Project Jibsheet: Part One
Day One:
Okay, Day Zero, actually. The three of us took Good Friday off from work, and headed south in the morning. Thunderstorms in Atlanta made for a tricky day of flying; our flight out of MSP was delayed because ATL wasn't accepting landings. This meant missing our scheduled connection, and spending a couple of hours on standby for the next flights, all of which were fully booked.
Fortunately for us (and Rachel, a new traveller whom we adopted in ATL), there were a lot of other people missing their connections that day, and we got on the next flight out. Yay for happy endings, but boo for travel stress. Anyways, we arrived in Pensacola Beach around suppertime, and met briefly with Peg from Emerald Coast, who handed us off to Captain Bob to get acquainted with him and his boat (our home for the weekend). After a cursory introduction, we were free to go across the street for some supper, which we were very happy to see, as we'd not eaten since leaving the Twin Cities.
We got ourselves settled in the boat after dinner, and went to the store to pick up a few supplies (including a twelve-pack of Yuengling; if you've read the Key West story, you'll know that they bought a brewery in Florida a few years ago). We spent our first night bobbing alongside the dock in the marina. The wind was up (the beach had been closed to swimmers & surfers that day), so there was a fair bit of motion even in the protected waters of the marina. The dewpoint was very high, as well, which meant a lot of humidity and a good layer of moisture topside after sunset. An odd experience, but I was so wiped out from the day's travels that I slept pretty well. I think the others did the same.
Day One (for real this time): Saturday dawned fair and lovely. The three of us motored down the highway a little ways to the Native Cafe for breakfast, which turned out to be remarkably good. I just had pancakes, since I was leery of seasickness, but Fishtie had Eggs Benedict that he proclaimed to be quite good, and Lemur had an Apple & Raisin Oatmeal that she positively swooned over.
Back to the boat to meet Capt Bob at nine. Leems decided to explore the beach while we did our first day's sail, so we bid adieu to her and got ready to cast off. After some basic what-stuff-is-called instruction, we headed into the Sound with Bob and his boat.
Captain Bob: How to describe this man? Imagine a guy in his late forties, who has managed to maintain a surfer's physique and a shock of pale blonde hair. Sure, the hair's starting to go a bit white, and maybe his abs aren't as well defined as they once were, but honestly, you'd think this guy wasn't much older than we are. A racer to the core, he believes that it isn't enough to know how to perform a maneuver -- you have to perform it well. Consistently well. This means repeating maneuvers a lot, until he starts to seem more drill sergeant than sailing captain.
But behind the drive and focus of a racer and an athlete, he's also something of a renaissance man. He's a disciple of the prophet Jimmy Buffett; he's taught comparative religion at a local college for over 15 years. He owns the boat we're staying on (more on that later), and he's the proprietor of Floridaze Sailing (he's subcontracting with Emerald Coast for us because their other instructors were busy). He likes burgers and beers and beach girls and Buffett, but you can tell that his first love is the water. He's a hell of a guy, and a great instructor, and we took a mutual shine to each other right off the bat.
The Boat: We called her "Bob's Boat" through most of our stay, but her name is Florida Blanca. She's a 30-foot Sabre, built in 1988. Much like her owner, she seems much younger than her age. This link is to another boat, nearly identical, and since a picture's worth a thousand words, I won't go into further description. Suffice it to say that she was a pleasure to live aboard and a privilege to sail.
Back to Day One: we headed out into Santa Rosa Sound, where we headed west to practice tacking and jybing and to catch the start of the Commodore's Cup race. As luck would have it, the wind died when we got to the race start, and it was delayed for an hour, during which time we tried to find wind, picked up a few bits of floating trash (good exercise for boat handling, actually), and watched Fishtie chuck his breakfast over the transom. He was fine all morning (and the entire rest of the week), but bobbing around in the stillness got to him.
