Sailing.. Take Me Away...

Just a quick update as the memories are fresh in my head. I had another sail this morning at the U.S. Sailing center about a mile down the road from the house. I got a late start for a Friday after some coffee, egg, and toast over some work emails. It's nice to see, and depressing at the same time, that the office can go on just fine without me. As my boss once said a long time ago, no one is irreplaceable. I like to think I'm a little irreplaceable?

Off the bow.

I got to the sailing offices at 11:00 in the morning and spoke with the receptionist. She recognized me from yesterday and was far more pleasant. When I requested a boat to check out, she asked what kind, and I replied, "A Scot". At that point, the executive director came out of his office and discussed the timing: they have 4 Scots. Three were reserved at 2:00 and one was coming in at noon, and one was available. So I was home free! Except for one problem: I was then asked where my crew was, and I said I was singlehandling. He paused for a second and said, "You're going to singlehand a Scot?" I said, "Sure, just the mains'l," making a point to pronounce "mainsail" like sailors do. I then reminded him I was out with an instructor yesterday who cleared me for take off. The director said winds were light at 4 knots. I would need a jib because he "wouldn't want me getting in trouble out there." Now, I'm no sailing expert, but I'm not sure what people who normally charter from him usually do. 5kn is plenty enough to power a 20' 800lb boat. I'm not racing, ya know? The receptionist said it was 10 on the water. At that, I swiped the rental fee for the day and made my way to the life jackets, pulling down the same one I had yesterday. It still fit nicely, which is why I grabbed the same one.

A short time later, after a quick little bump of the boat in front of me at the dock -- I was on the leeward side of the dock with about 20 feet behind me and 15 feet to port to maneuver. My choices were to run aground, hit a piling, or bump the boat in front of me. Coming a-bump! I'm sure the director was watching from his perch shaking his head wondering who the heck he just sent out to his doom. Note there are no motors on these boats so getting off and on the dock is all under sail.






This is what screwing around
looks like. About 6 miles covered.
Fastest speed 8 knots.



Sailing after that was really fun, but the wind predictions were way off. It was more like 15 knots in the middle with whitecaps in the channel. Hard to believe, but the wind was even stronger than yesterday. My senses were confirmed when gusts approaching 19kn were recorded exactly when I was pulling out into the channel. Still, the sailing was exhilirating and the boat's heeling soon became second nature. The back-and-forth line on the right is me having fun on a beam reach. Having just the mains'il was fortuitous as I'm not sure the jib would've done very well. I found it easier to sail by myself than with the skipper yesterday, even with the loss of ballast. The wind rotated from the SE to the SW by the time I was done. Much of the sailing was on a broad reach or close hauled.

After about an hour doing large circles and jibing downwind, ominous clouds loomed on the horizon to the west. There was no forecast for rain but something was definitely headed our way. I was on the other side of the inlet when I saw it and decided to play it safe and headed back to base. Good thing, because about 20 minutes later the rain came with the wind gusting 20+.

All I could think at that moment was I'd earned my sailing merit badge for the inlet on the trip back. A woman on the dock who grabbed my dockline said as much when she noticed I was singlehanded and brought the boat in smoothly with some nice tacking. You can see the long tacks on the left side of the photo above. It was a real struggle! Another guy asked if I really just did do all that without a jib. What is it with people and their jibs? I wouldn't even mention these comments except for the fact I'm not an experienced sailor so I'll take compliments when I can get them.

Flying Scots lined up after being moored.

I lowered the mainsail and cleaned up the boat, grudingly expecting to have to flake the sail and get the boat ready for mooring. I didn't want to do that because I paid for a full day (ending at 6pm) and it was only 2:30. Sensing that why I was taking my time and hanging around on the boat, the director came out and said he'd offer me a free half day any time I wanted since the weather kinda buggered us both. I thanked him immensely - he didn't have to do that - and finished tidying up the boat. I hung around and talked sailing with the nice couple who helped me get into dock and then headed back to the house. It was a good non-beach day and great sailing, though it ended too soon.