Heroic Heather changing down from a genoa to a jib as we start reaching toward Santa Barbara. Note the foam on the side of the boat. Even under main only, we were flying. About 40 knots of wind at that time. This photo also gives you an idea of the swell.
Heather was totally soaked. Waves would come and break over the bow.
We did not do the usual (leave a sail up as long as possible before you put the other one up) - when you are offshore, a few things become much slower...sail changes, moving around the boat. You want to clip yourself on so you can't just rush to the bow. It is cold, wet and the boat furiously moves around so any maneuvre will take a lot longer.
In this case, we just wanted to head toward our destination and make it as comfortable as possible for Heather to do the sail change. Having the genoa up (in addition to damaging the sail; not made for 40 knots of wind) was probably going to make her task so much more difficult that it would actually take a lot longer.
Photos courtesy of Nathan
No comments:
Post a Comment