Genoa power.....................
Genoa power.....................
Well I took advantage of the strong steady winds created by Gustov as it slammed into NO and did some sailing on Labor Day on the St. Johns. The winds were a steady 15 at first and quickly climbed to 20 with strong gusts so I decided to reef for the comfort of the passengers. No sooner had we gotten everything tidied up than a small horizontal rip developed in the leach just above the clew. I decided not to risk it tearing the sail from stim to stern and dropped the main completely. To my amazement it still made great headway almost as though the main was still up and became far more docile in the area of heeling over. The only drawback was when we decided to do some raft riding I could not tack to windward and had to jib back and forth but it was able to pull................drag two people along in the water and still make some headway. It was body surfing at best but everyone had a lot of fun, at one time I manned the helm alone while all three of my passengers were being dragged behind the boat. I also learned that raising the keel down wind in heavy chop can induce seasickness for those who are susceptible to motion sickness. The boat just rolls to much with the center of gravity so high.
