Ummm... did someone say wind? A lot of it?
The forecast from Windfinder showed a gentle 9, then 11 then 7 knots, with gusts of 11, 12 and 8 knots respectively from East, South East then South today. Just the day for taking out some friends of friends for a nice gentle sail then lunch and a swim behind the port. Or so I thought… Yesterday had been somewhat blowy. That had been predicted, though the forecast was actually higher sustained winds and lower gusts. The gusts reaching 35 knots, according to windfinder . A gust is defined as a sudden increase of the wind's speed that lasts no more than 20 seconds. I've sailed through gusts before. Note in the definition ' that lasts no more than 20 seconds' . So with East then South East we headed north up the coast. Because of the strong winds yesterday (which seemed a lot stronger than the chart above showed for the average) there was a swell in the water which meant though sailing was pleasant and quiet the rolling of the boat was uncomfortable