A windy outing

Today's third outing was a very windy business. With gusts reaching up to 5bf it was challenging to keep controll of Mic Mac singleahanded.

Todays training

For today's training I was accompanied by Denise, who did a great job as a passive crew and back up if things would have gone wrong. While we rigged up the boat, the predicted Bise started to build up and by the time we left the harbour and put up the sails, the Bise had reached full force.

I decided to put in the reef to deepower the boat.
After this, we went upwind and I practised a few tacks. The strong wind made it hard for me to keep a steady course. Often I had to deepower the main by easing the sails. While I adjusted the headsails, the boat often wanted to turn in to the wind and I had to be carfull not to let the tiller go for too long.

Going downwind, I was first afraid to use the spinnaker. I then practised some heavy weather gybes, by sheeting in the main before the gybe. During the gybe I controlled the tiller with my legs, so I could gybe the jib with my hands.

My confidence grew and I decided to put up the small spi.
The hoist went well and after some flapping and noise the boat accelerated under spinnaker. I soon learned that the downhaul becomes very important in this kind of wind, because the spinnaker rises up and needs to be held down to controll it.
Coming closer to the shore, I either had to take the spinnaker down or gybe away from the coast. I went for the gybe.
Going on a deep run, I eased the spi sheet and pulled back the brace/tangoon. It took me several attempts to adjust the spi the way I wanted it. Once this was done I went to the front and changed the tangoon on to the new side. Then, I went back to the cockpit and gybed the main.
One gybe was enough and I took the spi down and we sailed back to the port.
It was a great outing!!

Gybe from stb to port and spinnaker drop before going upwind again