2 Reefer, A real L. Superior Day of sailing

[noelH]

Again, so much for the NWS Nearshore Marine Forecast. Today's forecast was for maybe small craft advisory/warning. I see glassy stretch at 1200.  Yesterday's forecast was for 10-15kt ENE. Perfect! Launching Vela the thought was. WRONG. Solid F5. Pulled out of the Marina and was bouncing amidst the whitecaps. 2nd reef set.  Too heavy a sea to head hard upwind. Sliding up and over the "chop" and veering hard upwind when a "smooth" patch appears. Cruising along averaging 4.2kts with the occasional "oops" and giving Vela and me a shower of too cold L. Superior water.  Beautiful day. Canadian wildfire haze is long gone. Dry air, blue sky, deep blue-grey water with whiter than white caps. Until...

Hit the western end of the S. Channel off Long Island Pt.  Usually ENE create some decent rollers. Just waves similar to what was in the Bay. But the wind is down to F4. Sail set to 1st reef. Crossing the ~1.5nm wide channel the wind continues to drop. On the lee of Madeline looking W and N was not promising. Came about. Off Long Is.Pt. raised the sail to full. My 4.2kt average in ~4nm had dropped to 3.9kts. Heading deeper into the Bay the wind kept building. Should have put a reef in. Got lazy, plus I used up my allotment of heaving to . Riding the swells downwind hit 6.9kts. ~7nm downwinder ended up pushing the average SOG to 4.3kts. Didn't really enjoy dropping and lashing the mainsail. Vela is too much of a bobber in these conditions.  Doesn't help when I forgot to uncoil the main sheet and have the wind grab a lashing and send it downwind. At least it wasn't the Tilley like a season or two ago.  New Tilley was stowed in the cabin.

Primo L.Sup day. Mid-week, bit on the cool side(~7C air temp). Kept adding layers and didn't really ever feel warm. Didn't see another sail anywhere.

[DBthal]

Lake Superior.......... Beautiful & serious water.

[Timm R Oday25]

Years ago Tom Parrent and myself chartered a 36' Jeanneu for the Apostles Islands . I could picture every island you described. Good lord it's been too long since I've been there ..