Okay, actually I never planned to go to Sidney. It just sort of happened.

I headed out on the first of July, Canada Day. Sliding down the Fraser, opposing the wind and with little benefit from the current because I left so late the tide was rising on the river. And the further down I got, the bigger the wind, the worse the waves. Bashing into it in the second to last stretch the spray was constant and I was seriously depressed about not having a dodger to hide behind.

But finally I made the curve into the last stretch, the wind would now be merely close-hauled, instead of on the nose. As soon as I was able, I set sail. The boat was being hammered by the worst waves I can ever recall sailing in, 1-2 metres and steep, close together, the boat hammering down about every third or fourth wave with a crash, all the gear in the cabin flying about.

(The soccer ball, computer, and stove chimney had been stowed in the quarterberth, but were found in the mess between the settees. Gear from the shelves on both sides had been shaken out, the bottle scotch apparently getting launched at some point but was unbroken – unlike the plastic bottle of boat soap which mysteriously cracked and poured out all over everything near the companionway.)

Despite two reefs in the main and the 100% jib the boat was clearly overpowered, heeling 30-40° and occasionally more. Despite pointing higher, we slid to the leeside of the shipping channel, and then to leeward of it, but by that time we were clearing the entrance and were only dealing with the heavy waves of Robert’s Bank and, finally, able to fall of the wind a bit.

Sometime during this I’d put the tiller pilot on so I could go forward and tension the jib halyard more. Suddenly the boat was all out of trim, heading down and the waves were hitting wrong, and then we jibed. I don’t really remember how I got there, but I got to the cockpit somehow and tried to pull the tiller pilot off the tiller, but it was jammed so tightly I had to kick it loose. From then on it was hand steering, because the tiller pilot was stuck at its shortest position and wouldn’t release.

For the first hour it was pretty wild, a little bit like riding a galloping horse with no reins. We averaged 7.4 kts for that hour, over the ground, on a broad reach in a small boat with an 18.5′ waterline. At the end of it we were coming under the lee of the Gulf Islands, approaching Active Pass, and the wind was moderating while the waves had long since settled down first to well-spaced low swells and then to just a light chop.

Beyond Mayne Island to Georgeson Pass, through Horton Bay where the wind dropped to a whisper and it was so quiet I could hear people talking ashore and bird calls on the far side of the islands, absolutely beautiful. But on into Plumper Sound, and then…

Irish Bay, Samuel Island, Gulf Islands BC, Canada. (Terrible cellphone camera pic.) Credit: Amgine

And then I’d planned on pulling into Winter Cove, near Boat Passage. But that bay was chock a block with boats; it looked like one could jump from one to the next all the way across. It turns out there’s a huge Canada Day Lamb Barbecue on Saturna Island there, and it was extremely well attended so far as I could see.

So I pulled into the much less populous Irish Bay on Samuel Island, dropped the hook, and began digging out the cabin. I was thoroughly exhausted, too, so I just did the least I could get away with, and curled into my berth by 9pm.

Okay, I’m sitting around trying to recover, and my jaw is slowly deflating after puffing up to ginormous proportions. I’ve been reading an entirely inordinate number of fluffy novels.

But I’ve also been continuing to track a number of cruisers who are making their way down the west coast, studying up on routes and anchorages for my own summer plans, and continuing to work – where and how possible – toward the possibility of sailing using the circumnavigation of Vancouver Island as a shakedown cruise just in case I can get everything together in time for a leap offshore to Hawaiʻi from the west coast of Vancouver Island.

So, here’s a bit of what I’ve learned about this course: the left coast is mostly downwind, but it is certainly not the garden path tradewind route. Skip Allen, a long time west coast sailor and blue water racer, describes the waters from about 42°50′N to 37°50N, from the coast out about 300 nm, as ‘Gale Alley’. This stretch, from the lower third of Oregon to the waters off San Francisco, is where the prevailing weather patterns are squeezed by the Pacific High up against the coast line, accelerating both the wind and thus the currents.

