All I can say is that I had a blast. My boat is a 25 C&C and I am fairly green as far as sailing goes. I have sailed on other people's boats for the past few years and taken a few sailing courses along the way as well as read every book I can get my hands on.... however none of that really prepared me for actually being responsible for my own boat out on the water yesterday.
We got underway from Flag Harbor Marina in St. Leonard around 9:30am with NW winds at 10-12kts gusting to 18-20kts at times later in the afternoon. Early in the day we took a northerly line (close hauled and close reach) which produced some great speed and a lot of fun. After going north on the bay for approximately 8 Ntmiles we headed back south. with the wind to our backs in a broad reach. Nice going it was too. We passed our home port at approximately 2pm and decided to stay out a little longer and possibly make Cove Point which is just north of Solomons Island, MD. However, after sailing just a few more miles past the marina we decided to cut it short and turn around and head back north, since we were going to try to make a cookout and fireworks later in the evening and didn't want to be rushed to get back in. (its a good thing we turned when we did)
Well this is when things got interesting and I got very nervous on my first trip out in my own boat. After we turned back towards the north it only seemed like we had a couple options since the wind was coming at us from the NW. We could head almost directly west which would only take us toward shore and not north as we needed to go, or to head north easterly again but that would have taken us back deep into the bay and further from land that we wanted. We turned the boat north and tried to stay as close hauled as possible to stay close to the western shore of the bay and closer to home. The winds were picking up now to around 13-15 and gusting to 18-20 and the wave action coming from the north was slowing us way down and it seemed like we just could not make any headway what so ever. Also I became more concerned when several times I would get the boat heading a northerly again on a close hauled line and the bow of the boat would come back through the eye of the wind and we would have to make a full circle to regain our line. We tried a number of sail trims but the boat would continue to either drive harder and heel over around 30-35 degrees until I let up on the tiller and came back to the wind or on other cases she would want to come back around and we do another donut. I know we were doing something wrong out there and in the worsening conditions it became a real concern. Since we were only a mile or two from home port and the chop and wind had picked up so much, I decided to drop sail and motor in. Even with the sails down the 9.9 motor took an hour to get us back to port.
So, today I am pouring back over all my books and trying to see what I did wrong and how to fix this in the future. One thing I won't do next time is when I have the winds coming from the North West, and getting stronger, I will not pass to the south of my marina, therefore I won't have to fight the wind to get back into port. Also, I think we may have been coming about too slow instead of just turning the tiller hard and let the jib come over quickly. I also have to learn more about my mainsail trim and sheets. I tried moving the main sheets along the traveler from port to starboard and then centered many times trying to find the optimum place during different tacks and I just couldn't find the right trim for the conditions. So I think I need to get someone down there to look at the rigging for my mainsail and show me what I'm doing wrong there too.
All in all I learned so much today that I didn't learn while sailing on someone Else's boat. I also learned that you tend to worry more as the boat owner/skipper than if you are riding shotgun on someone Else's boat.
I had a blast and want to get back out there again. Oh I almost forgot to say... Yes heeling over is scary! I read the other post and I couldn't agree more at this stage in my learning. I can still feel the boat tossing as I type this thread.
Here is a clip before things got a little hairy. My friend Mark at the tiller.