Finally on the water

Finally pretty much everything was in place and I was ready to splash the boat down for the first time in many years. I had to do a few small tasks such as bolting down the mast rotation and running the lines through blocks on the side to make them continuous.

Sadly it was pouring down with rain and basically no wind whatsoever, but hey, may as well take it out.

The sail/first impressions

Not gonna lie the sail was kinda boring. Entirely due to the weather though. It wasn’t particularly cold but it was just very rainy. It cleared up during the day but the sun wasn’t out so it just started to get a little chilly. Turns out I headed out thinking it was a southerly (all the moored boats were facing that way…) but turns out I was very wrong. I probably spent a good 15 minutes floating with the battens inverted trying to work out why I was just drifting sideways. As I headed further out from the ramp it became a lot nicer and more consistent.

About half way out the wind picked up a fair bit. The boat then took off at quite a pace to be honest considering there was like 2 knots of wind if that. It was a short lived blast however and then it dropped off. The wind shifted west as I headed back in and it ended up as a southerly again when just after I reached the ramp. It would have been nice to continue as it filled in slightly but better not risk getting cold.

The boat was suprisingly comfortable though. Was lovely to sit/lie on when there was no wind. Much nicer than my 3.7.

Obviously I need to work on my tacking, I think this has partly to do with the fact that the tiller extension has a steel tube in it somewhere, which made it a pain to swing behind the boom. I need to grab a windicator and chuck that on the bow, as well as a GoPro mount.