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Sailing Shilshole

I finally managed to get my Swift out on Puget Sound. Chris Wickham offered to guide me through getting the boat out on the water and helping navigate past the breakwater (probably the single most scary part of the sail).

I took notes on pretty much everything I could think of on getting on the water.

• Tension should be 20 (primaries) and 8 (caps). Mine were a bit light (5) on the caps, but it hardly mattered.
• Uncover the boat, and close up the hull.
• While still on the float, rig up the jib. Use the bottom hole on the clew, it straightens out the leech. (Although leave the jib loose until the boat is on the water.)
• Rigging the spinnaker:
  • Tack goes to the end of the spinnaker pole.
  • run up the red tape to the halyard; keep inside the jib. Attach to the halyard, using a loop wrapped around the ball (no knots).
  • run along the foot to the clew, and tie to the blue lightning rope at the end of the spinnaker sheet.
  • Pull the launching line through all the blocks and the sock. It then goes under everything (including the foot) and to the first hole in the spinnaker. No knot.
  • Run to hole #2, outside in, and tie a figure-eight knot 18” from the end.
  • Run to hole #3, inside out, and tie a figure-eight knot in the end.
• Now place the boat int he water. Tie bow and stern (tightly) to the dock.
• Place the foils in, centerboard should be 6” from fully down (depowers, which is good when getting past the breakwater).
• hoist the main, cunningham on, clew on the boom.
• attach jib clew, making sure the spinnaker halyard is on the outside of the jib.
• Do a final once over the boat: is everything ok? Relativity adjusted? Cunningham tight? Vang on? Etc.
• Pull the boat around into the wind, step on, and you're off sailing.

Chris also provided me with his guidelines on how long he stays out: three capsizes, or (when you're just starting) 90 minutes. It's easy to under-estimate how tired you've become, and having these guidelines provided an easy limit I could work within -- it's surprising how liberating these two rules were. It made it possible to know when I could allow myself to stop.

Conditions were excellent. Light 7-8 knot wind out of the south, and once out of the marina it actually seemed to drop a bit. Not too many gusts. Toward the end of the day, it died down even further - it almost seemed as if I would have to paddle in.

We went out two-up to get out to the sound; Chris acted as additional ballast, and guided me out of the breakwater. Getting out of the breakwater is (in his words) "still an event" -- be sure to tack or gybe to get out, make sure the battens pop each time, and know that you're still sailing. If you have to dump inside the breakwater, dump -- it happens. If you have to jump out onto the rocks on the breakwater, so be it. There's about 6’ of space before the breakwater before you hit the rocks underneath.

We sailed (upwind) out of the breakwater, then went for a trip up the other side. I then returned and sailed quite close to Golden Gardens beach, and he jumped in and swam back, and walked back to his boat. I then sailed upwind and downwind, practising my tacks, getting a feel for keeping things steady, and learning how to get back out on the rails again.

I tipped in twice: once I tacked and didn't blow the trapeze hook, and once you're on the downwind side and behind the boom and can't blow the hook, things go south fast. The second time, I'm not sure what exactly happened, but I did manage to avoid a swim: I crawled out over the high-side of the boat and only got my feet wet while recovering the turtle. When it popped back up, it came up slowly enough that I just walked back on. That was pretty fun.

By the time those two swims had happened, I was starting to tire: and thus it was time to go back in. Chris had come out and sailed around a bit, but he sailed back in with me and caught me as I arrived back at the dock. Docking was (relatively) easy as well: sail in, bear off at the last moment and go head to wind, and catch the leeward rail on the edge of the float, step off. Couldn't be easier. (Right?)

Overall it was a simply spectacular sail. I'd forgotten how much fun it was to sail this boat. I was on cloud nine for the entire drive home. There were a few moments when I was out there where I'd stop concentrating on trying to keep the boat flat (and upright) and just experience the thrill: I'm ripping through the water on a boat I built, and it's racing along, and what a giant excitement. Even back on the dock it was still rushing through me. It's hard to describe just how much fun it is to sail this boat: it's ridiculously enjoyable. Crazy fun. Bugs-in-the-teeth fun. Sailing on the J-24s is fun too, but it's not so visceral, so immediate. Sailing one of these is simply amazing.

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