The ‘best’ time to get through this stretch is probably early May. Unfortunately, that’s much too early to be leaving Cape Flattery in the north as the seasonal patterns are still in flux – the patterns are cold, the mainland hasn’t warmed enough to draw the weather ashore, and the Pacific High is too far south to provide any protection from winter storms screaming across the north Pacific or dropping south from the Gulf of Alaska. The ‘worst’ time is June to July, when the winds are at their strongest, yet that’s the safest time to be getting to Hawaiʻi as it avoids the risk of tropical cyclones which start up in late summer off the coast of Mexico.

With such choices to be made, many cruisers from the PNW and Canadian west coast avoid risks by heading south in August or September, but instead of departing the mainland at the latitude of San Franciso, they continue down the coast to San Diego to wait out the cyclone season, then continue on to Mexico and Central American countries, leaping off for a tradewind passage to Hawaiʻi once it’s convenient.

In all likelihood, that’s what I should do too. Only I have pretty much zero interest in Mexico, Central America, or even southern California. I’m mildly interested in sailing into San Francisco to visit a few friends I have in the region, but nothing more than that. I don’t know how I will handle long solo passages, so I figure I’ll just see how it goes coming down the coast.

My planned course for such a voyage would be to clear Cape Flattery and work my way off shore to about 40 nm. This is close enough to get in within 12 hours if there is need, but far enough out to make such a landfall a major investment of time and effort – so I won’t do it simply because I want a cheeseburger, rather it will be for something reasonably serious. If I find I can’t live without interacting with a fellow human, it’s won’t be either impossible or too dangerous to pull in for a short break, and I can shape my course to stop in San Francisco to reprovision if my supplies (especially water and fuel) get used up faster than planned, or even haul the boat and store it for a while.

And if things are working out, I can start shaping my course for Hilo at about 40°, off Cape Mendocino, making a single long passage of 2500 nm, but more likely rather more.

Well, I’m hoping I’ve gotten the boat to a good spot, Shelter Island Marina. With anything like luck the boat will be safe and secure while I’m recovering from oral surgery.

Dental care is one of those things sailors really should stay on top of. It’s far more expensive to restore a mouth, compare to restoring a boatyard wreck to creme puff condition. In my case, having allowed the after lower molars to rot, the double root canal didn’t save them and they had to be removed a couple months ago. Now, in preparation for replacements, the tooth doc wants to implant some more bone to restore some of the deep-in damage from a decade or more of infection festering.

(The x-rays look remarkably like a case of dry-rot taking hold in the mandible. Very seriously, TAKE CARE OF YOUR TEETH! This whole procedure, in addition to taking 11 months to complete if it all works out, is costing as much as a 2 year cruise, or a brand new VW Golf TDI with all the bells and whistles.)

Anyway, while I’m going to be laid up I wanted a marina which was reasonably secure, particularly from weather, and reasonably inexpensive. Shelter Island turned out to be a nice surprise, with a great selection of marine contractors and supplies, a good pub (Tugboat Annie’s), and rather cheap compared to most of the marinas on BC’s lower mainland.

Mind you, it wasn’t my first choice. First I was hoping for someplace closer to home. And maybe free. Like a nice spot to anchor near the mouth of the Lower Arm of the Fraser, protected from the weather and with gorgeous sunsets preferably somewhere in the bird sanctuary…. Which, unfortunately, doesn’t exists unless your draft is a bit less than 2.5 feet. Which was a heartbreaking discovery.

I did actually find a couple of viable anchorages, but they’re terribly exposed either to wakes or weather. I wouldn’t feel at all comfortable unless I were sitting aboard, on anchor watch. Which I don’t plan on doing for at least a few days after having my gums split open.

The net result was, after some phone calls and research I ended up motoring 4 hours to go 12 miles against the spring runoff current in the river, barely managed to avoid going aground again on some shoaling in the mid channel, and tied up at a reasonably decent dock that has the strangest electrical outlets (a 2-prong twist 20 amp, or 50 amp. I’ve never even seen the former, and I don’t have the latter adapter yet.)

[This was drafted on the 14th, but not published until the 22nd because I feel like crap after the surgery.]

One of the lessons I learned best from the Pardey’s is that off-the-shelf solutions are not the only solutions, and on an offshore boat may not be the best solution.

