I had finished tidying up some loose wiring on my Corribee ‘Trivial Pursuit’ when the sky started to clear and the sun came out. Coaxing the outboard to start and slipping the lines didn’t take long and we were off, sailing the Holy Loch in a nice force two. This sort of sailing is something I love and soon I was deep in a trance, mesmerized by the chuckle of wavelets on the hull and the flicker of sun on water. After a while I noticed how long it was taking reaching the Clyde and the Strone point buoy. I was sailing very badly! On my other boat, a twenty-eight foot Twister class, the genoa has tell-tales. On ‘Trivial Pursuit’ we have none. I was reading the waves (wavelets really) made by the now force three into which we were sailing. This should have been sufficient yet I was making a mess of it. I have sailed since 1973, owned eight boats and done thousands of sea miles and I was making a monumental spheroid of sailing a twenty-one foot junk-rig boat up the loch in a flat sea! Check the rig: Sail fully hoisted and sheeted just outboard of the rail. Yard-hauling-parrel pulled in, Luff-hauling-parrel pulled in, all as they should be. My boat was trying to tell me something? While I fiddled with ropes and gazed aloft to spy any anomalies I had of course let go the tiller. Do that on a conventionally rigged boat and she will gently turn to windward and stop, sails flapping. Not ‘Trivial Pursuit’. We were still under way, not stopped or going in the wrong direction. In fact she was making her way upwind better on her own than with me pulling rank and steering. This was fascinating and worth study. She hunted the wind a little, bearing away a fraction, then luffing slightly but not losing speed and obviously much closer to the wind than I had steered. She ignored the waves and hunted the wind. A master class in how to do it! Drat, I had taken the kettle to the other boat so could not make tea while my little Corribee got on with it. (memo to self: Don’t fall overboard, she will not stop for you!)
Friday 30 October 2015
Master Class
Master Class
I had finished tidying up some loose wiring on my Corribee ‘Trivial Pursuit’ when the sky started to clear and the sun came out. Coaxing the outboard to start and slipping the lines didn’t take long and we were off, sailing the Holy Loch in a nice force two. This sort of sailing is something I love and soon I was deep in a trance, mesmerized by the chuckle of wavelets on the hull and the flicker of sun on water. After a while I noticed how long it was taking reaching the Clyde and the Strone point buoy. I was sailing very badly! On my other boat, a twenty-eight foot Twister class, the genoa has tell-tales. On ‘Trivial Pursuit’ we have none. I was reading the waves (wavelets really) made by the now force three into which we were sailing. This should have been sufficient yet I was making a mess of it. I have sailed since 1973, owned eight boats and done thousands of sea miles and I was making a monumental spheroid of sailing a twenty-one foot junk-rig boat up the loch in a flat sea! Check the rig: Sail fully hoisted and sheeted just outboard of the rail. Yard-hauling-parrel pulled in, Luff-hauling-parrel pulled in, all as they should be. My boat was trying to tell me something? While I fiddled with ropes and gazed aloft to spy any anomalies I had of course let go the tiller. Do that on a conventionally rigged boat and she will gently turn to windward and stop, sails flapping. Not ‘Trivial Pursuit’. We were still under way, not stopped or going in the wrong direction. In fact she was making her way upwind better on her own than with me pulling rank and steering. This was fascinating and worth study. She hunted the wind a little, bearing away a fraction, then luffing slightly but not losing speed and obviously much closer to the wind than I had steered. She ignored the waves and hunted the wind. A master class in how to do it! Drat, I had taken the kettle to the other boat so could not make tea while my little Corribee got on with it. (memo to self: Don’t fall overboard, she will not stop for you!)
I had finished tidying up some loose wiring on my Corribee ‘Trivial Pursuit’ when the sky started to clear and the sun came out. Coaxing the outboard to start and slipping the lines didn’t take long and we were off, sailing the Holy Loch in a nice force two. This sort of sailing is something I love and soon I was deep in a trance, mesmerized by the chuckle of wavelets on the hull and the flicker of sun on water. After a while I noticed how long it was taking reaching the Clyde and the Strone point buoy. I was sailing very badly! On my other boat, a twenty-eight foot Twister class, the genoa has tell-tales. On ‘Trivial Pursuit’ we have none. I was reading the waves (wavelets really) made by the now force three into which we were sailing. This should have been sufficient yet I was making a mess of it. I have sailed since 1973, owned eight boats and done thousands of sea miles and I was making a monumental spheroid of sailing a twenty-one foot junk-rig boat up the loch in a flat sea! Check the rig: Sail fully hoisted and sheeted just outboard of the rail. Yard-hauling-parrel pulled in, Luff-hauling-parrel pulled in, all as they should be. My boat was trying to tell me something? While I fiddled with ropes and gazed aloft to spy any anomalies I had of course let go the tiller. Do that on a conventionally rigged boat and she will gently turn to windward and stop, sails flapping. Not ‘Trivial Pursuit’. We were still under way, not stopped or going in the wrong direction. In fact she was making her way upwind better on her own than with me pulling rank and steering. This was fascinating and worth study. She hunted the wind a little, bearing away a fraction, then luffing slightly but not losing speed and obviously much closer to the wind than I had steered. She ignored the waves and hunted the wind. A master class in how to do it! Drat, I had taken the kettle to the other boat so could not make tea while my little Corribee got on with it. (memo to self: Don’t fall overboard, she will not stop for you!)
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