Almost every blogger eventually writes a post that begins with, “Sorry I haven’t posted in a while, but …”
So this is that one for me. I’m afraid the posts will be a little less frequent now too – I’m just too darned busy. For some reason, sailing seems to take precedence over blog writing.
So I’ve done a lot of sailing lately, and absolutely no rehabbing. I also have some non boat-related projects that are taking up time.
This weekend, I was invited to sail on a Corsair 27′. Here is a link that describes it in detail.
I grabbed this picture from the web here. It’s an interesting write-up on the boat.
We sailed in the Bradenton Yacht Club 30th annual kickoff regatta.
This is a boat that really moves along in high winds. Unfortunately there wasn’t any. We sailed Saturday and Sunday. 3 races saturday. 2 on sunday.
Below are some shots I did during the first race Saturday.
The very first thing that happened was that our bowsprit broke before the first race. Can you see that short little pole laying on the deck in the front and tied up right at the bottom of the sail? That’s it. The sail that you see in the picture is a spinnaker. That is the big sail on the front that looks like a hot air balloon.
Anyway, back to the bowsprit. A bowsprit is that pole at the front of the boat that sticks out and lets you put more sails on. This meant we had to sail against the wind with only our main sail and the jib(the smaller sail in front). That really slowed us down. There were lots of sailboats that came out for the race, but there was only one other multi-hull boat in our class, so we were fighting for first and second. Since we had only two sails we could put up, and they had three. It wasn’t much of a fight.
The course was 3 pins set up in a triangle with 1 nautical mile between them, although they sure seemed farther.
First race Saturday was fine, but slow. We came in about 30 minutes behind the other boat.
Second race the race committee didn’t put up our second mark. These marks are far enough apart that a lot of times you have to sail partway towards the next mark before you can see it. We kept sailing, and sailing, and sailing … all at very slow speeds… till we saw the boat ahead round a mark. When we went around it we saw it was actually a channel marker. That time they beat us back by about 40 minutes or maybe it was an hour.
In this last picture you can see the skyway bridge over Tampa Bay in the distance. We are on our way back to the starting line after rounding our second mark. Can you see our second mark (bright yellow floating triangle)? I can’t either.
Third race we were actually doing pretty well. All of a sudden, we saw the entire fleet (scattered all over the bay) turn around and head back towards the start. They had called the race. By the time we motored the hour back to port, the wind picked up and it was blowing pretty hard. Bummer.
Back at the club it was brewski’s, swimming pool and a great fish sandwich in the clubhouse. I don’t know what it is, but ever since I got to Florida I just love getting fish sandwiches!
Sunday’s races were even slower. On the first race, we went around verrrryyyy slooooooowwwwwlllllly. As soon as we crossed the finish line (the other boat had waited about 30 minutes for us) the race committee sent us on our second race.
On the second race we spent almost an hour getting to the first pin and by the time we rounded it the other boat had already rounded the third. We slowly went to the second mark and eventually, many days later crossed the finish line. After that we headed back in, there was no point in doing another.
This was the second time I sailed on this boat. The owner said he would be happy to sail with me again. That’s good enough for me.
Even though it was slow, and not really a race – I enjoyed the weekend. I did spend too long in the sun without my hat and sunscreen on. Only my face got sunburned, except for where my sunglasses were. I’m now sporting that raccoon look. Won’t do that again.
I also went sailing Thursday at Davis Island Yacht Club on the 42′ “Long Gone”, and on Friday at Boca Ciega Yacht Club in a 16 1/2 ‘ Catalina Capri. That makes 4 straight days of sailing.
I think I’m taking off Monday from sailing, then Tuesday racing, Wednesday wakeboarding, Thursday back to Davis Island, Friday off, and Saturday and Sunday I get to take a few students in sail school at Boca Ciega out on the water. It’s shaping up to be busy week.
CapnRehab 