This doesn’t mean every offshore boat should be a one-off design drawn and constructed exclusively for the sailors who will take it to a specific location… that way lies madness! But it does mean that sometimes, even regularly when you’re talking about sailboats, you need to think outside the boatique chain stores.

For example, once upon a time I owned a lovely catboat of unusual character, whose heavy rudder was managed with a startlingly robust tiller which had developed a bad case of wood rot between the rudder cheeks. A visit to a couple of boat gear stores quickly showed that none of the available standard tillers would fit or suit, being a nominal inch or more too light dimensionally. I could, perhaps, have customized a mounting to get one of these store bought shining beauties to be useful, but I decided to ask around a local boatyard to see if any of the freelance craftsmen might have better ideas how to solve the problem.

The first one I talked to said it’d be no problem if I purchased the wood, he’d turn out a blank to the sanding stage and I could finish it however I wanted. So I bought a solid balk of 6×10 perfect Ash, he cut and shaped it for less than the cost of the wood and had it back to me in two days. And after 10 coats of very thin varnish I had one of the most gorgeous and hefty tillers on the coast, for exactly $17.53 more than the chain-store’s standard dipped in gods-only-know-what-ethane. I didn’t save any money, but with a little bit of research and sweat equity I got something which fit the boat better, was more handsome, and was a unique piece of craftsmanship.

On the other hand, my current boat has some old deck hardware, including a narrow inside track of a dimension no longer made. The track is recessed into the fibreglass deck and clearly cannot be replaced with anything wider, yet the original track cars were missing. After some fruitless phone calls and frustrations with the original manufacturer of the track, I called up a custom millworks. Sure, they could do the job, and each car would cost, oh, almost as much as cheap dinghy. <cough>

Well, I found a pair of used track cars salvaged from some other boat that went to the breakers being sold at a nautical flea market for a couple bucks each. Sure, they’re old and a bit tired looking, but so is the track, and my new jib was cut to work on this inside track.

My current boat has dozens of small custom pieces and features, from the stemhead/anchor roller to the rudder post shoe. The builder and designer realized that off-the-shelf solutions didn’t perfectly solve the problems they were facing, so they made their own. It’s part of the attraction of this particular design, that such consideration was applied to each design that even though it’s a production boat it still feels in many ways as though it were a custom build.

I want to maintain that level of quality and attraction, by not assuming that what’s available at the marine store is the only or even the best solution. So I try not to jump for the cheapest or quickest solution, but think about what would be the best solution for this boat, where we sail, and what plan to do in the future.

Yesterday I dropped the mast on Njørđson.

I’ve been thinking about doing this literally for years. What I thought I needed was a mast lever arm, and a method to rig lateral support. I could use the main sheet to control the mast’s descent by attaching it to the lever arm, and the lateral support would prevent it from going down sideways. Unfortunately, the mast absolutely had to be down yesterday, and I had not finished building the mast lever arm. So I volunteered the kid (16 years old, and thinks he’s pretty buff) to help out on the task, and decided we’d have to muscle it down.

I’ve been involved in a couple of mast lowerings/raisings, of similarly sized boats, so I wasn’t too worried about this. Other than being completely terrified, that is. But this boat was designed to be a trailerable, and though better built than anything I’d previously worked on I didn’t expect the process to be that much different.

So I created a pair of lines which were two pieces of line attached to a ring. These were attached at the anchor cleats forward, and aft via the genoa track, foot block, to the winch, and then adjusted so as to align with the aft clevis pin in the mast step (the mast step is hinged, using two clevis pins.) Then I went up to the spreaders with two more lines, which were looped over the spreader fitting and around the mast, similar to a gaffer’s hounds, for port and starboard. The ends of these lines were run through the rings and tensioned as much as possible. The mast now had lateral stability which would not relax as the mast came down.

Having removed the sail, boom, and everything else removable from the deck, I made sure both ends of the halyards, topping lift were attached to the mast. I brought the jib halyard to the stemhead fitting, and tensioned it lightly. I marked the threads of all turnbuckles top and bottom, and set about loosening them all – there was a distressingly small amount of thread bury on most of the standing rigging. After everything was loose, and my nerves were getting tighter by the moment as a breeze suddenly sprang up, I removed the forward lower shrouds. The cap and after shrouds are inline or aft of the after clevis pin – very clever rig designing in my opinion.