Anyways, the wind picked up after an hour, and we shadowed the start of the race before heading back to home base at Sabine Marina. Fish and I switched places for the run home, though I did maybe a dozen tacks and a pair of jybes on the winches, where he did probably three times that in the morning. Ah, well; such is life. We called Lemur, grabbed an early dinner of pizza on the boardwalk, and spent the evening cleaning up, studying our materials, and getting ready for the next day.
Day Two: Easter Sunday brought blustery winds, similar to what we saw when we arrived on Friday. Red flags on the beach (nobody allowed in the surf), spray blowing off the whitecaps -- not too great for sailing. After breakfast (at the Native; slow service due to church crowd), Fish and I took our ASA 101 test, reviewing important points with Bob both before and after the test. We passed, with scores in the high 90s. Captain Bob decides that we've performed well enough over the past day or so that he's going to take us back out into the Sound, even though it's "blowing stink" out there. Lemur, showing even less common sense than the captain, decides she'd like to come with us. So, after a brief but serious safety lecture and a lesson on how to reef the mainsail, we head into the weather.
It was a blast. Seriously, I think this was the most fun I had all week. We practiced reefing the sail (double-reefed, in fact), and felt what it was like to handle the boat in a stiff breeze. It was blowing 15 to 25 knots, with gusts over 30. Tacking the boat with just a reefed main was more challenging than one might think, and jybing it turned out to be more than we could handle, as Bob let the main get away from him on Fish's second jybe, and we broke one of the lines on the traveller. After that, we stuck to "chicken-jybing," which is the nautical equivalent of "two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do."
Tacking back toward the marina proved to be slow going, as the boat didn't head to wind very well under just the main. So Bob decided to unfurl the jib, which does a number of things. 1) the boat goes 2.5 kts faster, as the jib supercharges the main; B) we point to wind better by at least 10 degrees; iii) we tack more smartly, since a backwinded jib pushes the bow sideways with a quickness; and IV) we heel over an extra ten degrees or so. Lemur whooped and squealed a few times when the wind really caught us, but was a total trouper about the whole thing, which really seemed to impress our captain.
At the risk of repeating myself: standing at the helm, beating to windward against that breeze, was amazing. At no other point did I feel so connected to the boat and the sails and its relationship to the weather. It was like zipping along in the Hobie, except on a four-ton vessel with a keel and a proper sailplan. It was an absolute delight.
Back in the marina, Fish and I do some review and prep with Bob for the 103 exam. Burgers and Yuengling for dinner, and then back to the boat to clean up and hit the books. The weather deteriorated through the evening, so we kept a close watch for rain. In fact, I slept directly under the hatch in our cabin so that I'd be able to close it when the rain started.
Day Three: the rain hit around dawn, and with it came some angry wind and waves. After breakfast at the Native (notice a pattern?), we meet Bob at nine and take our 103 exam, which we again pass with flying colors. Okay, so Fish took a mulligan, but his colors flew in the end. After our exam, we got a head start on our charting skills (a 104 requirement), and then Bob calls an early dismissal, with a sailing decision to be made after lunch.
The weather did not improve. In fact, a really impressive thunderbolt hit nearby just as Bob was walking back to the boat. So he cancelled the afternoon session, and the three of us headed out to the naval air station to visit the National Naval Aviation Museum. It is a really cool museum, with excellent exhibits and staff. It's obvious that the people putting this together really care about their material, while at the same time it's professionally done, so you don't get the "earnest amateur" vibe so common at this kind of specialty museum. Best of all, admission is free (your tax dollars at work)! We had a really good time there, which more than made up for our disappointment at missing a day's sailing.
Monday night, we move our stuff over to the Lady Marian, which will serve as our home for the rest of the week. She's a 40-foot catamaran by Fountaine Pajot, launched in 2007, and she's a beauty. We take over the fore and aft cabins in the port hull, since the starboard hull is against the dock, and the lines and fenders squeak like a mofo in the bad weather. The galley and saloon are on the bridgedeck, which feels like a queer combination of a Winnebago and the starship Enterprise. Very posh, and very different from Florida Blanca. We also took the opportunity to buy some more groceries, including a 12-pack of Stella Artois to leave in Captain Bob's icebox as a show of thanks.
