Went out for a quick sail today and had a great time! I’ve been doing a lot of work lately on my days off on the v-berth and cabin. While I like the project and the actual work, I certainly don’t want this to be a work boat; it has to be a fun-boat, too! ๐
I also wanted to try something out that might help me when I’m singlehanding, so I fashioned a tiller-helper out of three bungee cords. The center one [rubber, so it won’t slip] and the others run to the side for stability. It actually held pretty well, since I really only need it to hold steady for a few seconds while I hoist and lower sails and during tacking while I work the jibsheets.
I used a couple of different apps today to track stats and was very happy with both of them. The first app, My Tracks by Google, is the one that I’ve used since the first day I was sailing. The other app, which most of you are probably more familiar with is the Navionics app. Across both apps, the stats matched up almost perfectly, except that the Navionics app showed a much higher max speed, 6.9 knots compared to 4,7 knots measured on the My Tracks app. The winds were fairly consistent at around 8-10 mph, but was gusting quite often to 26 mph. With those gusts, I decided to reef the main at the first reef point and used a small jib. I really don’t think we hit 6.9 knots, so I’m assuming the Navionics app glitched or missed a waypoint or something. I’ll use it more often and see what kind of stats it gives. I’ll include a screenshot of the two apps side-by-side and then some general photos of our couple of hours on the lake. Hope you enjoy!
Glad to see you’re getting out there. I was worried for awhile there that you were getting sucked in. You definitely look like a sailor!
By the way, I give Navionics a 10+. It has been absolutely dead on our entire trip so far. I can’t say enough good about it.
Deb
S/V Kintala
http://www.theretirementproject.blogspot.com
Thanks for the comment Deb. I’m sure the Navionics app is excellent, otherwise it wouldn’t be so widely used. My guess is maybe my GPS glitched momentarily or something on one of the waypoints and told the app we moved a lot faster during that space of time. I think the hull speed of my boat is only like 6.5 and we weren’t going anywhere near that fast….I think…? I’ll run both apps again for the next few times we’re out and compare.
Good you’re getting some sailing time in. Can’t be work all the time ๐
More time on the water gets you more experience that you need in the long run. Keep at it.
I’m jealous. We snuck out on Friday afternoon to get out on the lake. Recent rains had filled the lake with runoff and random debris that the perfect sailing wind had pushed into our marina. It looked like a solid layer of sticks and mud with some trash in it for added color. (pics at http://groupw.typepad.com/ There was no way I would drop my outboard into that mess. I’d either suck up leaf goop or hit some submerged something and mess up the prop. The wind shifted on Saturday and cleared some of it out, but it was still too nasty. We ended up using the time to do some clean-up instead of having play time.
Wow, that’s some ugly water Stan! Good choice to stay out of it and just do some inside work.