August 9th, Solo Sailing
This day was the culmination of a bit of work for me. Running the control lines of "Isabel" back to the cockpit and getting comfortable putting the boat in the water and more importantly, launching and docking by myself. This was probably the most difficult thing for me as I tend to dive in and wing it. I knew that wouldn't go well, I wanted full control, like reaching statically for a key hold (when climbing) instead of lunging for it. Everything depends upon circumstances though, if there was less wind I'd have been happy to just cast off and motor off. Today the wind was blowing, not too hard, but hard enough that I had to look at the docklines for a while and figure out how best to tie up and cast off by myself.
I chose to motor out RWC channel to allow enough sea room for me to raise the sails. Got the sails up with little trouble though it is more difficult to do it entirely from the cockpit. If there was a winch for the main halyard it would help. I ended up locking off the tiller and standing in the companion way atop the quarter berths to really pull everything tight. The sails were trimmed perfectly and I was proud of myself, good to see some progress in my skill set.
Later, I was able to reef while "heaving to" when the wind started to pick up. This is where the rubber hits the road being able control the boat when the wind picks up. I recently picked up a refurb GPS unit, so now I know how fast the boat is going and what effects trim has. I had been charging around with reduced sail and noting that the other boats were heading in and decided when I decided it was time to return as well. I thought, "Oh, it will be a down wind run, I'll put the main back up full". Running downwind is fast, but I discovered you can't really lock of the tiller, even for a second. Big wind and tide waves and trying not to jybe make it challenging. I had an accidental jybe and it was a blast when I wrestled the boat into a reach, running across the wind.
All totalled, I probably sailed appoximately 20 miles, not as the crow flies, but in actual distance. It is late and I'll see if i can round this out later.
I chose to motor out RWC channel to allow enough sea room for me to raise the sails. Got the sails up with little trouble though it is more difficult to do it entirely from the cockpit. If there was a winch for the main halyard it would help. I ended up locking off the tiller and standing in the companion way atop the quarter berths to really pull everything tight. The sails were trimmed perfectly and I was proud of myself, good to see some progress in my skill set.
Later, I was able to reef while "heaving to" when the wind started to pick up. This is where the rubber hits the road being able control the boat when the wind picks up. I recently picked up a refurb GPS unit, so now I know how fast the boat is going and what effects trim has. I had been charging around with reduced sail and noting that the other boats were heading in and decided when I decided it was time to return as well. I thought, "Oh, it will be a down wind run, I'll put the main back up full". Running downwind is fast, but I discovered you can't really lock of the tiller, even for a second. Big wind and tide waves and trying not to jybe make it challenging. I had an accidental jybe and it was a blast when I wrestled the boat into a reach, running across the wind.
All totalled, I probably sailed appoximately 20 miles, not as the crow flies, but in actual distance. It is late and I'll see if i can round this out later.
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