Baltimore Sailor
08-10-2008, 03:30 PM
I've spent many an hour getting my A4 up to speed this season, and on Friday I went out with my oldest son (20 y.o.) and we sailed from White Rocks in Baltimore to the Francis Scott Key buoy just inside the Key Bridge. Winds were straight from the Inner Harbor at 10-15 all day, so it were many a tack to get there. When we finally passed under the bridge in bright sunlight with puffy white clouds and temps the low 80s, he was amazed and excited to see the spot where the "Star-Spangled Banner" was written. I took a pic with my cellphone (can't post that because the cellphone was launched out of my pocket the next day at a ride up at HersheyPark, but that's another story), and we headed back.
On the way, he remarked, "You know, we didn't try to go _there_, and nothing happened to us!" Firstly, "there" is a restaurant around the point I've been trying to get to all summer, but one thing or another prevented us from making it, and two -- well, you can imagine what I thought about tempting the Gods that way.
Well sure enough, we needed to jibe to make the creek, so I explained what we were going to do, and what he needed to do, and I started to make the turn downwind. Suddenly he says, "I can't pull the main in!", and before I can do anything -- yep, you guessed it: crash jibe. The boom completely broke away from the traveler car (luckily only the bolt head on the car pulled out, nothing else broke) and went flopping downwind.
As he got a lesson in sailing under the jib for a while -- which impressed him as to the speed we actually made downwind -- I finished dropping the main and securing the boom.
To end this long story, to get home faster I fired up the A4 and we motorsailed back to the creek, then came into the wind and I dropped the jib and we motored back to the slip.
And the A4 performed like a champion the whole time. :D
On the way, he remarked, "You know, we didn't try to go _there_, and nothing happened to us!" Firstly, "there" is a restaurant around the point I've been trying to get to all summer, but one thing or another prevented us from making it, and two -- well, you can imagine what I thought about tempting the Gods that way.
Well sure enough, we needed to jibe to make the creek, so I explained what we were going to do, and what he needed to do, and I started to make the turn downwind. Suddenly he says, "I can't pull the main in!", and before I can do anything -- yep, you guessed it: crash jibe. The boom completely broke away from the traveler car (luckily only the bolt head on the car pulled out, nothing else broke) and went flopping downwind.
As he got a lesson in sailing under the jib for a while -- which impressed him as to the speed we actually made downwind -- I finished dropping the main and securing the boom.
To end this long story, to get home faster I fired up the A4 and we motorsailed back to the creek, then came into the wind and I dropped the jib and we motored back to the slip.
And the A4 performed like a champion the whole time. :D