Boat Journal

Chronicling a love affair with sailing

And the Prevaling Wind is from What Direction?

The old jib is back.  Repair looks good! Thank you  Dan Winters!

Yesterday was the second race of the Frostbite series.  I wasn’t expecting any crew to show up; it’s been difficult to get folks to commit to a weekend, since we really hadn’t planned on racing this series in the first place.  But I headed over to the boat, figured I could get the jib up at least.  If anyone showed up, I’d go ahead and race.  Otherwise, I’d just head home to do the homework I was avoiding.

No one was there by 12:30, the time I needed to head out of the slip.  But you know how it is.  The wind, the waves, the boat all tugged me out.  So I headed out of the channel, set the sails, and aimed towards the starting buoy.

The wind was lousy.  The breeze barely moved the sails.  And then there was the barge that’s been on the river for a couple of weeks messing with the breezes, too.  But I headed on down, knowing the winds would be better at the mouth of the river, near the bay.

After I passed the barge, the winds did pick up.  I got a good 4 knots going. I still had about 20 minutes to reach the starting line, so I figured I was good.

I wasn’t.  I was well away from the barge and the winds were still shifting.  Mind you, I was near the refinery docks. But that shouldn’t have affected it that much.  Since I had a good speed, and the current tack would have taken me into the docks, I tacked away from it.  Now, though, rather than making a 90 degree turn to port, I made more like a 120 degree turn, taking me away from the mark.  Knowing the current was going to be pulling me in almost the opposite direction, however, I stayed on that tack as long as possible, then turned again.  Same thing.  Got good speed going, then the wind shifted and I wasn’t heading towards the mark any more.  Rather than keep fighting it, I just turned around and figured I’d play for awhile then head in.

The wind was nice, mind you. But I really had to pay attention.  I couldn’t aim towards anything an be assured I’d keep moving in that direction.  At one point, near the barge, of course, the wind shifted almost 180 degrees as I tried to set the sails.

I kinda wish I’d gone ahead and raced, though.  The winds picked up, as they had the week before, about an hour into the race.  It was probably some awesome sailing out there on the bay. <sigh!>