May 27, 2003
We put Surprise in the
We put Surprise in the water at April Fool Point on Friday afternoon, and sailed around Dickinson Bay for a short while. We practiced jybeing the spinnaker. Then we tied her up to the dock for the night. The next day we sailed to Joe and Dianne's place. We left the dock around 11 am, and sailed close hauled to weather April Fool Point. We bore away and sailed North along the coast of San Leon on Starboard tack, then passed between Eagle Point and the shoal seen on the map below. The shoal seems to be a popular place for fishermen, it's part of the remains of Redfish Island, or the shoal that separated northern Galveston bay from southern Galveston Bay. I wonder if the bay was originally two separate bodies of water?
After we rounded the point, we set the spinnaker and sailed west to Joe and Dianne's place. Kathy drove the boat for a little while and she did fine until we got into some trouble trying to jybe the spinnaker - seems neither of us is used to doing the other's job. There's little glitch on the track (The green one) where it happened. We got it straightened out and continued. We arrived at 1pm. It took us about two hours, with winds from the east and ESE. It's about a 10 mile trip.
Later in the day I sailed around the area for a while with various folks on board, and tied the bow up to a piling and set put a stern anchor. She rode out off the shore very well overnight. We left for home next morning around 10 am, the winds were light, but we were only becalmed a couple of times. We were back at the dock at 1pm, just in time for the sea breeze to fill in. Despite the frustration at the last leg, I really enjoyed sailing that route. I considered going over to New Redfish Island, but decided we didn't have enough time. Apparently Cliff in his Hobie 16 was becalmed worse than we were. Even though we left only 30 minutes before him, he never caught up to us; we were in dock for 10 minutes before he passed AFP. That was enough sailing for the weekend; we left Surprise tied up at the dock that night and stowed her away the next morning.
Here's the map:
May 22, 2003
Two weeks ago yesterday, the
Two weeks ago yesterday, the winds were Force 5. We took Surprise out and tried to sail around. It was just no fun. so we started and sailed home. We had eight boats out, and four retired after the start. I gotta hand it to the folks who went out and raced the whole thing. I took my sails to Cameron to have them looked over. The boltrope on the main was shrunk, so they fixed that.
The day before yesterday we had a last front pass through and there were winds from the north. So we had a rare downwind start. Nine boats showed up! What a great fleet! Two Thistles, one Day Sailer, one Lido-14, one Coronado 15, one Capri 14, one Vanguard 15, one Finn, and one Flying Junior. If we had the Nomad, another Day Sailer, and the Sweet Sixteen, that would have been a fleet of 12... Oh I hope, I hope, I hope...
We corrected to 11 seconds ahead the Flying Junior and two minutes ahead of the Coronado-15. On the first downwind run, we got the spinnaker up on starboard tack with Thistle Gone Pecan to leeward. He began luffing and I responded. The Lido-14 was to windward of me, and we luffed them. "Two boats to Leeward" I recall hailing - unnecessarily...
I really wanted that Thistle to gybe, but he wouldn't for what seemed the longest time. Finally he went, and we gybed immediately. We were able to keep up with the Thistle pretty well, as well as the Vanguard-15 downwind, but he was faster upwind, as he should be. The north wind made it interesting. There is a condo complex nearby with a marina, and the wind funneling down that marina made it very interesting. We'd get blasts of wind. It would be fun to ride that wind.
May 08, 2003
At Arlington last weekend, we
At Arlington last weekend, we got spanked. Those guys are fast, fast, fast! It's gonna be tough to get up to speed with them.
Last night we had a terrible start, but managed to come back. No GPS. The Vanguard 15 was 2nd, the Nomad 3rd, Dick Hoover in his Lido-14 was 4th. We had eight boats out on the water, which was an all-time high for the PM fleet on Wednesday, if I'm not mistaken.