A New Gadget - and a Rant

A week ago David and I had an "interesting" morning on the water learning to bring Ge'Mara to heel under less than perfect conditions.  That day was cut short due to weather but I wasn't too worried because spring is here and along with it longer, warmer, sunnier days.  My Monday afternoon I had plans to go out after work on Wednesday afternoon with a colleague.  Unfortunately that plan fell through  and I ended up at the pub.  This was a disappointment because now I'm flying to Atlanta for the week so it will be a while until I get back to the boat.

So in the absence of sailing what is there to do?  The answer of course is hang out at the chandlery and look for something cool to buy.  This week it was the WindMate 200.

Ge'Mara doesn't have a wind speed gauge built into her as many new boats do.  Most experienced sailors are quick to dismiss the need for a wind gauge, invoking all kinds of wisdom about "feeling it on your face" or "after a while you just know."  The irony is that most of these guys have wind gauges.

For David and I, the primary value of a wind guage is to validate our terror when we're in over our heads.  The theory is, when the wind is really blowing and we're in trouble, we'll simply break out the WindMate 200, hold it up into the wind and bingo - hard data to back up our harrowing stories back at the dock.  Of course, this plan comes with the risk that the WindMate returns a less than impressive reading and confirms that we're not only neophytes but worse, pansies.

The WindMate 200

The more practical application for this little gadget is to help us understand what a given amount of wind really feels like.  We're still learning how much wind is too much wind, and at what point we should consider reefing.  Our experience with wind forecasts here is that they are wildly inaccurate given all of the variables so we need a little more hard data on what we're actually experiencing so we can better judge in the future how to prepare and react.

A Bit of a Rant
On the subject of boat improvements, I've shared already that we are still looking to do some upgrades, a new anchor light chief among them.  The one guy we've had down to the boat has been pretty good but he was quick to tell us that he doesn't go up the mast under any circumstances.  He explained that for that job we need to find a rigger.  We quickly got a referral to a guy who is reputedly one of the best  around and we gave him a call - and left a message.  We would soon discover this is standard operating procedure with marine service guys.  Nobody, under any circumstances, is immediately available to talk.  When we got a call back we told him what we wanted and he assured us he could do this without breaking a sweat but he couldn't guarantee when he could come.  We said no problem we can wait.  After about a month of waiting we started looking for someone else.  I found some professional looking websites that promised all manner of marine services and I made a few calls.  In every case I got either an answering machine or a service that featured a young lady who, between bubble gum chews, explained she had no idea what I was asking about and that I'd have to leave a message.  This I did and several days later we're still no closer to securing someone to replace our anchor light.

Apparently the marine service business in Vancouver is very good indeed.