Sailing

Sailing: the fine art of getting wet and becoming ill while slowly going nowhere at great expense.

Monday 20 January 2014

Rusty Sailors

With travel and house renovations Bob and Eileen have not had much time for sailing.  Since the end of last season (March 2013) we have only taken the boat out for about 3 Twilight races in Canberra and the October trip to Pittwater.  So we were really looking forward to escaping the Canberra heat (several days of 40 C) to spend a weekend at St Georges Basin / Sussex Inlet.  Well it looks like sailing isn't quite like riding a bike where one never looses the  knack.  The weekend was a comedy of errors with us just making silly mistakes and not getting our act together.  Although we had checked the GRIP files and WindFinder which both predicted light winds, it was blowing like the clappers when we got to the wharf at Sussex Inlet late Friday afternoon.  We struggled to put the boat in with wind and current both against us in different directions.  Eileen fumbling with the lines like an amateur and the skipper doing the usual frustrated shouting. (What happens on the boat stays on the boat)  As we approached the bar to go out into the Basin, the rudder hit bottom in the choppy conditions and a fastening broke.  Limping back to the wharf we inspected the damage and realised it was a fairly easy fix requiring longer screws and a drill which we could sort in the morning as the shops were closed by then.  We decided to anchor for the night across the channel where we managed to tangle ourselves up with another boat as the current was stronger than anticipated and the little 9 hp motor just didn't give us the steerage needed.  This resulted in in broken stanchion base (already cracked and should have been replaced).  We conceded defeat and took the boat out of the water and spent the night in the car park on the trailer. 

Cool Change  looking good under spinnaker
The next morning all seemed brighter, we fixed the rudder with the loan of a drill from Cool Change and entered the channel once again with a bit more finesse than the previous evening.  Once again the winds were stronger than predicted and we were a bit overpowered with the larger jib but had a lovely sail to Swan Bay where we met up with Cool Change to return the drill and have lunch. The SIBYC invited us to join their around the Basin race but we had spent too long at Swan Bay and missed the start.  Still we joined in after the second buoy to watch the fleet pass us by. The 10 boats racing looked fantastic, especially on the spinnaker run. Our modified sail configuration was not giving us very good speed.  Solar Mist loves a good wind (but a dog in light winds) and usually can reach a steady 5-6 knots in such conditions but we were pottering along at 4.5 knots and heeling over and rounding up too much - all lessons learned.

Reviewing the Fleet
After several hours of sailing we anchored again in Swan Bay for an evening swim and to watch the wild life.  A magnificent sea eagle perched near us then went off to catch a fish, flying away with it in its talons.  The black swans spend the day going from one sand bank to another like a flotilla of boats reviewing the fleet.  A lone pelican seemed to be the Admiral  monitoring the proceedings. The fish were jumping and cicadas buzzing and we had the whole place to ourselves.
Admiral Pelican

But the comedy of errors for the weekend was not
over. The next day after a very leisurely morning at anchor we headed back to in Inlet to take the boat  out of the water.  The approach to the wharf was a bit fast and a bit too far away but Eileen jumped onto the wharf looping the line around the bollard only to stumble back on a step and promptly fall into the water butt first between the wharf and the boat.  Fortunately the only harm done was to Eileen's dignity and we learned that the inflatable life jackets inflate very nicely when needed (not that I needed it as I was only 5 meters from shore).  So after my very refreshing dip we got the boat out, derigged and headed for home feeling a bit more humble about our sailing skills and learning a few valuable lessons.