Now were the moments of truth. I removed the forestay, and there wasn’t any sudden tension on the jib halyard. I headed back behind the mast and the kid was going to be tailing on the halyard – he may be buff, but I still outweigh him and have an oh-so-temporary edge in strength. It took a bit of a nudge to get things started, but as soon as it began to move I knew I’d underestimated the weight of this mast, and that I needed help getting it down without dropping it. It was still easy to get it back upright and stable, and begin thinking about options.

Luckily we’d helped a motorboat and its crew earlier in the day, being towed into the dock. And they were within calling distance. With their help we lowered away. I hadn’t removed the cotter rings on the after pin out of probably pointless paranoia, and they caused problems now as the kid was rushing to get the pin out and the motorboaters let the mast down too far – I could hear a bit of fibreglass crunching but didn’t see if there was any visible damage to the sea hood for the companionway hatch.

Once the pin was out and the step was free we moved it forward to the pulpit, trailing a spaghetti of wires and lines. Now I have to run back to the boat and get the standing rigging off and over to the rigger’s, but at least the job is done!

User Fee Decals and Transponders – CBP.gov.

I ended up on this page whilst searching through the Customs & Border Patrol website. What I’m trying to figure out is if it would cost more to sail into the US on a Canadian registered boat, or to keep a US boat in Canada.

Now, my current boat is 25′, and while I’d love to move up in size at some point I also love this boat. If I import the boat to Canada (expensive GST taxes), my annual registration costs go down, but my insurance will probably go up. But I no longer have to keep sailing to the USA during the winter. If I keep the US boat I have the higher registration, cheaper insurance. But is there a difference in cost if I sail to Hawaiʻi?

Well, maybe. The US requires a ‘User Fee’ for boats in a wide range of situations, many of them overlapping. So I asked for a clarification and in a couple of business days I got one. No, if my boat is less than 30′, no matter if foreign flagged or not, so long as I do not carry paying passengers I do not need a user fee decal.

Which may simplify matters. Now I have to discover what if any fees there are for Hawaiʻi.

Starting May 1, the Hood Canal floating bridge is closed, to boat traffic as well as cars. And will remain so at least 6 weeks as the US state of Washington quickly swaps out the old and replaces with a new bridge.

I personally have no clue what they’re replacing it with, and didn’t know it was underway as a project until a few minutes ago, but I have some fond memories of the bridge. Many nights and weekends I trundled across the bridge to drive up to my boat moored in Port Townsend to run the engine, check the bilge, and dream about summer days on the water, this during the rains and chills of northwestern winters.

The Ohio Class Trident Ballistic Missile Submarine, USS OHIO (Blue) (SSBN 726), manuevers through Hood Canal Bridge returning to her homeport in Bangor, Washington. Credit: USN PH3 Shawn Handley

More than once I rolled down onto the bridge to wait as it opened to allow passage of a submarine. I never saw the swing section of the bridge used for anything else, and those were rare enough to be specifically memorable. It amuses me that a week before the bridge closed a training torpedo went AWOL in a Canadian training region just over the border, one which is well known to the bubble heads of the USN (and rather a few other national navies as well.) Not specifically related to the Hood Canal bridge, but I always associate the floating bridge with submarines.

One summer I’d kind of been thinking about sailing down to Seabeck for pizza. I brought the boat down into the Hood Canal and nosed under the bridge, and ran into something I’d often observed on the bridge: one side had a nice light breeze, the other smooths and calms as far as the eye could see. The current was slight and opposed at the Kitsap side, but it stopped me cold as I tried to get out into the canal. I could just keep pointing into it, and not get pushed back into the bridge structure, but I’d move a few feet out from the bridge before drifting backwards into it. I’m sure the cars passing overhead were wondering what I was doing anchored half-under the bridge with the sail up. I gave up and made a white-knuckled u-turn, and sailed along the bridge then up into Lund for the night.

