First time out solo and off a mooring...

[ShockValue]

Boat: C-Lark 14
Me: Total newb (some reading, very little tiller time.)

Finally got my mooring buoy in place. Got the boat tied up last night, and so this morning I thought I'd give my first solo-sail a go.

Things went ok... I kept telling myself to take my time, get things set up properly and not to rush.

Overall it went well, but had a couple of minor issues that I thought I'd solicit some thoughts on.

1: While on the mooring buoy I got things all rigged up. Centerboard down and locked into place. Rudder on. Hoisted the mainsail (I decided not to use the jib today since I was unsure of my solo-ability.)

At this point the boat started running around the mooring anchor. I tried to let my main sheet all the way out so it wouldn't catch any wind, but it seems on a C-Lark the furthest out the main will go is maybe 60 degrees from center. Ok still catching wind, so I thought I would sheet it in really tight. That helped, but I was still certainly rocking around the buoy so to speak...

I was /expecting/ to be hanging straight back off the buoy with my bow into the wind. That didn't seem to happen. Luckily the wind was light, so the jerking and straining was mild.

What did I do wrong here?

2: The wind was light, but I wasn't expecting to have such a hard time figuring out just where it was coming from. I'm sure 99% of this is purely lack of experience on my part. I've read up and (mostly) memorized my "points of sail", but it seemed like 90% of the time out there, I really wasn't quite sure where the wind was coming from, and were my sail should be set.

Any tips here?



Overall it was fun. And I have a whole week off and I'm pretending to be a bachelor (wife out of town) so I plan on doing a lot of "learning" this week out on the water.



Hope everyone else is having a good day!

[ShockValue]

OK, I decided that I couldn't wait to get out there again and did a little afternoon sail.



Interesting things (to me) from this trip.

1: Accidental gybe. Luckily the boom was pretty lazy about making it's way across, but I can understand now how someone could get a nasty bonk on the head that way.

2: Goosewing. Kind-of. The jib couldn't decide what the hell it wanted to do so mosty it was a wing on one side, and a broken flappy thing on the other

3: I think I pissed off a trawler that was following me, but I generally tried to stay my course and make my intent obvious. I gave him a "sorry, I'm totally new at this" wave as he blew past me a little later.

4: Made a couple of emergency "round ups" into the wind when I started to heel too far. I started learning about 3/4 the way through the trip that it's easier to just let the sail out a little bit.

5: This time I put up the jib as well as the main. Wasn't that much harder to sail, except that I can't reach everything and still hold onto the tiller. I REALLY need a tiller extension if I plan on sailing this thing solo.

6: Discovered a disconcerning "hum" when starting to get decent speed. I'm pretty sure it's coming from the centerboard vibrating. Is this normal? Seems like something might be out-of-whack.


Only 'bad' thing that happened was when I was tying up for the evening. The line that holds the centerboard in the up position came out of the cleat and dropped it pretty hard. The little piece of hardware that holds the line onto the centerboard got jammed on the wood trim and it took me a while to get it back out again. No big loss as the wood there needs replacement anyway, but not something I care to repeat.


Thanks for reading my newbie journal for the day

[GraemeInCanada]

It's great to hear you're doing well, reminds me of when I first started to sail and had all kinds of trouble and frustration, along with all the good of course.

Your desire to learn and try is going to make you good, keep going with that. Asking questions is great. Here are a few items from my still young thoughts on sailing:

1. Figuring out the direction of the wind can be difficult at times depending on where you are. Sometimes you can get wind from more than one direction! Watch the water, you'll get "cat's paws" which gives you the direction the wind is blowing based on the little paw like looking "waves" you can see in the water. Practice looking at the water for this, the little waves will be crowned in the direction the wind is going.

Another option is a wind vane on the top of the mast. Another of course is looking at your sail, maybe a flag on the boat somewhere.

2. If you want to keep the bow into the wind then you'll need to know where the current is headed, I suspect that was your problem here. Keep the sail in the middle of the boat and the wind should blow past you straight on unless of course you have a current grabbing and pushing the boat around. You can also practice "heaving to" in some respects at this point. Search around for techniques on that.

3. Accidental gybes happen. Keep a sharp on things, they will happen far less as you get more experience at watching and feeling for the wind and water.

4. No worries about the trawler, just keep a good eye out on traffic, you don't want to get run over. Anybody out on the water that doesn't understand you may not be completely proficient yet and gets mad has clearly forgotten when they were new at it all too. This will pass.

5. Round ups... hahaha.. I can remember not even understanding why it happened, and it happened a lot for me. This will come to you in time as you realize it happens primarily when you've lost speed and can't control the direction the boat is headed in. Wind catches one side, current the other maybe.. and bang.. you're doing circles. Just don't get caught in irons.

6. Sounds like there is some kind of vibration, not a line or the sail? quite possibly the center board, although I don't know from experience so can't offer any great advice here.

All in all, great job! Keep up the practice, get out as often as you can and in no time flat you'll be moving up to a bigger boat and it'll all just come naturally. Make sure to keep us up to date on how things get on.

[CapTim]

I don't have much to add, except to mention that the 'hum' is normal. Usually it's the keep cable/rope, not the keel itself. The spars can hum sometimes, too, though not usually audibly.

Gratz on the route, though.. looks like fun!

[carl762]

Yes, the route looks awesome. Love that Island.

Still throwing $ at my little boat in order to get her rigged up properly. 15 Aug is first sail date.

[sailingdog]

I'd recommend you get Dave Seidman's book, The Complete Sailor, about $16 and the best sailing primer I've seen in years.

[mceveritt]

Cheap Wind Vane: Tie Small pieces of yarn to both stays. Should always be able to tell where the wind is coming from by looking at where they are blowing.

[ejholmgren]

I think your boat may have been running around the mooring because you had the centerboard down when you were tied off. Here's what I usually do with my MC Scow:

1. Paddle out to buoy with the sail tied to the boom, boards up, tiller in the water.

2. Tie off, center the tiller in the boom crutch, raise sail and let it go where it wants to. At this point the boat is facing straight into the wind.

3. Untie from the mooring, drop the boards, and off she goes.

[trisstan87]

The hum is your boat telling you its having a good time. Whenever our SunFish and HobieCat were in 15+ knot winds out in the Abaco Sea you would hear the sort of gloomy mournful hum. From the SunFish it came from the Centerboard and in the HobieCat it seemed to be the hull whenever we were really heeling. I heard that sound in my head as soon as I read your post, no worries there.

[dundee]

Before I found a rock with my dagger board on my force5, once I got up to speed the daggerboard and the tiller would "sing". kinda cool!

Your first voyage sounds a bit like mine, except we went swimming a bit (force 5 capsizes quite easily). Dont forget if and when you hit the irons your steering becomes backwards.
As my first summer under sail I learned in my quest for top speed that, More sail doesnt always equal more speed. So many times I was fighting to keep the boat right with little progress with a big bubble in the sail, I finally realized that pulling outhaul and making the sail flat I could go faster and keep the boat flat with less work. Keep at it!