Wet Sunday
This morning I arrived at the club and it was already raining. Steve called me to ask if we are sailing and I said yes, so he came within 20 minutes. We rigged and went out.
It was quite windy and wet. At the start, although I went to the line in time, I didn’t stand my ground so I was “pushed” and my start was not great. I couldn’t cross at the pin end, so I decided to tack to port. I was already at the end so nobody was I wouldn’t be on anybody’s way. We had a long course through all 8 buoys of the Harp. At the last lap, while I was about to tack I got a cramp in my leg and I couldn’t move to the other side. The boat came on top of me and I capsized. I brought the boat upright quite easily and I got back in. I decided to quit the race because of the pain in my leg. I was already last and I thought that if I would take a rest I would be able to sail the second race.
The second race was quite uneventful too. Before the start the weather seemed to be getting better, but soon it started raining again. It was actually a storm. The wind and rain was so much that made it difficult. The rain stopped after a while and the conditions where better. At some point Peter was behind me and he was “chasing” me. He passed me and I was trying to regain my position, but my mainsheet got tangled around the ratchet block and it took me some time to untangle it. I lost quite some time and the distance got even bigger. The rest of the race was quite boring.
I think, because the weather was bad, there were not many people sailing. So it wasn’t as exciting as I would have liked. I didn’t stick the tell-tales on the sail, because the sail got wet as soon as I uncovered the boat. I will have to wait until next time for that. Hopefully on Wednesday it will be drier. I still haven’t bought a wind indicator so I was still sailing “in the dark”. I am glad that I have my own boat, but soon I will have to spend some money to improve the boat. The things I will have to buy next are: wind indicator, mainsheet and traveler rope.
Later on, I will have to buy XD fittings and kicker. Obviously, these are going to cost me much more than two pieces of rope and a wind indicator, but at some point I will have to buy them.