Okay, Day Zero, actually. The three of us took Good Friday off from work, and headed south in the morning. Thunderstorms in Atlanta made for a tricky day of flying; our flight out of MSP was delayed because ATL wasn't accepting landings. This meant missing our scheduled connection, and spending a couple of hours on standby for the next flights, all of which were fully booked.
Fortunately for us (and Rachel, a new traveller whom we adopted in ATL), there were a lot of other people missing their connections that day, and we got on the next flight out. Yay for happy endings, but boo for travel stress. Anyways, we arrived in Pensacola Beach around suppertime, and met briefly with Peg from Emerald Coast, who handed us off to Captain Bob to get acquainted with him and his boat (our home for the weekend). After a cursory introduction, we were free to go across the street for some supper, which we were very happy to see, as we'd not eaten since leaving the Twin Cities.
We got ourselves settled in the boat after dinner, and went to the store to pick up a few supplies (including a twelve-pack of Yuengling; if you've read the Key West story, you'll know that they bought a brewery in Florida a few years ago). We spent our first night bobbing alongside the dock in the marina. The wind was up (the beach had been closed to swimmers & surfers that day), so there was a fair bit of motion even in the protected waters of the marina. The dewpoint was very high, as well, which meant a lot of humidity and a good layer of moisture topside after sunset. An odd experience, but I was so wiped out from the day's travels that I slept pretty well. I think the others did the same.
Day One (for real this time): Saturday dawned fair and lovely. The three of us motored down the highway a little ways to the Native Cafe for breakfast, which turned out to be remarkably good. I just had pancakes, since I was leery of seasickness, but Fishtie had Eggs Benedict that he proclaimed to be quite good, and Lemur had an Apple & Raisin Oatmeal that she positively swooned over.
Back to the boat to meet Capt Bob at nine. Leems decided to explore the beach while we did our first day's sail, so we bid adieu to her and got ready to cast off. After some basic what-stuff-is-called instruction, we headed into the Sound with Bob and his boat.
Captain Bob: How to describe this man? Imagine a guy in his late forties, who has managed to maintain a surfer's physique and a shock of pale blonde hair. Sure, the hair's starting to go a bit white, and maybe his abs aren't as well defined as they once were, but honestly, you'd think this guy wasn't much older than we are. A racer to the core, he believes that it isn't enough to know how to perform a maneuver -- you have to perform it well. Consistently well. This means repeating maneuvers a lot, until he starts to seem more drill sergeant than sailing captain.
But behind the drive and focus of a racer and an athlete, he's also something of a renaissance man. He's a disciple of the prophet Jimmy Buffett; he's taught comparative religion at a local college for over 15 years. He owns the boat we're staying on (more on that later), and he's the proprietor of Floridaze Sailing (he's subcontracting with Emerald Coast for us because their other instructors were busy). He likes burgers and beers and beach girls and Buffett, but you can tell that his first love is the water. He's a hell of a guy, and a great instructor, and we took a mutual shine to each other right off the bat.
The Boat: We called her "Bob's Boat" through most of our stay, but her name is Florida Blanca. She's a 30-foot Sabre, built in 1988. Much like her owner, she seems much younger than her age. This link is to another boat, nearly identical, and since a picture's worth a thousand words, I won't go into further description. Suffice it to say that she was a pleasure to live aboard and a privilege to sail.
Back to Day One: we headed out into Santa Rosa Sound, where we headed west to practice tacking and jybing and to catch the start of the Commodore's Cup race. As luck would have it, the wind died when we got to the race start, and it was delayed for an hour, during which time we tried to find wind, picked up a few bits of floating trash (good exercise for boat handling, actually), and watched Fishtie chuck his breakfast over the transom. He was fine all morning (and the entire rest of the week), but bobbing around in the stillness got to him.
Anyways, the wind picked up after an hour, and we shadowed the start of the race before heading back to home base at Sabine Marina. Fish and I switched places for the run home, though I did maybe a dozen tacks and a pair of jybes on the winches, where he did probably three times that in the morning. Ah, well; such is life. We called Lemur, grabbed an early dinner of pizza on the boardwalk, and spent the evening cleaning up, studying our materials, and getting ready for the next day.
