On Tuesday of this week I returned from Chicago with a new team member that I hired. The plan was to arrive in Vancouver about noon and work for the afternoon. I discovered at some point that he grew up sailing on the South Florida coast so we quickly made the connection and determined to at least introduce him to Ge'Mara some time during the week. As it happened, the weather for the week peaked on Tuesday with beautiful sunny skies and rain in the forecast for the balance of the week. I made a command decision and used what was left of Tuesday to take him sailing. Not only was it a great time but it signalled that weather permitting we can start taking advantage of weekday evenings to get a little more sailing in.
After a few days of wind and rain the weather seemed to break a little bit on the weekend. Sunday morning found David and I down at the boat at 8:30 and busy preparing for a day on the water. We were expecting a nice puff to be left over from the previous days storms and with an early start we hoped to get as far as Gibsons for lunch. I noted with satisfaction that we're getting used to the boat and our preparations for sail proceeded in a businesslike fashion. Our follies with raising the dinghy seem like a distant memory and these days the entire process takes less than 5 minutes.
We were greeted in English Bay by the traditional rollers that we've come to expect if the wind has been blowing for a while and we had fun motoring through them on the way to slightly smoother water beyond the bridge. We didn't need to look at our wind indicator this day to know what we had to work with and after a brief discussion we decided to leave the sail ties on the main and begin with a reefed genoa to test the waters, as it were. It wasn't long before we were making 5 knots under nothing but a well-reefed jib. As I've mentioned before, the wind most commonly blows from the NorthWest directly into English Bay. This day was no different and we tacked back and forth, clawing our way closer and closer to Point Atkinson. The seas were larger than anything we had ever been in but we had the boat nicely under control. The waves crashing over the bow were exhilerating.
Sailing in a busy harbour has it's challenges and one of them is dodging the up to 20 massive freighters that are anchored in the bay. These things are so large that they create their own wind patterns, further frustrating a sailors efforts. In one case we were beating close to the wind on a course to just barely clear the anchor chain of a large tanker. With the wind pushing us slightly sideways we got close enough to smell the anchovies on the tanker captain's sandwich before we gave up the attempt and tacked away towards West Vancouver.
Another phenomena I should be used to by now is the difference in wind speed between the East and West side of the bay. As we tacked to the East side of the bay towards West Vancouver we were making up to 7.5 knots, now under a full genoa. We had unfurled the rest of the headsail because on our last tack to the east the wind seemed to lighten. I can't say how many times I've been fooled by this and after another tack towards the west the wind strengthened and we were soon over canvased. We struggled to manage the boat this way for a while, sailing closer and closer into the wind in an attempt to keep from being overpowered. However it wasn't long before we were blown well over a couple of times, an experience made all the more unnerving by the large waves hitting us abeam. We started the engine and got the boat under control long enough to reduce the genoa again and settle back in on a port tack towards Point Atkinson but soon it became apparent that with the strength of the wind we might need to tack yet again in order to clear the point. Enough was enough.
We turned the boat back towards the Lions Gate bridge and let the headsail well out in preparation for a broad reach. Immediately the boat calmed down and we set ourselves to the business of following the wind and surfing the rather large rollers that we're coming off our stern. Even though Ge'Mara's hull has a physical speed limitation (hull speed) of 7.5kts, we were effectively surfing now. With much of the hull being lifted out of the water with each large wave we averaged about 8 Kts all the way home, with peak speed of 9.3Kts. Fun :)
Back at the dock we had buttoned up and sat below listening to the wind howling in the rigging. The weather had taken an unforeseen turn and the wind was now blowing hard from the East - 180 degrees from it's original direction. Had we stayed out and made Snug Cove for lunch we would have had a long, miserable upwind sail home in the rain. We toasted our day and good fortune with our old friend Glen(livet) and went home to restful afternoon and a hot meal.
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