to (barely) make progress up wind
• Auto helm is useless in conditions like this
• I’m not confident I could have done the sail work solo (given the auto helm)
• I can barely motor into 40+ mph winds – engine seems too weak to be of much help in those conditions
• It’d be nice to rig some type of seat-belt in the cock pit (not just the usual chest harness)
• Need to figure out an efficient and fast way to tie down sails that are dumped
• Need netting on the bow
• Need to build doors or something on the starboard side below decks – that entire area dumped on the floor
• Need to put in cabinet locks for wet locker and doors below the sink
• More than 4 people on the boat in conditions like that would have been dangerous

Over all though I was pretty impressed with the boats performance. Even in these winds the boat seemed fairly balanced. The inability to motor against winds like this is a concern as I’m not sure how I’d do sail work solo.

Coming back in I could barely stay in the outside slipway and didn’t dare go down the K-Dock slipway for fear of being blown sideways into other boats. We grabbed a T dock and waited for the wind to die down.

This was Laurens first time sailing – holey shit – what an introduction.

The race boat across from me reported max speed of 18.8 knots yesterday.

There were Laser’s out racing in this, which was insane. We saw one guy being towed back capsized.

There must have been 20 people kite-surfing off Golden Gardens.

All pictures up on flickr. I didn’t have time to take any pictures. These are all from Fisher. As are the videos. As usual, the sea state didn’t come out at all. I’d say there were 4-5 foot seas out there, occasionally breaking. It’s the roughest I’ve ever seen the Sound.

Putting in the second reef.

Limited edition Fisher Auto Helm Unit – runs on Rum and Tobacco

Lauren, who I think might be a natural off shore sailor – this barely phased her and it was her first time out.

The boat afterwords.

Videos also all by Fisher.