Not far up the Hood Canal from the bridge is a Dabob Bay, which had the most frightening chart notes I ever read. It also is a military practice area used for test firing of torpedoes. I’m sure the USN – like the Canadian Armed Forces – carefully screen the practice zone to avoid putting boaters and military personnel at risk, but it was always with a frisson of fear that I looked off toward the bay from the bridge.

Probably my best memory of the bridge, though, was a spooky morning drive, my first time crossing it. A brilliantly hot summer day before had become a downright frosty night, and very early in the day my partner and I, married the week before and house-hunting on our honeymoon, were crossing to go look at a rental property up by PT. A glacier of fog was slowly creeping out of the Hood Canal as we left Kitsap Peninsula, blanketing the bridge. We crept down, and suddenly were in the clear on the floating deck of the bridge with the fog a solid-looking roof a yard or two above our car’s roof. The bridge was all ours, disconnected from the rest of the world, a passageway suspended between cloud and water and leading nowhere.

We rolled slowly back up into the fog on the Quimper Peninsula side and out above it, the early morning stillness promising another blazing day. But we’d traveled, however briefly, in Alice’s world.

I moved aboard again last night.

Not really, I mean, not in the ‘given up the apartment, shaken the land dust off my sandals, I’ll never spend another night ashore’ sense. I have 4 weeks before my long-term dock lease is up, and I need to get a lot of work done on the boat before I no longer have shore power and water handy. So I’m mostly staying aboard the boat from now until then.

Too bad the weather is in a wet cycle now. I mean, all the work I need to get done on deck really needs dry days – removing deck hardware and rebedding, stripping and refinishing wood trim, etc. And most of the below-decks work either involves chemistry needing good ventilation (like more varnishing), or crawling from one locker to the cabin and back to the lockers, rinse, repeat (rewiring, replumbing, rebedding, etc.) Cold and wet weather makes me want to curl up in the berth with a good book and the heater kicking out some good BTUs.

And comfort foods, like the family’s Sort-of Italian Seafood Soup, known for its flexibility of ingredients so it can be made with whatever we manage to scrounge up seafood-wise. It started out as a fish soup from a Gorton’s recipe book, but sometimes we’ve had to improvise. For this particular version I’ve aimed at being able to do it aboard the boat, in one pot. This should be enough for two people; I wanted to cut it down for one person, but it’s kind of hard to figure out what 1/4 of a can of tomatoes would be. If I can find small cans of tomatoes, I’ll practice this one a bit aboard and update the recipe.

• 1 Tbls butter
• 1/2 onion, chopped coarsely (or shallots or dried onion flakes reconstituted)
• 1 clove garlic, minced (dried ground garlic could be subst, but I don’t know how much = 1 clove)
• 1 oz/30 grams bacon, rind removed and diced
• 1 stalk celery, chopped (or 1/4 tsp celery seed, or subst 1/4 cup diced fennel)
• 1/2 14 oz/398 ml can chopped tomatoes
• 1/2 cup dry white wine, chilled (or substitute rose or red wine)
• 2/3 cup fish stock (subst vegetable or chicken stock with a splash of fish sauce or clam juice or water + 2 tsp salt)
• 2 Tbls fresh basil shredded (about 2-3 large leaves) (or 1 and 1/2 tsp dried whole basil or 1 scant tsp dried ground basil, or subst marjoram)
• 1 Tbls fresh flat-leaf parsley chopped, divided (or 1 tsp dried or subst 1/2 Tbls green onion tops or chives or skip it if you don’t have anything you think would work)
• 1/2 lb/225 g firm fish fillets, skinned and cut into bite-sized pieces OR somewhat less in cleaned shellfish, preferably a variety.
• 2 oz shrimp or scallops or other sweet shellfish

Melt butter in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan/dutch oven. Add onion and garlic and cook until just clear and soft. Add bacon and celery and cook, stirring often, about 2 minutes until bacon is clear but not browning.

A note about the bacon: Hard cured slab bacon can keep aboard the boat without refrigeration, but it has a rind which would need to be cut off before use in this recipe. Any other bacon or side pork can be substituted, or ham, capicolo, prosciuto, etc. It needn’t be diced; if it’s already sliced, cut into small bite-sized pieces.

