09/10/12 - Sailing - Peterburg OEC

9th October 2012

Sailing - Petersburg OEC - Brian
There was no wind and it was dry.

• Today I was looking forward to trying to make the most of the serious lack of wind.
• I wanted to practice coming along side and do some spinnaker work too.
• I want to get better at tidying up sheets on board & I want to learn some useful knots too.

Brian went over what we learnt the week before and drew more diagrams to describe what he was trying to explain. e.g wind direction & sail position.
We then rigged the boats & Brian showed me how to tidy up the sheets, it is just a round turn and two half hitches most of the time. Brian showed us how to attach the spinnaker too, this is a sail in front of the jib and main sail that is stored in the boat & can be pulled out when needed by clicking out the sheet.

We took out the 3 Vibes and went in groups of 2.

It was really frustrating trying to sail with such a lack of wind but Brian said that this meant he could tell who knew how to sail well and who didn’t. It meant we had to be really tuned in to the breeze to try & work out which way we needed to sail to catch as much of the breeze as possible. However, I just found it very frustrating and got bored quickly.

I was in a Vibe with Liz and the dinghy’s were hardly moving, we could lie down & have a chat for a while & when we looked around, we hadn’t moved anywhere!!

We did some knots at lunch time, Brian showed us the reef knot, round turn & two half hitches and a bow line. We practiced them while we were eating our lunch.

There was a small increase in wind in the afternoon and Emmet & I were in a dinghy together and we got a chance to use the Spinnaker. I pulled the sheet and the spinnaker came out, it was a bit hard to get used to because you have to face the boat slightly down wind to prevent the boat whipping around in the wind when you hoist it up. Unfortunately our spinny got caught on the roller on the way out & got a bit torn, but it still worked fine-ish. When we caught the wind with the spinny up, we went a good bit faster, however, it was still painfully slow and after a few manoeuvres in slow motion, Brian brought us all in. 

Today was a slow, long day, but I actually learnt a lot, I didn’t realise at the time that I was learning, but I learnt how to sail in slack winds and how to be tuned in to the breeze on the water.

A highlight for me today was when we got the spinnaker up and actually managed to get somewhere with the very little wind we had in the afternoon.

I think I could have tried harder to not get frustrated by the lack of wind while trying to sail! If I had persevered I might have learnt more about sailing without wind. However I did still learn how to use a Spinnaker and it was good conditions to learn that in because it wasn’t too windy and the wind came in gusts, which gave us time to understand what was going on.

Environmental interest of the day...
Today when we moored up on red island, there was an unusual looking moss washed up all along the shore line. It was soft, yellowy white colour and it moved when you walked near it. I asked Brian if he knew what it was and he said that he wasn’t sure. So I plan to find out more information about this, maybe by taking a picture next week and asking Orla about it.