An up-and-down day

I delayed going up to the lake this past weekend until late Saturday afternoon. The weather forecasts were showing high winds and thunderstorms for parts of Saturday, so I stayed home working on my courses, responding to students, etc.

There was still a brisk breeze when I got there, but the storms had passed. I probably could have gone kayaking Saturday evening, but I wimped out. Got a great night's sleep, though!

Sunday did look like a sailing day, though. While I did take a walk and stop for breakfast, I skipped kayaking again in favor of getting a relatively early start on sailing. I caught the 10:30 bridge opening and headed out into the lake. No stop by the Coasties this week, but otherwise things were much like last week. I got out into the lake, where the breeze seemed clearly more than the forecast was promising. The reports were saying 5-10 MPH but it was closer to 15. (Well, OK, now that I think of it, I can't recall whether the reports--and my anemometer--give the wind speeds in MPH or knots. I'll have to check.

The wind wasn't really the problem, though. It was a good sailing wind. The problem was the waves. The forecast from the National Weather Service was saying 1-2 foot waves, but I'm pretty sure that they were more like 2-4, with higher ones occasionally, both from powerboat wakes (especially the JetExpress) and just natural variation. That gave me trouble, as it did last week, because I just couldn't get the sails up. I knew that the boat motion would ease once the sails were up, but we were bouncing around so much that I just couldn't handle it. As soon as I left the tiller the boat would fall off the wind. When I was heading directly into the wind, the boat would pitch and the prop would race when it lifted out of the water. When I would fall off, a severe roll was added to the motion, and I would end up hanging onto the boom and trying to keep the mainsail from trailing into the water. Very frustrating.

I finally gave up and headed back in. As soon as I entered the river between the breakwaters, the motion eased. One advantage of the higher-than-expected wind was that when I made the turn in the river, I could come to almost a dead stop by matching the motor speed to the wind blowing against me as I waited for the bridge opening.

When I returned to the dock, I had a little trouble securing her before the wind blwe the bow away. I'm actually getting pretty good at putting her into the slip, but I need another, very long, pair of arms to tie her up as I also handle the tiller and motor. Another person from a slip down the dock came over to help.

Once we had secured her temporarily, he mentioned that he had just bought a used Catalina 25 at the marina and was getting her ready to sail. I mentioned my frustration trying to sail that day, and he said that he would like to go out if I wanted to try again. He was tired of not being ready himself, but still had to meet the former owner to get the sails on and otherwise prepare her. The upshot is that we decided to go sailing.

So, we headed out again. This time went much better. He was able to control her while I got the mainsail up, and the jib unfurled easily. As expected, the motion of boat settled down beautifully once the sails were up and the motor was off. It reminded me just how much a sailboat prefers to sail. She is terrible at motoring in anything but calm conditions (although part of it is the outboard; it does work better with the defunct inboard)--rolling and pitching. Under sail, though, much of the rolling disappears as she heels over and the wind keeps her steady. There is some pitching, but much less as the force of the sails helps her cut through oncoming waves. Of course, the shallow Lake Erie doesn't help with some of this, since the waves tend to be so short, steep, and close together.

Anyway, the sailing was great. We got out very close to Green and South Bass Islands. I considered going around Green Island before heading back, but the wind was finally starting to drop and our speed was going down, too. We only tacked a couple of times, starting back in about 2:20 pm. Turns out that was definitely not too soon, since the wind continued to die, and we were going slower and slower as we approached Port Clinton. We ended up motoring farther than I would have liked in order to catch the 4:30 bridge opening, tying up at the dock about 4:40 or so.

All in all an excellent sailing day, even though it started out frustrating. The plan is for me to join Tyson on his new-to-him boat once he has it ready to go.

The day was not quite ruined by the failure of my car to start when I went to leave the marina for home, but I got a jump start and headed out. Looks like I will need a new battery, but I'm hoping that nothing else is wrong there.