20/11/12 - Sailing - Petersburg OEC

20th November 2012

Sailing - Petersburg OEC - Brian

Today we had a force 5 gusting 6 and it was raining...crazy!

• Today looked a bit crazy so I decided to challenge myself to sailing in the windiest conditions I have ever sailed in!

Today we rigged the boats in force 4 winds. By the time we got on the lake it had moved to a force 5. I was in a Vibe with Martin and he was on helm. We worked well as a team, trying our best to get around the 2 buoy course that Brian had set for us. 

The wind was just so strong and seemed to be coming in many directions that it was hard to stay on course and not to capsize. Martin and I capsized 3 or 4 times, it was crazy! We had to wait for the strongest gusts to pass sometimes before we could get the boat back over. Even then, once the boat was back over, it was hard to point the boat head to wind so that Martin could get in because the wind was just hitting the water in all directions, it was almost impossible to face head to wind.

Stacy & Liz's boat capsized...Stacy on the dagger board...

At one point, I was trying to point head to wind, Martin was holding on to the back of the dinghy and he could have gone bare foot skiing off the back of the boat we were going so fast!
In the end Brian came and collected us all from all over the lake and towed us in to shore. 

Everybody waiting on shore for each boat to be rescued...

Once he had collected everybody together, he put some of us in the RIB and only Fionan and Cian (who were very experienced sailors) went sailing while we watched.

I was very wary of my sciatic nerve in the power boat because I was afraid of getting a big jolt and setting myself back, but I was fine.

In the afternoon we went driving around the lake looking at the way the wind was affecting the lake at different sections. We then came back and made boats out of things they found around Petersburg. It was a good way of learning how to balance the boat and really think about where things are positioned on a boat.

Fionan...proud of his college work...

The highlight of today for me was actually capsizing because I hadn’t capsized yet at sailing. I actually enjoyed it and I enjoyed sailing with Martin, which I hadn’t done yet either. We made a good team and we had a lot of fun sailing at crazy speeds and capsizing.

I feel that today went well, I lost interest a bit in the afternoon when we had to make little boats to sail in the bath tub... it just felt like a bit of a time filler (which is probably because that’s exactly what it was). But I can also see how it helped us to see how a boat’s weight is distributed and how it is proportioned.
I am glad we got to capsize, next time I will have to be quicker/better at finding head to wind after a capsize.

Environmental interest of the day...

There were trees on the bank where we pulled up that had no leaves but they had the reddest berries I have ever seen. There were bunches of them at the ends of the twigs. Nobody could work out what they were, so I am going to ask Orla if she knows.