Damn weatherman!
An excerpt from my Sailblog.
So I'd been watching the weather forcasts for last Saturday and they were calling for a break in the Rain, Overcast skies and winds between 5-10mph ESE. Not racing weather but after the last few very wet weekends we've had it looked like fun. I called a good friend of mine who has helped me work on the boat but hasn't had a chance to go out, and asked if he wanted to try sailing.
He said sure and we planned to meet around 10am on Saturday at the boat.
Well when we got there, there was some light breeze, so we did some housekeeping on the boat, warmed the outboard up, and motored out of the marina, the goal?
Antioch for a late lunch then Back to Owl Harbor before dark.
Once out on the river we raised sails, but the wind was extremely light, and the water was glassy smooth.
A couple of time's during the day the wind came up, but nothing major. We did make antioch but it was mostly motor sailing or just plain motoring, here are some pics.
My friend Brian at the tiller.
A shot of the Antioch Bridge as we were heading back, we decided to skip the marina restaurant and made some top ramen and canned chicken instead. Actually it probably tasted better than anything we would have gotten at the restaurant and much cheaper.
An actual sailing shot, headed upriver back home.
Last shot of Brian as the sun was setting in the background.
Well we didn't get back until after sunset and there was heavy cloud cover and almost no moon, I just about ran us aground on one of the marsh's in the entrance to the yacht harbor.
On a different note I finally figured out how the depth meter works... OK I know how a depth meter works, I've owned boats for almost 18 years, but this one never seemed accurate. It would say that I was in 2 feet of water, but if I put the boat hook over the side (fully extended it is almost 10' long) I couldn't touch the bottom. Well we actually hit a couple of shoals on the way back and as far as I can tell the depth meter is calibrated to the extended depth of the keel. So when the depth meter say's I'm in two feet of water I'm actually in something like 7-8' of water, a good thing to know.
So I'd been watching the weather forcasts for last Saturday and they were calling for a break in the Rain, Overcast skies and winds between 5-10mph ESE. Not racing weather but after the last few very wet weekends we've had it looked like fun. I called a good friend of mine who has helped me work on the boat but hasn't had a chance to go out, and asked if he wanted to try sailing.
He said sure and we planned to meet around 10am on Saturday at the boat.
Well when we got there, there was some light breeze, so we did some housekeeping on the boat, warmed the outboard up, and motored out of the marina, the goal?
Antioch for a late lunch then Back to Owl Harbor before dark.
Once out on the river we raised sails, but the wind was extremely light, and the water was glassy smooth.
A couple of time's during the day the wind came up, but nothing major. We did make antioch but it was mostly motor sailing or just plain motoring, here are some pics.
My friend Brian at the tiller.
A shot of the Antioch Bridge as we were heading back, we decided to skip the marina restaurant and made some top ramen and canned chicken instead. Actually it probably tasted better than anything we would have gotten at the restaurant and much cheaper.
An actual sailing shot, headed upriver back home.
Last shot of Brian as the sun was setting in the background.
Well we didn't get back until after sunset and there was heavy cloud cover and almost no moon, I just about ran us aground on one of the marsh's in the entrance to the yacht harbor.
On a different note I finally figured out how the depth meter works... OK I know how a depth meter works, I've owned boats for almost 18 years, but this one never seemed accurate. It would say that I was in 2 feet of water, but if I put the boat hook over the side (fully extended it is almost 10' long) I couldn't touch the bottom. Well we actually hit a couple of shoals on the way back and as far as I can tell the depth meter is calibrated to the extended depth of the keel. So when the depth meter say's I'm in two feet of water I'm actually in something like 7-8' of water, a good thing to know.