Great Summer Sail

Yesterday LeeAnne and I took Julianne out for a great afternoon sail.

There was a fresh breeze of 8-12 knots from the W-NW with moderate swells of 3-5 feet. We sailed out towards oil platform Gina and then tacked up the coast towards the Mandalay Bay power plant. We took some pics of the main and Genoa sails on a close reach.

We hoisted the spinnaker after jibing about a mile offshore from the power plant. The new spinnaker sleeve worked great and the sail filled nicely. We were soon sailing on a broad reach at 7 knots! Unfortunately, the sail was difficult to control due to the strength of the winds and building swells. We didn't want to risk damaging the light air spinnaker so we doused it after only a few minutes. It was a short and exhilarating downwind run!




































We recently joined the Channel Islands Yacht Club and plan to do some racing. Charlie has been studying racing rules and sail trim techniques. We'll use these pictures to help examine the condition of the sails and how they respond to trim. We're not sure how old they are... but they still look OK for cruising.

The picture below shows a cloud of smoke from the wildfires out by La Canada/Flintridge some 50+ miles away! Click the picture to see the details.

Sailing on Aug 1st

The first day of August turned out to be a great sailing day! Our plan was to set sail at noon to watch the old wooden sailboats participating in the annual McNish Classic race. This is one of the biggest sailing events in the area and draws fine classic wooden boats from up and down the coast. We heard that the famous America's Cup skipper Dennis Conner entered his beautiful 139' schooner America (he won 1st overall last year). This sailboat is a replica of the original America that won what became the America's Cup race in 1851. Although we didn't get to see her under sail, America certainly looked majestic docked in front of the Whale's Tail!


We got off to a late start due to an unexpected visit with the ER. We met LeeAnne's friend Dave down at the marina at about 2:00 and quickly set sail. The McNish Classic had already started so we didn't see too many of the classic boats under sail. We did however leave the CI harbor following the local classic schooner Bill of Rights (see pics of Dave & LeeAnne). It was fun watching them manually hoist their sails the old fashond way without the aid of winches, let alone, power winches which are now commonly found on sailboats half her size!














It was a perfect sailing day with a steady moderate breeze from the W-NW. We sailed out towards Anacapa Island at 4.5-5.5 knots and back at 5-6.6 knots with Dave at the helm. Dave was in the Navy for many years and felt quite comfortable at the helm. This gave Charlie a chance to rest as per his doctor's orders (my big feet in the pic below).














When we returned to the dock, our neighbors were assembling for a pot luck and live band to celebrate Bill's birthday. LeeAnne cooked up some fresh Salmon for the pot luck and we had a great time listening to the music and catching up with our friends on D dock.