Day Two: Easter Sunday brought blustery winds, similar to what we saw when we arrived on Friday. Red flags on the beach (nobody allowed in the surf), spray blowing off the whitecaps -- not too great for sailing. After breakfast (at the Native; slow service due to church crowd), Fish and I took our ASA 101 test, reviewing important points with Bob both before and after the test. We passed, with scores in the high 90s. Captain Bob decides that we've performed well enough over the past day or so that he's going to take us back out into the Sound, even though it's "blowing stink" out there. Lemur, showing even less common sense than the captain, decides she'd like to come with us. So, after a brief but serious safety lecture and a lesson on how to reef the mainsail, we head into the weather.
It was a blast. Seriously, I think this was the most fun I had all week. We practiced reefing the sail (double-reefed, in fact), and felt what it was like to handle the boat in a stiff breeze. It was blowing 15 to 25 knots, with gusts over 30. Tacking the boat with just a reefed main was more challenging than one might think, and jybing it turned out to be more than we could handle, as Bob let the main get away from him on Fish's second jybe, and we broke one of the lines on the traveller. After that, we stuck to "chicken-jybing," which is the nautical equivalent of "two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do."
Tacking back toward the marina proved to be slow going, as the boat didn't head to wind very well under just the main. So Bob decided to unfurl the jib, which does a number of things. 1) the boat goes 2.5 kts faster, as the jib supercharges the main; B) we point to wind better by at least 10 degrees; iii) we tack more smartly, since a backwinded jib pushes the bow sideways with a quickness; and IV) we heel over an extra ten degrees or so. Lemur whooped and squealed a few times when the wind really caught us, but was a total trouper about the whole thing, which really seemed to impress our captain.
At the risk of repeating myself: standing at the helm, beating to windward against that breeze, was amazing. At no other point did I feel so connected to the boat and the sails and its relationship to the weather. It was like zipping along in the Hobie, except on a four-ton vessel with a keel and a proper sailplan. It was an absolute delight.
Back in the marina, Fish and I do some review and prep with Bob for the 103 exam. Burgers and Yuengling for dinner, and then back to the boat to clean up and hit the books. The weather deteriorated through the evening, so we kept a close watch for rain. In fact, I slept directly under the hatch in our cabin so that I'd be able to close it when the rain started.
Day Three: the rain hit around dawn, and with it came some angry wind and waves. After breakfast at the Native (notice a pattern?), we meet Bob at nine and take our 103 exam, which we again pass with flying colors. Okay, so Fish took a mulligan, but his colors flew in the end. After our exam, we got a head start on our charting skills (a 104 requirement), and then Bob calls an early dismissal, with a sailing decision to be made after lunch.
The weather did not improve. In fact, a really impressive thunderbolt hit nearby just as Bob was walking back to the boat. So he cancelled the afternoon session, and the three of us headed out to the naval air station to visit the National Naval Aviation Museum. It is a really cool museum, with excellent exhibits and staff. It's obvious that the people putting this together really care about their material, while at the same time it's professionally done, so you don't get the "earnest amateur" vibe so common at this kind of specialty museum. Best of all, admission is free (your tax dollars at work)! We had a really good time there, which more than made up for our disappointment at missing a day's sailing.
Monday night, we move our stuff over to the Lady Marian, which will serve as our home for the rest of the week. She's a 40-foot catamaran by Fountaine Pajot, launched in 2007, and she's a beauty. We take over the fore and aft cabins in the port hull, since the starboard hull is against the dock, and the lines and fenders squeak like a mofo in the bad weather. The galley and saloon are on the bridgedeck, which feels like a queer combination of a Winnebago and the starship Enterprise. Very posh, and very different from Florida Blanca. We also took the opportunity to buy some more groceries, including a 12-pack of Stella Artois to leave in Captain Bob's icebox as a show of thanks.