Sailing recap Oct. & Nov. 2007

posted April 2nd 2008 

Wednesday Oct. 31 it was blowing a solid 15 to 20 and the water wasn't terribly cold yet. A crew would have made the sail more enjoyable or at least more relaxing, but on a Wednesday day, a crew is a hard commodity to come by.

So I went out solo, and the 2 hour sail was a blast. (my route is mapped below)

Still wasn't sure if I'll go for a 'last hurrah' today (Nov. 14) but with a forecast of 17mph out of the South, the lake should be pretty calm and provide for a fairly dry sail. (this was originally posted in the morning)

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OK   I did it! (11-14-07 2:25pm) Wind was really much better than it looked in the bay once past the islands. It was only an hour as I did have some appointments to keep in the afternoon but I sailed out and around the stationary red channel marker where there were solid 2' to 3' waves and yes, I did get wet, so much for the 'dry sail' (and boy is that water getting cool). But once back into the bay when the wet suit had warmed back up some, it was really a delightful sail and only once or twice did I almost get blown over by gusts. Pointing back into the bay I got lifted several times by incredible gusts by a good 20 to 30 degrees.

Contrary to Mr. Perkin's disbelief, I was looking for a crew on Nov. 22nd when the forecast was heavy winds, and they were THERE, this was definitely not B.S. But without any takers, I decided to play it safe and keep the boat on shore and wait for next year. Did you step up to the plate, Jimmy?

Once again, a big thank you to Bruce Krupke whom I meet out on the lake in mid October 07. He kindly invited this non-Hobie sailor to the Dec. fleet meeting. And although Bruce made a motion 'to allow other cats to join fleet races,' and it passed, it was rescinded the next day, when word of the news hit the 204 message board. I had even conceded to racing the Hobie Tigers, who certainly out-class my 17 foot 5.2 with 220 sq., but the thrill of racing was all I that I sought.

Barb convinced me (only half-heartedly) that I should not compete in fleet races the next day (via email) but later I learned that Korz had, in the past, not only owned a Nacra Inter 20, but raced it in fleet races. Not with the Tigers but with the Hobie 16s, boats he far out-classed. To say I was a bit disappointed, was an understatement and it certainly did not make me feel very welcomed to the fleet. Others on the forum did message me with words of encouragement. Rick (the orange boat) kindly offered me his 16 to skipper and/or crew, and others suggested that I just leave my boat on shore and offer myself as crew. Unfortunately for someone who loves to sail as much as I do, leaving my boat on the shore, especially when it's blowing, is NOT an option. Perhaps I'll see you on the water this Summer.

On a brighter note!

I still can hardly believe that last weekend (3-29 & 30) I skied on packed powder with blue skies and 30° - 45° temps and here now, four days later, I could have gone sailing. Here's a frame from a low-res. video a friend shot of me on Otto's Folly at Song only a few days earlier. The full 13sec. AVI is here but I would warn you of the 24mb download, if you don't have a broadband connection.

The end of the 08 ski season turned out to be much better than it was most of January & February with no major injuries and a final tally of 47 days on the snow. That is, unless we  don't add two more this coming weekend, since Peter Harris has not decided to close Song Mountain just yet. http://www.songmountain.com/

Racing went well, but only got down to 6th in New York State, as opposed to 3rd last year and 1st the year before. I'm not really getting slower, just not much faster than a 12 or 13 handicap, and it seems each year more men in my class are mastering the skill of carving down a race course. My Nastar Results Page.

Sunday March 30th was, what we believed would be, "the last hurrah" at Song. The Nastar folks set up a course, with timing and allowed us all to run it all day without charge, plus they had a grill at the finish were we all shared food and drinks while basking in the sunshine. The same friend (thanks Walt) captured one of my three runs that day in the course (bandwidth warning again) here. 

Thursday 4/03, was a gorgeous day with light winds and my thoughts turned more to sailing.  Song didn't reopen the following weekend, and I decided to forgo the 'mashed potatoes' at Greek Peak on Sunday April 6th (as did others) instead, I used the time to get needed materials to repair the boat ramp and make arrangements for some help to put it in place today. 4/7/08 (thanks for the help George and Pat) So now we begin the 2008 sailing season. Not bad, in less than a week, we made the transition from skiing to sailing. Well, I'll no doubt see you on the lake, fellow cat sailors. Don't forget to check the wind showing on Oneida with the Cornell Field Station streaming web-cam, on Shackelton Point. (now no longer up and running due to funding issues) It really is a handy motion-jpeg video cam which comes close to full-motion video when judging the wave movement on the lake. Very similar to Greek Peak's live cam with full motion control (pan, tilt, zoom, aperture control etc.)

A complete repair and re-gel-coat was done June 08 - www.radesignz.com/nacra5.2redo.htm

with a picture above (sans the new jib)

Here's to: red skies at night, with fair winds and sunny to "blowing-like-snot" in the daytime,

RAD