The subject in question being Fidelio. We had a great sail yesterday - sun and a good wind from the north. We took Jess along but left Jonny sunning himself in the garden since he's not a keen sea-dog. Jess, however, is happy wherever I am so donned her wee doggy life-jacket happily and even consented to being tied to the boat when things became a bit exciting.
We beat all the way down past the point at Ardentinny and to the entrance to Loch Goil. It took nearly five hours, although they passed so quickly I found it hard to believe when I looked at my watch. Of course a delicious picnic helped - BLT and plenty of tea.
We were one and a quarter hours coming home! We flew! And broached three times - my first experience of this scary loss of control. Trouble was, the wind was both behind us AND coming from the side, channelling down the glens. Rob had the spinnaker up and was using it more like a fore-sail, twitching away at the strings to catch the wind just so, and I had the tiller - in both hands half the time as we scooted along tipped right over. At the first broach I had no idea what to do, since all the steering equipment must have been out of the water and no matter how hard I pulled, I had no control. Fidelio turned herself into the wind and everything flapped alarmingly. Lucky that Jess was tied in or we'd have had dog overboard as well!
I was more ready for the second broach, which was actually even worse because Rob lost his hold on the spinnaker line, but I just let Fidelio have her head this time and we recovered fine. After that the spinnaker came down - so rapidly and hard that it appeared through the chute from the other end. We broached again with just the sail, but then the wind stopped blowing from the side and things calmed down enough to put the spinnaker up again and whizz home leaving a teriffic wake behind us. What a pity the thing that tells the speed isn't working. I'd love to know how fast we were going. Certainly faster than other boats that were motoring!
I think I've just had the sailing equivalent of being bloodied!
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5 comments:
See what you get up to when I go away for a weekend? Sounds totally terrifying. I'll stick to nice misty mountains .....
Not my cup of tea, although I do love sailing! What's the progress on your friends in USA? Did they get here alright?
They got home after a hellish journey - minus two pieces of luggage.
Nightmare! At least they're here, though, and safe!
Dinah, you are becoming an old salt! Is Jess willing to go again this weekend? Or do you think she'll suddenly become attached to JD?
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