Some good sailing

[Brian S]

July was a rough month for my boat. It started on the afternoon of July 4th, when I opened up the boat to find at least 2" of water in the cabin. Pumped it out and determined it was a deteriorated cockpit drain hose. Called up a friend, and he was able to meet me to get the boat on the trailer. So I drove home, got the mast transport stuff and trailer, and back to lake by 7:00pm. Then I had to unstep the mast and rig it for trailering, and drive it 30 minutes home before it got too dark, because the driveway is long, narrow, and dark. Then began almost a month of working on replacing the hose, which became re-sealing and replacing the fittings, and installing an inspection port, and in the middle of it all, a week long conference for work.

But since I've got her back in the water, I've had some really good sailing. And even better, ran into friends on the water who took some great pics of the boat(s).

This was a pretty warm day, but the wind was blowing well. When I exited this area to the main body of the lake, I tucked in a reef. Boat doesn't like being reefed, you could just feel she was being held back compared to when this pic was taken and she was just in a groove:

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Sometimes, I took out the little Annabelle Skiff I built. The day these pics were taken, it was windy enough I could sit on the side seat and not worry about tipping her. She's kinda tender, really. My friend who took these pics was sailing his bigger Harpoon 5.2 under main only (jib had blown a seam and is being repaired) but the little boat sailed away from her. I was surprised she was going that fast:

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And finally yesterday I had a great time sailing near friends of mine with their Catalina 22 Sport. First pic shows us sailing close. He commented on how many people would lose their minds sailing so close, but we knew we were in perfect control and were fine. (Actually we were closer than this at times.)

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We've noticed before that my shorter O'day sails faster than his C-22 on a reach, unless it's really windy and he can get closer to hull speed. But this day we turned around to head home and had a tacking duel, and even then I was pulling ahead. I honestly expected them to walk away to windward. Some days, you sail well, and the boat gets in her groove, I guess. They took this fun pic with a bone in her teeth:

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[Spot]

Wonderful words and pics, thanks!

[Norm L.]

Loved the photos under a nice wind. The boats look happy.

As for worrying about boats being too close, they just need to spend some time on 40'+ keel boats rounding a buoy in a race. Just learn to yell "BOUY ROOM" even if there are no buoys around.

[Travis Chapman]

Beautiful! Looks just like Codorus with the hills in the background

[Captain Kidd]

Wow! Great fun. Green with envy.

[Riley Smith]

Nice pictures! Looks like a great sail or three!