Sailing Education Adventures

Who gets right of way?  Sailboats or tankers?  Unfortunately, the tanker wins.  But, Adam, our skipper of the night, did a great job of figuring out a way to pass the tanker on the bow versus doing a jibe and passing on the stern.  We felt like we won that battle!

It was a night where Adam, Bill, Karen and I (Helena) faced some challenges.  With winds up to 25 knots, we decided to reef the sail at the dock (good move!).  However, four minutes before the start, our bowline unwrapped out of the jib clew.  Bill jumped up to the deck and quickly tied up a new one (nice save!).  Then, 1 minute before the start, we experienced an override on the winch; one that entailed two people helping to unravel it and heading into wind.  Despite all of those challenges, we sailed a terrific race and edged out several boats.  We even had practice blowing the reef since winds were dying down at the end of the race.

Sailing comes with some unexpected turns, but we were ready to face all of them tonight!