Add tomatoes, wine, stock, basil, and half of the parsley (skip this if using green onion or chives). Season to taste with salt and pepper (and whatever else you think it needs, but simpler is often better here.) Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes. Remember to put the wine back on the ice to keep it chilled.

Now make your toast, if you have a broiler. Any thick sliced bread, with something rich on top like butter and shredded cheese. Put it into the bottom of the bowls.

Add the fish and cook until just opaque, 3-5 minutes or so. Add shrimp and heat very gently (or remove from heat if pre-cooked) about 3 minutes. Immediately ladle into bowls over the toast, sprinkle with remaining parsley (or green onion or chives) and serve with generous glasses of chilled white wine.

The only reason the white wine was chilled was for serving with the meal. Very important though.

Mainsail

What with one thing and another, the promised article about the new sails hasn’t been written in anything possibly mistaken as a reasonable time frame.

The new sails are mostly wonderful. A few minor details are problematic or just not quite as good as I’d prefer. Over-all, I wish I’d bought new sails sooner.

Without a doubt, the mainsail is where I took risks in design and features. I chose to do this because for me in my current financial circumstances I can afford a new mainsail (about $1500-2000 Canadian, $1230-1640) every other year so long as no other expensive emergencies crop up on the boat. Realizing this, I wanted to try a sail design and features which focused on easy-to-use elements and not solely on ultimate life expectancy.

Full-length battens

The primary characteristic of the mainsail is the full-length battens. There are many different reasons for using full-length battens, but many cruisers who subscribe to so-called KISS philosophies feel the battens make for a complicated sail which will require replacement sooner.

The four battens are individually tapered in thickness, heaviest at their leech ends and thinner, more flexible, at the luff end. The batten pockets are spaced equidistantly up the sail, and each pocket includes an integral 3:1 purchase to allow the batten to be tensioned for greater sail camber. The battens allow a greater roach to be built into the sail, although the Cape Dory 25D hasn’t much space for any additional area so for my sail this didn’t turn out to be a benefit. Each batten has an associated ‘car’ at the luff into which it slides, carrying some of the load into the luff rope; if my cars were connected to slides via gooseneck fittings as they were supposed to be this load would be transferred directly to the slide and then into the mast track. More about this later.

The additional weight of the battens and their associated pockets and gear is noticeable when hoisting the sail. It’s a bit more of a challenge to get the luff tensioned enough to just barely wrinkle at the slides without using the winch. However, this turns around into a major benefit when trying to lower the sail, like when reefing, because it comes down without hesitation. On yet another hand, when hoisting the main while on a run the battens try to twist the slides, developing a lot of friction in the sail track. The simple solution is to raise the sail when facing into the wind, of course, like any reasonable sailor…

The weird foot shelf

The strangest element of the sail was the foot panel, and this was *not* something I requested. The sailmaker suggested using a ‘foot shelf’ for the flattening reef, in conjunction with a Cunningham cringle. What this appears to me to be is a small panel along the foot which is made of a material which is stretchier than the rest of the sail’s panels. The sail’s foot rope/tabling are cut back from the tack and clew, allowing the foot to more easily be adjusted in length without affecting the luff or leech.

When the outhaul is tensioned, this foot panel tends to fold into a horizonal crease as the foot of the sail is flattened. In theory, after tensioning the outhaul and hauling down on the Cunningham the main will be flatter and the draft drawn forward, a tactic for dealing with heavier winds.

In practice, however, the tension necessary to fold this lower panel into a crease is very high, higher than my 2:1 purchase could easily attain. After working to get this tucked in during 10-15 knot winds I was convinced that it is somewhat ineffectual as the wind was able to overcome my efforts rather easily. I’ve upgraded the outhaul to a a 4:1 purchase, which may be enough force to make it effective, though I have ongoing doubts. I’m in the process of trying out different cunningham arrangements; most likely I will muddle along with a simple dogbone-type affair, lowering the sail and retensioning using the halyard, until I add the mast-step plate and start moving lines aft to the cockpit. At that point I’ll bring the cunningham aft on stbd, and use a winch if necessary in addition to the 2:1 purchase.

