02/10/12 - Sailing - Petersburg OEC

2nd October 2012

Today there was a North easterly force 3  wind and it was raining.

• My personal goals for today were that I wanted to practice the basics of sailing that I had learnt the first week.
• I also wanted to try and rig the dinghy without Brian having to point out too many mistakes.
• I wanted to be more confident in the dinghy and be able to decide how my sails should be set depending on the wind direction.
• I wanted to try not be nervous so that I can sail with 100% effort and improve as much as possible.

Today Brian went through some terminology used when sailing, e.g the different points of sail, i.e beating, beam reach, running etc.

He drew a simple picture to explain these terms which made them much easier to understand. What I found hard was remembering what your sails should be doing during each point of sail.

We rigged the boats on our own & Brian only got involved when something was wrong. I got the majority of the rigging correct, it was just my knots that I was having trouble with and how to tidy up the sheets on the boat.

I started off sailing in the Topper but as I got more confident, Brian moved myself & Liz into a Topaz Vibe together. 

It wasn’t very windy in the morning so this was a good chance for Brian to introduce us to the Jib. This was the first time I had used a jib. First Liz was on the helm and I was on the jib and then after a while we swapped.

I liked using the jib and it was amazing how much more speed we could pick up when it was up. During our time on the helm, we had to follow a course that Brian had set out with buoys and get the feel for being on the helm and telling your crew where you wanted them and what you wanted them to do.

We then had to learn to turn head to wind and make the dinghy stop. This was good fun and Liz and I enjoyed working together on the dinghy. We made a good team and did some good sailing for the morning.

Over lunch time, Brian went back over his points of sail diagram. This was a good way to refresh our memory and help us to understand more after doing the practical.

Brian decided to tow us out further using the power boat after lunch because we were too protected from the wind in the bay. This was a good idea because it was a force 3 out on the lake and we got to show off more of the skills that we had learnt in the morning.

One of our aims for the afternoon session was to come along side Brian in the power boat by approaching at the right angle, deciding which side we were going to come along side on and then pointing head to wind in order to stop on either his port or starboard. Luckily I did this successfully about 3 times in the afternoon session.

A highlight for me today was that I felt much more confident overall going out in the dinghy. I was also proud of myself for getting the hang of coming along side pretty quickly.
Sailing with Liz was good craic and we had a lot of fun while working as a team on the Vibe.

I worked hard to get the hang of coming along side today and it paid off when Brian told me I had it perfect. That felt really good and it made me realise how much it means to be told you are doing well by your instructor.

I felt a lot more comfortable on the helm today and when Brian asked me to show him my tack he said it was really good.
I am looking forward to next week because Brian said he is going to go over some knots with us, which will help me with rigging and tidying up the boats before heading out.

Environmental Interest of the day...

Today, Brian told us about the Pike and Trout levels in the lake. Apparently they have an issue with the high levels of Pike eating all the Trout in the lake. So they have to try & get as many Pike as they can out of the lake to give the Trout a chance to grow and thrive. They also section off parts of the lake to let the Trout grow bigger so they have more chance of surviving the hight Pike levels.