Race Week. Happy 4th of July!

[noelH]

Wind this year. Sort of.  More or less every other day. The 1st, the 3rd. Hopefully the 5th.  Today, glassy calm until just a few moments ago. A few moments where the leaves twitch.

New sailing experience yesterday. Almost perfect L. Superior conditions. Puffy clouds moved in mid-morning, solid F4 wind. +25C air temp offshore. Couple hours later. Felt rain drops. Then more than few drops. But sunny. Put on the rain gear just in time. Soaker. Looked up. Big Black Cloud overhead. A few moments later. Not a drop. Looked towards the E and saw the cloud dropping a curtain of rain. 1st sunny rain experience sailing. Couple long upwind runs crossing the Bay set me up for a ~4nm beam reach back to the Marina. Mid-Bay needed to put in a reef. Decided to head deep into the Bay. Wind kept building. Heaved to for the umpteenth time. Set the sail to the 2nd reef point. Sailed into even heavier air. Had to drop the jib. Still too much heel. Option 1. Heave to. Option 2. Turn downwind. Option 2. Plenty of water(+6nm) between me and land. Not the best choice. Even heading deep downwind Vela was exceeding hull speed and getting a bit too loose. Option 1 time. New experience having to heave to with double reefed main only.

NWS noted gusts to 30kts, but the station is on land. Normally the cold water surface forms a "dome" of cold dense air resulting in the drier warm land wind to sort of lift. Usually less wind on the Lake surface until you get miles offshore. The wind has been stronger in the Bay v. the channels surrounding the inner islands. I think the Bay surface water temp has warmed to the point that the "dome" is no longer. Yesterday, by the time I reached the mouth of the Bay the wind was maybe 9-10kts. Came about. It looked windier in the Bay. ~1 hr later ~1/3 into the Bay the wind was solid F4 and building.  By late afternoon the NWS Nearshore noted F4 conditions at LaPointe on Mad Is. F5 with gust to F6 at the foot of the Bay. ~8nm from the mainland F5 at Devils Is.