Details

There are a dozen little details which catch my eye when I look over this sail – the odd-looking erector set headboard, the way the tabling is sewn to the bolt rope, etc. Some of thes are frustrating to me, others make me wonder and look more closely. This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, the most carefully hand-crafted sail with extensive detailing for longevity. Yet it seems a very reasonable compromise of simplicity and mechanics in exchange for great shape and light weight.

One item I will get better pictures of RSN is the reefing points, which are simple patches with spur grommets. The patches are too small, not well reinforced, but this is a small main of only about 140 square feet. Maybe they’ll be strong enough, large enough, to avoid deforming the sail.

Headsails

Jibs are simply more boring than mainsails. Without attachment points to spars, without shape-modifying features, without battens. And, for the moment, without pictures. The sun is predicted to return in about a week, and we’ll see if I can shoot a roll of film then.

Today I sailed up the Indian Arm to the head and most of the way back again.

I motored out of the marina into very light conditions from the SE, ripples on the water. With main and 130 genoa, I started out gybing downwind – trying to get the autopilot to successfully sail *any* course downwind. And failed. So I steered and sailed wing-and-wing dead downwind as the wind steadily built until I was getting close to hull speed! It was very interesting to see how the wind bounced and ricocheted along the narrow fjord, bringing me head on toward a cliff face and then suddenly sheering away across the water to the other side. Several times I was half-dozen meters off shore, 30 fathoms of water beneath the keel, passing a snow-melt waterfall threading silvery down from the mountain tops.

At the large waterfall near the head of the fjord I turned around and began the beat back. It’d taken me 2 hours to sail up here, averaging better than 4.5 knots according to the gps. Turning up into the wind was a fierce change, and the boat was heeling as much as 40°- water up over the toe rail as the boat surged beyond hull speed to 5.7, 5.8 knots on the GPS. Too much sail for the wind there was, and it was increasing.

I carried on for a while though, waiting to get beyond the island to windward. But I was making a lot of leeway; I should have made it in 3 short/3 long boards, but it ended up taking 6 short and 5 long boards to clear the end point. Finally I was clear enough to put the autopilot on and drop the genoa. I didn’t want to stuff the sail into a bag, so instead I stuffed it into the forepeak, then hoisted the 100% jib sheeted to the inside track.

The first thing I noticed was how flat this sail was cut, which is what I wanted. However, the clew was cut too high, and the sail was too deep, to sheet well to the inside track. With the clew well beyond the forward lower shroud the sail had a tortured shape, clearly not efficient, with the sheet pulling down on the leech and the foot rounding off.

It might have been better to resheet outside the shrouds, but I decided to carry on hard on the wind in part because it was fairly easy to sheet home quickly. I was beginning to get the rhythm. But the wind was still building, and the boat was beginning to heel too much again. Trying to use the outhaul to flatten the foot of the sail was useless. The outhaul will clearly need far more power than the 2:1 I have rigged in order to get the stretchy panel to fold flat.

I quickly rigged the first reef using the soon-to-be installed new topping lift as a temporary reef line, and pulled it in. It was fairly easy to get the reef in, and it really settled down the heeling. The boat was still sailing at hull speed and occasionally above, but it was less stressful and the autopilot was not struggling anywhere near as much.

Then it was a long stretch of beating to windward, tacking through 110-120° rather than 90°, and following every lift I could. Gradually the wind began to fall lighter, and as the average speed over the ground fell toward the lower 4 knot range I shook out the reef in the main. This brought the speed up for a while, but it dropped toward 4 again. I might have re-set the 130 genoa, but a look at the time suggested I’d better fire up the iron breeze in order to get to the dock so I could get back home before dark.

The wind had fallen so light that docking was easy. I quickly stowed the 100% jib and furled the main under its cover, but I left the mess of the cabin and the unstowed genoa in the forepeak, hopped on the scooter and raced sunset. My back, shoulders, and arms are aching, my hands sore and red (face and back of hands are also a bit sunburnt), but I have a sense of accomplishment. I’m going to do this again, soon, and build up muscles which haven’t seen much use this winter, as well as honing my skills at working my boat against the wind.

It feels pretty good.