Big Tuesday

The wind was blowing 20+ knots yesterday and snuck out early from work for a moth session before melges sailing. Pulled up to the junior sailing center to find epic conditions. 20 knots straight down the river cold air and warm water. This was the most breeze I have sailed in up to this point and made sure to check all the little screws on the boat so I did not have to deal with a breakdown. Don't quite understand why all the little fittings on the starboard side have a tendency to rattle loose.

Sailing was incredible, after being a little careful in my first couple gybes I started to send it as my confidence grew. Even pulled off a couple "foiling tacks", more like a touch and go but never really would come off the foils. The technique is really tricky. I had the best success when I would be hauling full speed upwind, take my back foot out from underneath the hiking strap(while doing the veal heel) and haul ass across the boat while turning almost ending up on new weather side with weather heel and the main still full on the old side for a split second. Very tricky and hit myself in the head with the boom numerous times. I also set a new person best for speed at 22.9 knots fighting a 2 knot current so no idea of how fast I was actually going through the water.

Also learned a couple of things that need to be on the boat, Rohan already told me to do it but I was lazy. First, need to cut down the length of the tubing that is used for the universal joint in the tiller since there was too much play for that much breeze and gybing was not a fluid act because of this. Second since I was using George Peet's boat and his bridle was too low. The made the main sheet too short, and it was very tricky to make the turn from downwind to upwind. When the battens had popped on the correct side I would have to over sheet to slow down heel the boat to weather and turn really quickly. Though it was interesting when I came out of a gybe with the battens not popped(tons of cunningham) it was much easier to make the turn since the sail was not drawing as much. After 3 hours of this i had to go in to practice on the melges for the upcoming nationals, lucky me :).

The wind was really piping up by this point and put the melges rig to full pull +26 caps +26 lowers and even dropped the toggle on the head stay one hole to get even more tension. We rigged the boat and dropped it in the water. Chuck was a little nervous about how windy it was and if we could make it out the harbor safely. That was almost the kiss of death, I went dyslexic started the motor and turned the fuel valve to off, gave it full throttle and sent it. The motor died right as we were about to make the turn and the wind pushed us up against the docks. We fended off and with the help of Dave S and Marc H I think. Pulled ourselves off the docks and realized the fuel valve mistake and sent it out of the harbor. Five minutes later main was up jib was out and we were rocking. Bore away and set the kite and had a good 5 min of fun before I wanted to round a channel marker and start practicing some windward leewards. Doused the kite turned upwind only to get blasted by a squall which tore the main from leach to luff only to stop at the window.

When I checked the GPS it only showed a disappointing 16.9 knots but once again we were fighting 2 knots of current so who knows how fast we were actually going. Before sailing I gave Chuck the disclaimer of there probably is only a 30% chance that we come in without a broken sail. After we took down the main we started the little Honda 2hp only to realize it did not have enough power to push us home, after about ten minutes of struggling the cavalry arrived in the form on Mike H and Perrin F in a junior sailing skiff to tow us in.