Chasing Arthur

What do you do after a hurricane passes? Go out in a sailboat of course.

My son Jon and his girlfriend Lyndsey visited us for the Fourth of July weekend (my birthday), and actually agreed to do an overnight sail with us.  This is a big deal because:

• My son is not a big fan of sailing
• We've never had guests stay overnight with us onboard before.

It turned out to be a bigger deal because the trip up to Salem was pretty extreme sailing.  The forecasts underestimated the wind by... a lot.  We were seeing True winds peak out in the low 40s.  Even Argon was a bit over powered and we ended up with nothing but a reefed Jib and we were struggling a bit.

This was definitely not a sail for inexperienced sailors to be on, but Jon and Lyndsey were absolute troopers about it.

At one point, Linda lost control of a Jib sheet and we had a pretty violent thrashing of the jib happen as well as a very sore and swollen wrist for Linda.  Later on, we noticed that the lowest batten pocket for the jib had torn open and the batten was gone! I assume it happened during this fiasco.

At this point my son says "And you find this relaxing?"  Well, not really at the moment.

When we finally pulled into Salem harbor, the winds were still up in the 30s. We watched a power boat try 5 times to catch a mooring next to us (we nailed it first try).

Birthday present testing
Jon got me a hammock from REI which can be tied up between the forestay and the mast. It's awesomely comfortable. It is also popular.

 

 

Jenga on a Sailboat
Definitely adds an element of challenge.  We eventually switched to blackjack and Jon cleaned up the table (winning a huge pot of fender washers from the spares kit).

Jon and Lyndsey went ashore on the Launch to explore Salem. Later we all went in for dinner at Fins. Much yumminess was had.

Linda in Sick Bay with her sore wrist on ice

Not a great picture but you can see the torn batten pocket on the jib