Humbling… or I wish I were a “know it some”

Got out on the lake yesterday, slightly humbling in strong winds but feel like maybe I’m learning something… slowly. I don’t ever want to be a “know it all” but it sure would be nice to be a “know it some”!

Blowing a solid 15 knots with gusts to about 20 (according to my Kestrel wind meter)… top 1-2 in terms of chop on the lake… we often get whitecaps but with such tiny fetch it rarely generates wave heights worth noting, but these were probably 1-2′ (I know, tiny, but big for our lake)… probably should have taken that as a sign to stay in our protected little spot and read ;-)

But out we went, immediately finding I had a very hard time holding the bow into the wind as we motored up the lake to gain a little space off the lee shore… and as soon as the bow fell off the wind a bit we’d get blown beam on or even downwind. Hmmm. Not to be deterred (even when I should have been) up went the jib… err, bad idea, now there’s no way to keep the bow into the wind to raise any other sails. O.K., time to abort, douse the jib and – with the wind increasing in strength – try to motor back to our anchor / shore tie spot, but now I can’t hold the bow into the wind at all… I just keep doing loops (while dodging curious jet skiers) and getting blown downwind toward the lee shore. Not good. Fortunately something pops into the fight or flight part of my brain and I decide to try setting the mizzen (read somewhere about the “weather vane” effect)… voila, sheeted in tight the mizzen weather-vanes the stern around and I can steer into the wind. Slither in to shore, stern anchor, tie to shore, crack a beer, take a deep breath.

Phew. Feeling pretty spanked by the gods of cockiness.

A nap for some (Brig, the hound dog) and some contemplation (and another beer) for me helps us get the guts up to try again. Helps that the winds have moderated some, 10-12 knots with gusts to 15, but rising again as we head out. But boy, sure glad we tried again, as we had a much more successful experience.

Using the mizzen to keep us into the wind works dandy, and we set jib and jigger only – both as a learning experience and since the winds are being very fluky and coming up again. I can safely say jib and jigger is very cool, we were doing ~4 knots in 15 knot winds, felt very controlled, sailed very flat and dry. Granted, no serious progress to windward seems possible with this set of sails (or with the combination of this set of sails and this skipper), but a very reassuring tool to have. After a very pleasant hour or so, which also included some good practice at back-winding the jib as we tacked, time to anchor and tie off. Wind has shifted a bit and our anchorage isn’t as protected as it usually is, but again using the mizzen helps us motor in and anchor where we want to be, even with a ~10-12kts breeze directly right to left across our path in.

So, things learned (or I think we learned, or to quote Peter King “Things I Think I Think”):

• Stern anchors are cool, but they’re prop fouling hazards… had to pull the outboard up out of its well at the beginning of the day to clear the anchor rode.
• Mizzens are REALLY HELPFUL when maneuvering in solid winds… can’t imagine how this isn’t always the first sail I’ll set, to help stay bow into the wind while setting other sails. I literally couldn’t steer a course into the wind regardless of the throttle on the iron spinnaker until I set the mizzen, then all of a sudden all good. Not sure how standard sloop rigged boats deal with this.
• Centerboard is not just for sailing. I did feel I had better control under power with the centerboard down than with it up.
• When trying to steer into our anchoring spot with a strong cross wind, it seemed best to just crab along with our bow almost into the wind, just sort of angling along until we got to where we wanted to be. Seems to be the sailing equivalent of an “upstream ferry” that I learned rafting long long ago.

Obviously the whole thing put me more on edge than the dog:

… and I can safely say you wouldn’t have caught us out there ever in the old Hobie 16, would have been cold, wet, and having our asses handed to us!

So all in all a successful day – in school, essentially. One class at a time I guess.