Sailing!

Yesterday Aimee and I went sailing on Rafiki and we had quite an adventure. It started out like all other sailing trips, and ended smoothly as well, but the in-between part is where the fun was had! I don't know what the actual wind speed was, but I'm guessing somewhere in the 20-25knot range, possibily stretching to gusts of 30....but who knows. Anywho, we ran with just the genoa up from the get-go, and that alone was able to get us clipping along quite well (6.1 knots, the current speed record) on a reach. But after an up-wind knock down that resulted in an attempt to tack, we found ourselves with: A) genoa sheets that I now realize are far too short, B) zero hull speed and therefore no: C) steerage. So we were "in irons" and drifting quickly into the houseboats of Eastlake, to my immediate distress (for the houseboats - remember, Rafiki is a steel titan). Fortunatly we rounded down straight between two of the houseboats where there was an open slip, of all things! I, with Aimee's help, ran my lengthy genoa halyard to the dock and stopped us, then (thank you Gerber, and my habit of always wearing it) cut the already short genoa sheet 8" shorter, and proceeded to roll in the sail. End of story. Ish. Once we shoved off and "rolled out" again we made our way back to general area of the slip where I moor the boat. When the time was right, we rounded up nicely, rolled in the sail, turned on the Minn-Kota, and....nothing happened. No, the faithful engine was humming along fine, putting out it's full 40lbs of thrust, but the windage of the boat was too strong of an opponent for it, and we began drifting yet again. That is when I discovered that my middle finger was a bit ragged and torn, and subsequently a bit bloody. I did what I can only describe as a brief and slow motorboat noise with my lips, went down below, and began plucking WN numbers and charts out of the bilge (courtsey of some of the earlier gusts, and my poor securing). After clean up a bit, and no small amount of grunting on my part, we came back out on deck, let out the sail, took a few tacks, and tried the whole scenerio again, but this time furling the sail upwind of the slip, with plenty of room to drift/motor into the slip. All went as normal after that, but my finger still hurts. I am currently in the market for a pair of fingerless leather-palmed sailing gloves. Remarkably I still have a girlfriend (gosh, she's lovely), and in hindsight I'm actually quite glad for the whole event, as I learned a bit about how my boat handles, and what some of her limits are. That said, I knew it was going to be blowing like stink, and I did rather enjoy the sailing, even if we ended up using more adrenaline than expected.

So, in closing: What is a pirate's favorite letter?

ARRRRRRR!

Danny