A fun sailing day with pix

[Tim Diebert]

I am not quite sure what you are meaning there Mike.

The Thimble is rotated around?

They all look like they are where I last left them.....but I will have a look next time out. I already dug out the additional clamps needed and planned on getting them on then as well. If all goes well, Saturday sometime.

The forestay has two per end. I already learned a lesson on that one. Not that I did anything wrong, but the previous owner forgot to final tighten the clamps and I had it come apart on me one blustery day shortly after getting the boat from him. Not fun. Could have been downright nasty.

[Knut]

Great story Tim. One of those posts that make me come back here all the time.

An unpleasant knot in the wrong place on the main sheet could really turn into a nasty surprise, especially with a fresh helmsman. Good to hear that you saved the situation. You mentioned that further reefing would have been good to have when the wind was piping the most. No surprise to me that such an idea crossed your mind. A thunder squall had me in similar conditions for a short while and reefed main and the jib dropped was still too much sail. One further step you can take in a pinch (as you certainly know, but did not mention) is to lower the peak and scandalize the upper part of the main. This would even work with a knot in the mainsheet!

Thanks a lot for the story.

[Tim Diebert]

(as you certainly know, but did not mention)

Man, you are right Knut. I did know that...but it had not even crossed my mind.

Zach and I were discussing the event just this evening. I was fun to compare notes.

At the time I was trying to untie this amazing knot...Zach was pushing the 'envelope'. He was really getting into it. Enjoying himself. Then this very solid wall of wind makes an appearance and he feels the power....he knew he should just point more into the wind (and that's what I told him to do to reduce some pressure on the sails) ...but for some reason he fought the weather helm and rolled off at just the wrong time. I didn't even look up from this knot business...he seemed so calm and quiet...speaking in a normal voice.

I figured all was well, but now he tells me he was freaked out and waiting for me to give him more instruction. Hahaha. All I had in mind was to get that damn knot untied (I have never seen anything like it before or since...hell, I almost took a picture of it)

As soon as I felt the boat going over, and heard Zach quietly going, "Ahhhh...Daaaad" I dumped the jib and he must have let go of the tiller...or once the boat was over far enough, the rudder was out of the water....either way she rounded up and then popped right back up like a cork. I went right back to the knot and just told Zach to sail the boat. He said, "but it's waaay windier" Haha...he was really muttering then...but he did, he just sailed, pinching hard until I untied the stupid knot. At that point he was all too happy to turn the driving over to me.

As I said before, a pretty interesting first sailing day for him. :shock:

So, now that you mention it....yes, I could have taken down some peak. But if I was driving, none of this would have happened.....except for the knot....so next time, I will get my inexperienced helmsman to untie fairy conspired knots, and I will drive the boat.

In the meantime it turned out well and we have a fun story to tell.

BTW, at the point where I had gotten on my knees in the cockpit to do rope tricks, the wind was moderate 10+....OK for the amount of sail we had up. The squall was hard to see coming (Zach said) because it was dark and raining and the waves were already pretty big...so it was hard to see the gust on the waves. Tonight he told me he figured the wind that hit us was a lot stronger than the earlier wind that day, which, as I said was easy 25+-......so....yikes eh.