End of another season

Sadly the sailing season has ended for Ruth and I this year. We took the boat out last Sunday and it's sitting nice and safe in the front yard. Every year it's getting easier to take the boat out, pack up all the sails, drop the mast, and head home. We managed to do it without much drama this year.

I'm taking a home study course for ASA 105 (navigation). There's a teacher led class, but it's just too far for me to get to. Being an engineer, I'm usually pretty good at self-study, so we'll see how it goes. It should be mostly math and that should not be a big deal for me.

We did have an interested last sail on October 12th. The wind was blowing pretty hard for Lake Nockamixon (25+ knots) and I reasoned that we needed some heavy wind experience. Every ASA class I've taken the wind has been pretty calm, so this seemed like a good opportunity. I promised Ruth, that if there were no other boat out, we wouldn't go out either.

Upon arrival we saw a total of 4 boats ripping it up across the Lake. We managed to get out of the dock without incident and then decided to set sail. WOW! Even with a triple reefed main and sliver of genoa out the boat really healed over and was over matched. We decided to end the trip after a brief sail and head back to the dock. The docking was extremely difficult, as soon as I got the bow off the wind, the boat did a 180 and we completely missed the slip. There's a boat right next to us, so trying to get a spring line to the windward side was impossible.

Luckily there weren't too many other boats in their slips (the season end November 1 on the Lake) so I managed to get the boat into the slip next to us. Manhandling the boat, I worked it back into our slip. I think my mistake was coming off the wind too soon and not trying to get a line somehow on the dock. Looks like docking class for me next spring but feel I learned enough to do better next time.

I have some exciting trips planned for next year with my first bare boat charter on a larger boat and a trip to the BVI! Should make for some good posts.