Best Sailing Yet

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Sunday was supposed to be just a short trip to Point Malheureux. However, we got such an early start, and had such good conditions, we ended up going all the way to New Orleans, and anchored in a little cove on Lake Pontchartrain just before dark.

Other than motor-sailing the last hour as the sun set, and a couple hours to make it through the channel and bridges around Rigolets, we strictly sailed the whole day and averaged over 5 knots. On the 12 hour trip, we sailed exclusively, including off the anchor, for 9 hours, motor-sailed racing the sun for one hour, and motored through a restricted channel and bridges for two hours.

We started the day sailing both on and off the wind as we followed the channel across the Mississippi and Borge Bays, but only had to tack or jibe about 5 times -- we made Rigolets by 1430. However, once we got onto Lake Pontchartrain, we were able to stay on the port tack the rest of the way. We even made close to hull speed part of the time on a close reach. Later, after the winds started to die down a bit, we still averaged well over 5 knots.

With good winds and relatively calm seas the entire day, I had plenty of time to try different things to see what worked and what didn't. I still don't think I'm very good at it, but I was able to balance the rig and get her to sail with about 3° of weather helm -- she definitely needs at least 10-15 knots of wind though. That amount if wind and weather helm made the wind vane more effective and kept a better, straighter, course.