Sunday 19 October 2014

Wind indicator, jib sheet leads, tide rips & wind thieves

On Saturday morning I made myself a mast-head wind indicator:
It's a long triangle of light sail cloth with the short side captured between two thin pieces of wood. A hole was drilled through the wood, and a screw attaches it to the end of a dowel, loosely enough that it spins. I found the design in Small Craft Advisor mag. As well as showing wind direction it also shows wind strength, to a degree, by how flat-out the pennant flies.

Saturday's sail was mostly a drifter, with a half-hour or so of light winds (see above video). The wind indicator is really nice to have, especially in light airs. The boat does well in light airs, as long as she's sailed with sheets eased, as they say; not pointing very high, in other words. Goes very well downwind.

Sunday was supposed to be cloudy and windy, but ended up sunny and even less windy than Saturday, so I came in early. One thing I did do out there was to make a new jib lead setup:
It's a continuous loop with a ring on it for the lead. This means I can move the lead whenever I want, from the cockpit, without having to re-tie everything. Pretty obvious, now!
I'm still finding the right spot for these leads. More wind would help.
 
I've been learning about tidal rips lately. Below is a little video of some very strong current just west of Emily Islet, the right-hand rock. I was powering back to the bay after being carried away by the current. When the current took me down, it didn't look like this, and it was a slow ride. And now look! You can see, starting at around 40 seconds in, that the boat starts getting tossed about by the current. I split off the audio 'cause it was just the buzzing of the engine.
Here's what the tide chart looked like for that particular moment:
This is from Mr. Tides (Mac only).

Wind Thieves!

These guys go out in the morning and steal all the wind, so by the time we afternooners get out there, it's all used up!
That's Phil on the left, and Andrew on the right. Someone should make them observe decent hours, I say!


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