The history on Weather underground for the area had the sustained winds around 22 mph and the gusts to 29 mph. When the forecast was for gusts to 35 I had decided not to go but then they dropped the forecast to gusts of 30 so I decided to go. It was a good trip. Beating out of the bay seemed to have the worst of the waves with the funnel effect of the bay. Waves in the bay at the North ramp were an occasional 3+ footer. I was glad I had the foul weather gear on as the occasional 1/2 bucket water got sprayed back to the cockpit. The Gaff rig handled superbly with the double reefed main and the staysail up. I was going 4.0 - 4.5 kts (GPS) while beating into the waves and the was actually able to accellerate during the 30 mph gusts. It was a hoot with the gust surges up to 5.7 knots As to the over night, I sailed the 5 miles NW up the lake to to a protected cove on the west side of Castle Creek. The winds had gotten even more eratic when I was on a reach up the lake. The winds seem to drop to 12 mph with sustained gusts to 30 mph. I have a lot to learn about anchoring in these deep mountain lakes. The cove I anchored in was only about 70s yard wide x 200 yards long but most of it was over 40 ft deep. Using my fish finder I found a 14 ft deep ridge across the cove with no underwater trees on either side. I dropped the anchor (15 lb CQR) on the up slope of the ridge. It held most of the night I thought but when the wind shifte to the Southwest in the AM the anchor line was pointing SW to a spot well away from where I dropped the anchor. I assumed the when the boat swung to the wind the anchor line had snagged a tree or something. I ignored it and started breakfast with the dread of sorting out a snagged anchor line. By the time I finished breakfast the stern was only about 10 feet from a rock wall. I went on deck to decrease the scope and pull us away from the wall. We got about 30 ft and the anchor line was straight up and down. Hmmm. I went back to the cockpit, cleaned up the dishes and got ready to wrestle the snagged anchor. In the meantime we had drifted back to within 10 ft of the rock wall. I started up the engine and went to wrestle with the anchor only to find the it was not actually touching the bottom. go figure. I was lucky this time. All in all it was a great trip. thanks, Doug ________________________________ From: Bill Kaiser <whkaiser@gmail.com> To: For and about Montgomery Sailboats <montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Sat, March 27, 2010 9:46:28 AM Subject: M_Boats: Sailing AZ on Friday Shawn did you make it out yesterday? Doug Kelch and I made it out to lake Pleasant. I had a passenger Doug did not. Both mains double reefed he was able to fly one of his jibs we were main only up wind and reaching with the main and the storm jib. Doug looked good making his boat move. I haven't heard how the over night went. What was the wind blowing in Havasu? Bill Kaiser M 15 Desert Dawn _______________________________________________ http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/montgomery_boats Remember, there is no privacy on the Internet!