Kites....

Sunday the 9th

I tried, really tried, but it was not entirely my fault, the boyfriend had some culpability as well. It is October in the Bay area and the winds have been getting lighter, more humane. "D" wanted to go out for a sail with his girlfriend "R" and it shaped up to be an awesome day. Initially, I was to go up to Fleetweek with my brother and nephew, but a family crisis took them out of the area.

"Light and warm", was the theme. We ghosted around in the SFO flight path for a bit and got to see the air show planes coming and going as we did a couple of passes of the "Makani Kai" (one of the most sailed boats I have ever seen, they are always out). D & R had brought lunch and once we moved out of the runway approach with a little more wind we had sandwiches and cookies with the stereo on.

I have been wanting to see how flying a kite from a sailboat works, so brought along a cheap ($5) kite to try. I knew I wouldn't be to bummed if it got wrecked or lost (though I'd by upset to litter if I couldn't retrieve it). The kite worked well and I hooked it to one of the stern cleats. Ultimately it corkscrewed into the water as its max wind velocity must have been passed. I will try with a more stable kite with a larger wind speed envelope. Ultimately, I want to attach one of my GoPros to it and take some video and stills of the boats sailing.

The wind was a little shifty, but it looked like we would be able run downwind back to home. I like getting spinnaker practice in when I have a crew, so I got the chute ready to go on the foredeck launching from a laundry basket. I have been trying various ways of getting clean chute hoists and the basket is good in one way, but bad in others. Good in that it works well, but bad in that it is big and in the way after the chute is up. This was really apparent after the wind clocked around and increased. We were having an excellent ride south east when I opted for a jibe. I had moved the blocks for the spinnaker sheets aft and now realize this had resulted in less control along with the fact that I haven't installed a spinnaker pole downhaul yet. In short, we had a nice classic broach. Bow down, stern and rudder out of the water and the boat on its side. The pole had "sky'd", so we opted to blow the chute, clean up the mess and start the beat back to Coyote.

Nothing broken, no-one hurt, but I think we freaked "R" out and it took a moment of two of reassurance to get all back to normal.