Back in the water


 

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Wind…

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Wind at last… we (Sheila, Katie, Elizabeth and me) went out for a brief sail yesterday and there was wind. Sheila remarked how different the helm felt with wind. The Kingfisher has a relatively large rudder so even very small movements make a significant difference to the direction. About 5 nautical miles sailed. Not far but good to be out on the water. And still relatively warm. What was surprising to us was that since it was glorious sailing weather and the previous weekend almost no wind at all… there were almost no sailing boats out sailing (I counted 3 others, and none when we started.)
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What no wind again?

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 So time to chill out after a lot of work… in other words time for a sail. 09:30 we put the new straps on the bimini (yes, this works really well now) and motored out of the marina and put up the sails. Wow… we're sailing along at 0.9 knots… then 1.1 knots… trim the sails and we're speeding along at maybe 2.1 knots. And it looks like it's race day for the local sailing club. A dozen boats on the water all trying to get the speed they need to beat the others. And then the wind dies. Well… it does where we are, about a mile or two out from the shore. Along the shore they are still trying to race and going nowhere.  So what to do when you're going nowhere? Get out the paddles for the dinghy and paddle! And it's the first of December… …and it's hot enough to be in a shirt and no sweater! Even me!
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Potamos and trying out a new navigation App

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The weather looked good for a long day sail over to Potamos and back. It's about 30 nautical miles which in a small boat is a good day sail. I checked the weather on Predictwind.com and Windfinder. The two most dissimilar forecasts came from Predictwind, but both looked reasonable.  There was supposed to be a lull as the wind changed direction but other than that would be great sailing across the bay and back. I've been using iSailor for my navigation app and they have changed to a subscription model so I thought I would check out other apps if I am going to have to pay a subscription. Don't get me wrong iSailor is good and I have used it for a number of years, but there are quirks to using it which I found frustrating. The charts are digital but display a lot of detail at all scales and so look cluttered and hard to read at times. I'd used Navionics charts on chart plotters so thought I would try their app. It was a lot cleaner in interface and had no learning curve. I...
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