wings

There's this guy named Jameson.  He is a science guy at one of the local universities.  He has long red hair that he wears in dreadlocks.  He rides a bike and has an iphone.  I do not know him, never met him.  He has a friend named Martin.  Martin is a friend of mine.

The new sails were raised on Spartina yesterday making it an even more delightful first sail of the year. Clear skies, a comfortable breeze of six mph.  Being cooler in the morning than forecast was nicely balanced by being warmer in the afternoon than forecast.

I love the new sails.  Brilliant and crisp in the sunshine, they are like wings.  The main, mizzen and jib give, as Stuart of Dabbler Sails says, a visual harmony to the rig.

More importantly, as Stuart also points out, they make the boat go forward.  It will take some time on the water to know for sure but I felt that Spartina sailed certainly closer to the wind, and with more speed.  The higher peaked main reached up and grabbed the clean air, the fully battened mizzen held flat in the gusts and the jib seemed to slice through the breeze.

It will take me a while to learn these new sails.  I have some adjusting to do for the purchase points at the tacks and the clews.  I will tweak a few things today and see how they work when I'm out next weekend.

I do need to look at the outboard today.  They water pump was not generating much water.  It was no problem yesterday, I just motored a couple of minutes to get away from the dock and then a couple of minutes to run Spartina onto the trailer.  Save for those few minutes I was under sail and did not need the outboard.

At one point the wind did fall off and we were becalmed.  It did not matter, I had a tour boat loading passengers along shore to starboard and a tug with two barges to port.  There was nowhere to go and it was a pretty day.  A woman on the tour boat broke the silence by yelling "All that for one knot?" I took it that "all that" were the three sails of Spartina.  I did not reply.  The barge passed, the wind filled in and I sailed across the river thinking "No, all that to get away from people who do not know how to enjoy peaceful moments."

So I'm sailing back towards the eastern branch of the Elizabeth where the ramp is and this guy with long red hair in dreadlocks is riding by on his bike.  He stops, pulls out his phone, takes a photograph and rides away.  A while later I get an email from my friend Martin.  He says this friend of his named Jameson had photographed a boat on the river today and Martin, knowing I was interested in boats, wondered if I knew the name for this particular sail configuration.  I did.

It is a small world sometimes.

Thanks, Jameson, for the nice photograph.


steve