Good advice. If I listened earlier,
I wouldn't be here. But that's just the trouble with me. I give
myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it. Alice
in Wonderland.
The last few weeks have been showery in
Cairns. Yesterday it actually rained 60 mm which in Nelson would
have been huge, but, truthfully, I hardly noticed it here. I have
spent the last few days hunched over a sewing machine (thank you Dee)
making our new sails. After a few rollicking adventures with our one
metre square sails in 20 to 30 knot winds, we spent some time
designing and testing modifiable sails. Eventually, we settled on a
three stage design that allows us to progressively decrease our sail
size from one metre square to about 30 to 35 cm square (I'm not
exactly sure where in that range our smallest sail falls) by removing
the top segments of the sail.
Lace Monitor in Shoalhaven Gorge, NSW
Preliminary tests indicate that the
reduction in sail size from one metre square to 65 cm square (our
largest to medium) makes very little difference in the speed with
which we travel, and, in really strong winds we may actually be just
as fast with the smaller sail as less energy is expended preventing
the boat from broaching and trying to avoid a capsize. With our
smaller sails, we hope to be able to sail in strong winds and not
have to raft up as we did when we sailed from High Island to Fitzroy Island in December.
This past week has had two watershed
(continuing the sea kayak theme) events for me. One was finishing
the sails which we had been working on (if you count all the testing,
pattern making, modifications, etc.) for a couple of months, the
second was getting five consecutive eskimo rolls at my last session
at Freshwater. After months of studying books, videos, coaching,
corrections, and failed attempts, to come up five times in a row on
the first attempt felt pretty good.
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