Jazz, The key to a stress-free reef is to heave to with the Genoa backed and the helm strapped to leeward. With a little practice this is pretty easy to do, and when you're hove to the boat will ride nice and easy even in a good blow and you can tie in the reef at your leisure. Or just stay hove to and crack a cold one. 😊 Have fun, Rick M17 #633 Lynne L On Friday, March 4, 2016, Jazzy <jazzydaze@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi All! I took your advice and went sailing! It was looking dark and gloomy and I was ready for weather, but it turned out to be a beautiful day! It was pretty windy for my first time really sailing El Nino, but it was fine. There was water splashing everywhere outside the boat, but hardly a drop hit me. Very dry, very impressive. You'll see how the sail went with the link below. The video doesn't do the wind justice at all. I'd say it would have been right on the edge of what the Snipe could handle single handed. But really not that big a deal on the Monty.
After getting back in, I spent a little time tooling around the harbor and practicing some boat handling. Some one on here told me it was quite dinghy like earlier... I have to agree! No problem.
Also, on the way in, I put the rudder in its up position ( as in old school up, 2 pintles) and started hugging the coast line very slowly. The bottom was RIGHT there, but on I went. Probably 2 ft. The depth finder wasn't registering any depth at all. Would have been easy peasy to hop out and wade to shore. I was like 6-7 feet away.
All in all a cool day. Enjoy the video, I just cobbled it together really fast, so don't expect any short film awards! Give it a minute to load, its a much bigger file than a picture.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/upwvj9py95lzrit/El%20Nino%20Rides.mp4?dl=0
- Cpt. Jazz :)