Happiness comes the way the wind blows- M Lermentov
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Sail report
Sunday, August 1, 2021
Lk St Clair
This is what it looks like to spend 6 hours sailing on Lk St Clair in near perfect conditions.
After a quick temporary fix to seal up the hole in the deck where the starboard side dorade box used to be, we had a quick lunch on the boat, and then headed out onto the water. It was so nice to have other sailors in the club smile and wave to us and say hi to Feather as we passed. I'm really enjoying the camaraderie of the NSSC. There was a little rain and possible thunderstorms rumbling around the area, but Chuck thought we could get a couple of hours of sailing in before they hit.
The lake was hazy as we sailed out, but we had a little company anyway. This kind of weather dissuades a lot of power boaters, but the wind is hard for sailors to resist.
We started with a single reef point on the main, but quickly decided we needed a second one, and we didn't have it set up, so Chuck went forward to rig.
Finally, we were scooting right along at hull speed with 2 reefs on the main and less than half a Genny.
We caught the edge of this band of rain with the serious weather passing to the south of us.
We watched as the rain sheeted down on the Lake .
You know what is a good thing when it's raining on a sailboat? Windows. Windows are a good thing.
This is what Windfinder predicted for our sail.
This is what the NWS reported for conditions.
I don't think either were accurate to the conditions we were seeing in the middle of the lake. Chuck estimated sustained winds of 20 to 30 over the course of the sail with gusts to 40.
We returned to NSSC in clear skies with a strong wind (that made music take two passes to dock the boat.
It was a good day on the Lake. For us... Others didn't have such a good day.
MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY!
We were monitoring Channel 16 on the marine radio and we listened to several reports of vessels in distress. One was a sailboat struggling near Erie in Canada (a possible/likely) waterspout was reported off Sarnia (https://twitter.com/dave_sills/status/866616362340405248/photo/1). This situation was later reported as resolved by the Canadian Coast Guard.
In another series of calls, someone reported a sinking boat adrift with no sign of people aboard (possibly in the water, which was bad). We listened intently as the Coast Guards (both Canadian and American) responded on marine radio. After a tense 20 minutes or so, another boater reported that the passengers aboard that sinking boat had been picked up and taken to Brownies in St Clair Shores. As far as we could tell, the boat still sank but at least there was no loss of life.
This caller did everything right. He spoke calmly and clearly, reporting everything he saw (and nothing extra), responding to Coast Guard questions, and staying on the radio. He gave clear descriptions with GPS coordinates (we're sure the CG scrambled a chopper right away). For me and Chuck, this led to a great discussion/review of what to do in case of an emergency on our boat. Just like our practice with Feather Overboard drills, it's important to talk through what you will do in case of emergency, before you need to use it.
August 1-10, 2022 Twice in two weeks, Twoflower has come upon a search for a missing boater, both with unhappy endings. The first, on August 1, brought an amazing day sailing to a very somber close. After a gorgeous high wind day on the lake, winds in the mid to high 20s, gusting to the low 30s, Twoflower sailed into the middle (literally) of a Coast Guard (CG) search. Huron Point and the mouth of the Clinton River are home to Twoflower (North Star Sail Club, NSSC) and is an area where the CG often do drills. I'd noticed the Macomb Sheriff boat lights near Metro Beach, but again, on the weekend this is all too common. We are usually tuned in to channel 16 on the radio, and we hadn't heard anything, so we thought little of either the Sheriff presence or the CG. At the time, I was at the helm, and it's quite likely that I was driving like a drunken sailor (although we never drink under sail). We actually joked that they were coming to investigate my driving. ...
May 30,2022: It’s one year to the day since I started this blog. It’s been 9 months since I posted. (If I thought it was hard to keep up when we were on the trip around the Mitten, it's quadruply so when I'm working full-time. We sailed Twoflower as late as we could push it in the Fall and then laid her up for the winter on the hard. Last sail of 2021, October 23 We bought Twoflower with the mast up. So we really had no idea what to expect when we unstepped her. There was good and bad. Unstepping the Mast: Oct 30, 2022 Let me just say that the NSSC club members are awesome. With everything else, we ended up with a cold rainy day when the mast HAD to come down. Members left the warm inside to help us even though it was the day of the big MSU/UM football game. We had helped a few other boats unstep[ to try to learn the ropes (lines?), but we still needed technical help, and more muscle was absolutely critica...
...The important thing is to leave- C Smith And so we crossed the state, looking like the Beverly Hillbillies:pickup bed stuffed to the gills, bags and boxes strapped to the tonneau cover. Feather trembled with excitement in the small space we had left in the backseat once Chuck completed the epic game of Tetris that was loading the truck. Twoflower waited for us at the dock in Saint Joseph, ready for her next big adventure after two years on dry land. Next Post
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