DOWN WIND WEEKEND

Rail meat

Sloop Tavern Yacht Club and Windworks again conspired for a great weekend.  The weekend weather was looking iffy and I texted Jerda early Saturday morning seeing if she wanted to jump on Cambria for the ride north to Langley.  She did and it was a good thing there was an extra hand aboard the boat.

We set the jib with a strong southerly running and had a great romp north.  The GPS at one point registered 11 knots — between a nice ebb, nice wind, and surfing down big waves, we actually hit more than 10 knots several times and touched 11 once.

A race was underway and those boats walked away from us on their downwind leg then after they rounded the leeward mark we crossed paths as they beat to windward.  It looked like an expensive weekend for some.   We saw one shredded spinnaker at the top of a mast and after we docked we heard of 2 more blown spinnakers and a dis-masting.  (Update - there were two dismastings)

After we docked and got settled in Jill, Bobby, Michelle and Jason stopped by for a glass of wine and appetizers and the evening began in fine style. Dana, Shai, and Micah came aboard for dinner and we all had a good time.  I had made an Irish slow cooked stew and it was pretty good.

Sunday dawned drippy and the wind was out of the North.  After a great breakfast on Dana’s boat, Micah was kind enough to jump aboard for the trip south.  By pre-arrangement, Jerda had gone back to her original boat she had planned to be on for the weekend.

We powered most of the way south but did raise the jib and had a brief sail.

It was a good thing Micah was aboard as my docking attempts were simply lousy owing to a wind that was blowing me away from the dock and my miserable compensation for that wind.  Other than a bruised ego, no damage done.