Tim goes for a Night's Camping and a days sailing on local lake. No big deal. Lots of wind though....~:0)

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I was reading by the fire, looked up, and there was this balloon sailing into the cove I was camped in.
There was a 30" ribbon on it so it acted like stabilzer of some kind. It was scooting right along!
BTW, if you read novels...get anything by Richard Russo. I am reading the last (for me) of his available books. Excellent stuff. Great characters, funny.

Some of the clouds coming in after a perfect days sailing. All the weather with rain in it seemed to pass me by all day. At home Daphne told me it rained like crazy a good part of the day. No real rain that evening, but I put up a big tarp just in case.

Evening dishes....

Rain the next morning. It stopped early on...but for some reason there was not a spot of wind anywhere on the lake. I held on at the camp...waiting, but nothing. I motored home at 2 pm. The lake was both faces that weekend. Like a mirror on Sunday and windy as hell on Saturday.

Saturday: Plenty of wind from the moment I launched until late in the evening. It didn't stop until about 10 pm. Steady pressure all day. I went from all my biggest sails up (main and lapper) and flying in 12 knots of wind.... to nothing but a jib.
Tripple reefed main and jib ...this was the first time I had enough wind to try this...awesome! Perfectly balanced in 25 knots plus. Double reefed and single reefed. I was very busy all day, hardly any time to drink beer.....ha! Such a liar I am.
At one point, it was blowing so hard that just a jib close reaching and beam reaching was all I could carry and be comfortable (eg: not spilling beer). Even at that I got slammed so hard at one point I started to scramble to the windward side. A bit of a false alarm as the jib spilled and settled right away. Aweird wind/wave combo. During that period I was able to get the boat to self steer, slip into the companionway and sit on a bucket (not for that! an upside down bucket) with my head out the hatchway to have something to eat, get out of the wind and relax. Very nice. I only had to touch the tiller when I ran out of lake and had to wear the boat around. Even took a couple of bloopers over the side. Wet at times.
The coolest thing about this much wind on this little lake is that there is such a short fetch (about 6 miles) that the waves only seem to build so high. This same wind on a bigger lake or the salt chuck would create some waves that would put me out of business for sure....well, maybe not down hill and in survival mode. ~:0)
I remember doing over four knots with just the jib at one point, over 5 knots with the tripple reefed main and jib and six knots wing and wing and waaaay overpowered! Man, what a feeling that is....curious what would happen if I rounded up at that point....? hehehe, have not tried that yet. I still had the dagger board down and boy was she singing! My board has this high speed vibration that starts at about 4.6 knots. ~:0)
BTW, fastest recorded speed for this funky clown boat was early this year surfing down a wave on a quartered run...6.4knots....or was it 6.8...?
A perfectly enjoyable days sailing. Nothing like big wind on a warm sunny summers day!

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