Six Day Cruise

[goose327]

I had a great week sailing gang. Well,, the boat was in the water a week and I sailed every day anyway.
I hauled her down last Wednsday and set her up. I rented a slip for a few nights while I was at our fishing club gathering. The Admiral brought the motorhome down Thursday after work.
We (Anglernet) had a great “BASH” with about 130 in attendance. 40+ boats in our group, NorthRivers, Boultons, Jetcrafts, all kinds of hotrod fish killing machines, but I had the only sailboat. Everyone caught lots of fish (trout, kokanee, bass, and crappie), and MotherGoose put the first fish blood on the decks of the Platano Grande with a nice 2.5 lb. rainbow trout. She boated 3 total and I boated 1, not a great score, but being at the mercy of the wind to control trolling speed I think we did OK.
I learned a few things while I was out this time, the most important would be,,,,, DON’T SHOW OFF WHEN SINGLEHANDING,,LOL. I nearly broached her yesterday. I was running North with a great West wind filling the sails, watching the speed increase on the GPS, mainsheet and tiller in one hand, camera in the other,(to prove my heel angle and speed). Somewhere around 4.6kts I decided I should try to get the rail wet and hauled in the sheet,,,, WHOA what a rush. No time for camera, I dropped it on the cockpit deck, and eased the sheet. It reminded me of that Steven Wright joke,,, “you know that feeling you get when you lean back in your chair on two legs, and it ALMOST goes over?, LOL, that’s what it felt like.
I also learned, MAKE SURE THE FORESAIL FURLING LINE IS LOCKED IN THE JAM CLEAT!!!!!! We were cruising long nicely in about 5kts of wind under main and one jib and made a tack, the wind grabbed the foresail and WHAM, FLUTTER, LUFF, it sounded like all hell broke loose. It took a few second to figure out what had happened and scared the crap out of both of us, but we handled it OK and soon were back on course.
Lesson #3,,,, if you feel like taking a nap and having the Admiral sail the boat, DON’T SLEEP ON THE SIDE BUNK!!!!, I was snoozin’, she was doing fine at the helm. She was “reading” the wind by watching the ripples come across the lake. She mis-read the direction and when it hit the sails I got pitched on the floor. It was a rude awakening, but she got a good laugh out of it,,,, so did I once I found out we were still upright.
I was going to stay out until Friday but the weatherman said a front was moving in with 20mph gusting to 40, so I pulled the plug and came home yesterday afternoon. When I got to the ramp the wind was in the high teens, by the time I trailered and demasted it was howling around 20 and whitecaps were rolling across the lake. I’d say I called it just in time.

#1 MG with a decent kokanee
#2 MG AGAIN,, nice trout honey
#3 flying our colors
#4 A flock of geese headed North
#5 look close,, we're doing 4.4kts, just before I dropped the camera on deck,,LOL

[goose327]

A few more pics.

You'll all notice I had ALL THREE sails out in the second pic,, way cool

[werebeagle]

Dale

Glad to hear you had a good time. Just one comment. You really shouldn't have your lazy jib sheet cleated off. Just makes one more line to release if you need to ease the jib. And if you get an unexpected gust of wind shift, it could cause you problems.

[goose327]

Thanks Charlie, I never thought about that. I'm learning though, slow but sure. So OK, cleat the furling line and DON'T cleat the lazy sheet.

[camaraderie]

Looks like a good time was had by all Goose...a good thing when the wahine is aboard AND smiling!! Welcome back you AFOC!!

[goose327]

Originally Posted by camaraderie

Looks like a good time was had by all Goose...a good thing when the wahine is aboard AND smiling!! Welcome back you AFOC!!

Thanks for the welcome back, but ya know,, I've never been officially accepted into the AFOC division of Sailnet,,LOL. I'm honored.
She likes the boat more every time she goes out with me, and this time ws worth a dozen. We had some good wind for a change, not all the time, but enough to keep us on our toes and two days of excellent "beginers" wind.
We had a P-51 flyby on Saturday, man what a cool airplane, and THAT SOUND.......
#1 the plane
#2 what it looked like to me,, LOL
#3 Gooses new look, I shed my Winter coat, no more ZZ until Fall

[Neises]

I'm jealous! That crazy howling wind you got towards the end has been here for the past two weekends. Nice pics, we'll get our turn one of these days.

[sailingdog]

Goose-

Sounds like a good way to spend the day.

However, you really shouldn't be using a jam cleat for the Furling line. You should upgrade it to a line clutch or a real cleat. It isn't really safe, especially in heavy weather to have the furling line in a jam cleat, which is really easy to release accidentally.

[SimonV]

Who is that young man, sounds like Goose, smells like Goose
Great pics, I thought you had the Jib set up as a self tacker.

[sailingdog]

I think Simon is confusing a furling line with a jib sheet... and I think Goose got attacked by a hedgetrimmer...