Night Sailing the Columbia on a Cat 28

[carl762]

Well, last night's plan was to visit my buddy's Catalina 28 (neighbor at the marina) shoot the shiite, and eat dinner. After dinner, he says, let's sail. WTF, we did. No rain, a wee bit cold, but a real nice night.

I gotta say that after sailing from approximately 8:00-11:00 p.m. on a perfect night, I couldn't be more impressed with the Catalina 28 sailboat. Thing turned on a dime, weather helm was awesome. Just the whole feel of the boat was beautiful. I'm definitely sold on roller furlers. The visibility was just perfect and, of course, we kept a good eye out for commercial traffic.

Tonight we take out my 23 foot Sundance, probably not as long. This could become habit forming, and I'm finding that I sleep a lot better on my boat than in my own bed at home.

Next time, I'll attempt night pics.

[CalebD]

Yup. Night sailing can be amazing.
Last Friday night we sailed on the Chessy with the full moon while flying the spinnaker.
We had a GPS on board but it was easier to just use the spotlight of the moon as our course.

[carl762]

Yup, the city lights lit the river up very nicely. NO problems with visibility and thankfully no rain.

Gotta hit up the store here in a few, get meat for the BBQ, BBQ and hit the river again tonight. Conditions look perfect.

Going to try out my 150 for the first time. Last night we ran nothing electronic, but the nav lights. I'll use my Chartplotter tonight.

[DwayneSpeer]

Night sailing can be a real experience but when you graduate to off shore or near shore sailing be especially careful. My wife and I came very near to being killed the last time we were out.

We were sailing down the Washington coast and the wife had the helm while I tried to catch some sleep about 1:00 am when she yelled at me to come up. When I did I saw a large commercial crabbing boat bearing down on us from the port side. It had just turned on it's deck lights and that alerted the wife to it's presence. She isn't very good at night navigation, it turns out. I grabbed the wheel, made a sharp turn to port and passed within yards of the other boat. They made no attempt to dodge or even acknowledge that we were there. I was so flabbergasted that I did nothing but put us back on course and continue down coast. Now I wish I had called the Coast Guard and reported the incident or at least called the boat with the VHF and cussed them out.

So, the moral of the story is BE CAREFUL AND MAKE SURE THAT YOU AND ANY CREW ASSIGNED TO THE HELM KNOWS WHAT YOU ARE DOING.

The wife swears that she will not go out again and even if she does I won't let her take the helm alone.

[carl762]

Off shore sailing might be in my future, when/if I get a bigger boat. Right now, I'm having a blast, and yes, we're heads on a swivel, keeping eyes out for the commercial traffic.

"Hi my Name is Carl, and I'm addicted to sailing."

[carl762]

Weather permitting, heading out tonight.

[HeartsContent]

I was just talking to a friend about going out the weekend and mentioned that sunset and then night sailing is my favorite!

The Clearwater Beach coast is simply gorgeous both in the ICW and off the coast.

[carl762]

Nice.

We have some pretty country up here as well. More rugged, cold, wet, but beautiful. Too bad they couldn't light the mountains for my viewing pleasure at night.

Weather not looking good for tonight.

[RedtheBear]

Night sailing particularly with a near full moon and soft breeze is ice cream with chocolate sauce BUT it must be done with great care and caution. Runing lights on sail boats are difficult to see because they are either too low or too high for working boats to notice. Shrimpers, crabber, trawlers are busy doing their work and tend to only quickly look around to check and more than they will ever admit to under crewed and the helmsman the back up to give the extra hand when something goes screwy. Lock the wheel down and go back a bear a hand.
Rules of the road are all well and good but YOU must remember rule one: You will do all possible to avoid other vessels near you. A half mile is close enough for me to to bear away if possible or turn of the spreader lights and sweep a spot light in his direction. Don't blind him but get his attention. A call on the hailing channel works too.
Remember too that many of those working boats are pulling nets or lines that will mess you and him up if your keel or board tangle. Give them plenty of room it's a big ocean.
It's like driving a car, the must dangerous nut on a car is the one holding the wheel of the other car. Which one are you?

"ts the trip, not the destination"

[HeartsContent]

and we were just enjoying ourselves.