Well, I went sailing today on my 83' Mac 25. I was on a manmade lake in south Alabam, Lake Eufaula. The winds were prtty much 16mph all day long. It was really my first day sailing in winds like that, but I have sailed in maybe 5 mph winds before but it wasnt anyhting like this.
So, I ran into a few problems that I would like to ask about.
1) On my
jib, there are two
lines coming from the bottom corner of it(forgot the name of the corner) which lead into my cockpit. When I am on a starbord tack then my starbord
line is cleated on the side of the cockpit and the port
line is cleated but with plenty of slack to allow for the
jib to do its job. When I jibe, how should I go about untieing the starbord
line quickly and having the port
line ready to be set? When I did this, it just wasnt fluid at all and took me a while to get my
jib working after I tacked. How should I be preparing for the jibe?
Jib line wise.
2) If anyone is familiar with the Mac 25 I was heeling what seemed to be a WHOLE LOT today and I wasnt sure if the boat was made to do that. I had my
jib and main up and neither of them were reefed and I would sail at a direct right angle with the wind and it would heel quite a bit and was pretty scary for someone with as little experience as I have, but I was hoping that this is what the boat was meant to do. Was I pushing the limits of the boat to much?
3) Another problem I had is when I was sailing on a broad reach, I would let out enough
line to allow my boom to be square with the wind. When I did this and I would try to jibe, my boom would swing around and into my forestay and not swing all the way to the other side of the boat. Can I not leave all the slack in my boom while jibing? Or should I have brought the boom to center of the boat before I attempted the jibe?
Thanks alot everyone for any replies!