08 May 2009

But We'll Get Wet

"Of course we will. We always get wet when we go sailing."

Five guys standing around the parking lot drinking beer on a rainy evening. "What, no sailing today?" I guess all they needed was a sixth to fill the third boat and make it obvious that sailing was still a good idea despite the weather. I've found that rigging and unrigging in the rain is a bit sloppy, but once out on the water, you don't even notice it coming down. Kinda weird actually.

Since the races for the night had already been called off, we decided to just go out and mess around so as not to tick off those who had packed it in and gone home. Turned out to be great fun. We had an unusual and shifty southerly whispering across the Strait and a rather strong flood. Made for some interesting tactics as we chased each other over to the Martinez Marina and back. The return trip was particularly strange. As the wind begin to wane it was nearly impossible to make any real progress out in the middle of the river. So, we footed off to the North shore where we found some current relief, maybe even a little eddy, and scooted on back to Benicia. Didn't even notice it was raining until we pulled the boats out. :-)

2 comments:

Dean Fulton said...

Sometimes a little push is all that's needed. More fun in dealing w/ the currents in The Carquinez Straits. Last week's big flood made the ebb this week extra exciting. That leeward mark seemed to take forever to get to. At least it wasn't raining - not that anybody would have noticed anyway...

Mal Kiely [Lancelots Pram] said...

I've had some amazingly memorable experiences sailing in the rain. enjoy :)