D4
I took another nephew out sailing on Thursday.
We planned to have him take some shots of me sailing from the
water, but the wind was so slack we spent most of our time just
hoping to get somewhere. One of these days I'll get an action
shot of the Intrepid B in the ocean...
We've had Kona winds (light winds out of the southwest) all
week, and they just started shifting today. Normally, the trades
blow straight onto the beach, but Konas blow offshore at Kailua
Beach where we launched from. But since the trades were coming
back, the wind veered around from just about every direction
before finally settling down to a very light northerly. Of course,
we had sailed south, assuming we'd have a following wind on
the way home.
To top it off, on the way back we ended up in a vast minefield
of coral heads at low tide, with barely a ripple to indicate
shallow water, and every time we got a bit of speed up, we'd
come up on another head. My nephew kept an eye out and pulled
the daggerboard up at the approach of shallow water, (giving
him a good lesson in the effect of the daggerboard on leeway)
but as the light failed it got harder and harder to see, and
we fetched up hard a couple of times.
Next time I go that way, I'll just head straight out the channel
until I'm completely outside the reef, instead of thinking a
straight line is the shortest distance.
We were still out on the water when the sun went down and the
wind (which had been pretty negligable to begin with) dropped
to almost nothing. We made it back to the beach by 7:30, by
dint of some paddling and a lot of sculling with the rudder.
I'm hoping we'll have our normal 10-20s this weekend, though
I suspect this sail is pretty much shot. It was made out of
extremely light poly-cotton, and the grommets at the peak and
clew have both torn out and been repaired with sheet bends.
Ironically, the knots seem to help the shape of the sail...
A new sail cut out of heavier canvas is in the works, but I'm
not sure when it will be done, especially since I'm going to
do a bunch of handwork on the grommets this time, instead of
just trusting the hammer.
Jimmy Havok
