Ahhh yes, back in the groove

What a great sail we had yesterday. It was the first monday of the month, and time for our March club sail. The Gig Harbor Sailing club holds a group sail on the first Monday of every month.

The winds were quite strong; strong enough, that I called Dave to see if we were still going out. Of course, I was gung ho to go and didn't care. I don't know what the actual wind speeds were. I do know that when I left my house, weatherbug was reporting 17mph winds at the airport. I know we had some strong gusts; probably somewhere in the 20-30 mph range.

I've been in heavy weather before with the Irreantum, but it was always alarming. The Irreantum didn't have reefing capabilities. It also had a large sail area so it was very responsive to big winds. The boat we went in yesterday was reefable and had a small jib. Also, I wasn't the only sailor on board. All of us were trained in the basics which made it much easier to keep things trimmed.

It was nice to see that I'm not the only sailor spooked by heavy weather.
It took all of us a bit of time to get used to the gusts, healing and strong wind changes, but in the end we did and had a great time. We practiced a heave-to and an crew overboard rescue. One of the members brought some pastries along as well; a most excellent tradition that I think I'll try to continue as well.

I tried to take some pictures that would capture the intense wind, but they really don't look that bad. We had waves in the harbor which is pretty rare because it is so sheltered and small. A few times we even had white caps. On top of the waves were tiny ripples where the wind was ruffling the top. Anyway, for what they're worth, here are a few pictures.