Sailing on My Birthday

It was fantastic! Good winds. It started out warm but got humid and chilly later in the sail. Bill (Popeye as he is known around here) went with us. Charl showed Brett an area we could sail with our deep 5'8" keel. We had always thought we needed to stay in the channel which limited our sailing during certain winds. But discovering this new area was wonderful and opened up a lot more sailing opportunities for us.

We motored out to the channel and thew up the main sail. I had brought our GPS with us so we could monitor our speed. We averaged around 3 knots so we threw up the Genoa.


The Genoa is a large forsail. Genoas are different than Jibs in that they are larger, and usually overlap the main sail. Our boat carries 4 Genoas. This particular Genoa is called a "130%". It means that it is 100% forsail with a 30% overlap on the main. We have a 120, 130, 150, 170! This one is a very light dacron material weight. We sped up to around 6.5 knots with the Genoa. She heeled more than with just the main but she was easy to walk on and very smooth! Even with the horrible main sail shape, we still did very well!

During our second tack with the genoa, I looked up and saw a huge tear near the top of the genoa. I hollered to the guys about it and we all three worked quickly to bring the sail down before the tear worsened. We are pretty sure it tore on our radar tower. We knew this might happen but we got anxious to use the foresails and paid for it. We ended up with about a 3ft tear, not on a seam either, near the top of the sail. It took a bit for us to all get her down. This particular kind of tear is difficult to patch but it can be done. There were already 2 other repairs on that thin sail from previous sails. We had another genoa with us, the thick, small one, and so Bill and I heaved the torn sail into the vee berth and Brett helped me haul out the other genoa into the cockpit. As we were handing it to Bill, we saw the rip. It had a rip too! It was small but using it would make the tear worse, so we had to bail on a forsail for the rest of the trip.

Other than the torn sail, it was a SPLENDID time! I got to drive a lot but had allergies so I didn't drive too much. I did run the lines and hoist up the mainsail though. It takes all I got to get those sails going so I have more arm strength to gain.














Before we went sailing, D'na brought me over a lemon dessert that I LOVE. That was SO sweet of her to make it just for me! I got a card and gift from Roger and Jo , friends of ours here at the park, too. It was so lovely to be treated by my friends here at Serendipity.








After sailing, we were invited to the yacht club for dinner. Mary Lou, Bill, Russell, Mary Lee, Steve and Pam brought gifts and made a fantastic dinner! It was awesome. We visited with them from 5pm to 10pm. Steve and Pam finalized the purchase of their boat on my birthday, too, so it was a double celebration at the yacht club last night! With the sailing and my friends here at the park, and Brett being so sweet and talking with my family, I felt super blessed. This was definitely one of my best birthdays that I'll never forget!