I wanted to once again share with you what great strides I feel I am making out on the water.
Last Sunday, I volunteered to crew on the fastest boat in our Club, a bright red C&C 110. Skippered by a highly experienced sailor and racer in our group. Right away, I felt like I had stepped into "graduate school". The boat is really powerful, and has lots of fine controls that I had not used before (jib tweakers, spinnaker downhaul, etc.), but within a few miles, I was well integrated into the crew and working quickly and correctly at my various trimming duties. By the second half of the race, I was starting to anticipate my skipper's trimming commands and was right at the ready for adjustment. Even though we lead the race on the water throughout, we were unlucky with wind shifts and we lost badly on corrected time (the boat is PHRF 72!). Nonetheless, it was a victory for me in tackling such a demanding crewing responsibility with no big stumbles.
Last Thursday, I was out for a day sail with my friend on his C&C 29. I suggested an ambitious goal of sailing south right to the US border and around Moresby Island. The wind was blowing steadily from the SE at 8-12 knots, so we reached into it all the way to our goal. At that point the wind died for a while and we were forced (by the advancing hour) to motor around most of our island "mark" and through one busy ferry lane. But then, I noticed that the shroud telltales went slowly limp, and then crept forward. We had a building following wind! I convinced my friend to cut his particularly noisy diesel and we trimmed for a very broad reach. What followed was 90 minutes or so of pure bliss, as I helmed the boat home in golden light, a softly burbling wake, and full confidence.
Here we are, captured by my friends' wife as we sailed past their house. I was managing an easy wing-on-wing at 5 knots or so, the big flood current giving us another knot or so over ground.
Again, thanks so much for the great start,
Vincent
Vincent
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