Day #11 on the lake

Max Temperature 88 °F / 31 °C
Water Temp: Still nice and slightly cool, perfect!
Wind Speed 3 mph / 7 km/h ()
Max Wind Speed 16 mph / 26 km/h
Max Gust Speed 24 mph / 39 km/h
GPS: I didn’t use it.

I had not planned to sail today, but am sure glad I did. Hutch called this morning and wanted to visit, but I had a busy schedule and asked him to drop by around noon. He left around 1:30, I saw SW12-18 on wunderground and decided to go.

It was definitely not blowing that hard at Cook, plus it was steady from the SE. By the time I got the 9.5 rigged and down to the beac, it had died. I ran into a sailor who is now a kayaker and we shot the breeze for awhile, then he left and I decided to give it a go. By the time I got to Stone Island, it had picked up quite a bit and I was pretty overpowered by the time I reached the shore outside Hamilton Creek. The 9.5 was loose halfway to the 3rd batten, I shortened the crap out of the harness lines and was still pretty overpowered, so I decided to sail in and get nourishment.

While I was at the car grabbing a snack and water, it was really up and down. One minute I was thinking of rigging 7.5 and Fanatic, the next minute it wasn’t even 9.5 weather.

After 10 minutes I went back out and again it picked up by Stone Island… I mean REALLY picked up, The closer I got to Hamilton Creek, the harder it blew and I was determined to drive hard with my toes to reach maximum speed. I gave no desire to jibe as there was no way I wanted to uphaul or waterstart. I reached back and forth across the lake a bunch of times and was getting pretty far upwind, although it took many trips as I wasn’t pointing well. I stayed out about an hour and both my arms and legs were plently tired when I came in. Again I thought of the 7.5, but PWC and boats were getting plentiful and the wind and rough water were requiring all my concentration, so I did not feel good about their presence.