30-JUN-03 - FIRST SAIL



30-JUN-03 - Well I finally have my sail fixed and am ready to go. It's a perfect day for sailing for a begginer. Overcast with a light wind. I left the house a little before 11:00AM and took Little Squirt down to the Glenwood dock. I had installed a boat kit to my Canadian Tire trailer so now I could set up my sailing rig ashore. Previously the rig would have scratched up the car so I used to have to do this in the water. I also had attached all of the pulleys to D-Rings. Instead of having to put the lines through the pulleys I would leave the pulleys on the line and just use the D-rings to remove the pulleys from the boat. This greatly sped up the setup time. I was on the water at 11:20AM. I had installed a pulley on the bottum of the mast and another aft of the mast and on the starboard side of the forward deck. I had a cleat on the starboard deck close to where I was in the cockpit. By running the line for raising the sail through the pulleys and tieing it off on the cleat I could raise or lower the sail from the cockpit. This made it much easier to set up the sail and adjust it while under way. I highly recommend it.

Normally the wind blew towards me so that sailing out of the outflow was very difficult. Today it blew the opposite way and I had no trouble sailing up the outflow towards Gander Lake. The wind was light so I was going very slowly, but every now and then I would get a gust of wind which sent Little Squit going at a nice speed. At times I think I was going faster then I would with the engine. I reached the opening to Gander Lake and sailed up gander lake towards little harboour a little ways. Not very far however since it was 1:30PM and I was hungry.

I didn't go ashore. I wanted to eat on the water. I got my $15.00 electric kettle and put my can of beans in it. I then plugged it into my boat and let it heat for 15 minutes. I then ate them with a bun and water to drink. Except for the little bit at the bottum of the can the beans were still cold. And the little bit at the bottum was only luke warm. My kettle is hereby out of a job. I'll have to find another way to heat food while on the water.

I tried to sail back but the wind was going the wrong way and it kept dieing out. After about a hour of tacking I still had not gotten out of Gander Lake and into the outflow. I finally gave up and took down the sail. I motored back at power level 5. I have discovered there is no benifit of running my electric motor at anything but full power. At whatever level you use you use the same amount of electricity to get the same distance. I tried the sail a couple of times on the way back but only for a few minutes each time. It just wasn't working out. I got back about 4:30PM. I had completed what was probably my most successful cruise.



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