wild ride on a windy Sunday

[Jeff Pierson]

Launched my boat yesterday at the ramp in downtown Jacksonville, and sailed with two experienced hands on the St. Johns River with
winds of 20-35mph out of the west, 1.5-2 ft chop, what a wild ride with standard jib only and board down, we sailed for a couple of hours reaching most of the time, as fast as you would care to sail. The boat handled it well, and after ducking into Pirate's cove, by the Florida Yacht Club, for a bite of lunch while anchored, we sped back the 8 miles or so to the ramp through the chop at WOT, only to discover that the ramp at dead low, full moon tide is really hard to use as there is only about a foot and a half of water covering it before it drops off into the deep, soft mud, lol, another great day on the water. The Mac 19 is a fine daysailor under demanding conditions, I'm glad to have found mine, and I'm excited about the possiblities as the season gets underway here in the south.
Hope you'll forgive the blabberings of a Mac newbie.

[LCB]

Jeff,

Good show!! I know that great feeling, and how it is to look foreward to even more of the same.

Interestingly, it seems that you accomplished more in your Mac 19, than, (Judgeing from much of the content of the "Pacific Ocean section of this Discussion Board), can be safely equaled in the Mac 26X.

Don't make too many rules, just go and enjoy.

Russ

[LCB]

Jeff,

Rethought my closeing comment. I think it would be better said,

Don't impose too many rules on yourself, You handled the last situation you will handle the next, experience and enjoy.

Russ

[Dimitri-2000X-Tampa]

I was out on that same Sunday with 15 mph Westerlies in Tampa Bay. Decided I was too lazy to uncover and hoist the mainsail (plus, one of my slugs is broken and I need to replace it) so I sailed with Genoa only. Although I've been sailing for a long time in other boats, its taken me quite a few months to figure out CB sailing on a Mac but I think I'm finally getting there. I used to have trouble tacking with just the headsail up until I figured out my board wasn't down enough (with some help from the folks on this board). With the board all the way down, she handles pretty well with Genoa only in that kind of wind. 10-15 degrees of heel and speeds from about 4.5-6 mph. I suppose I could have gotten a couple more mph with the main up as well. There was a smaller boat (22-24) out with mainsail only and I was clearly beating him with genoa only but I did have some sail area advantage going. I'm still in my first year of Mac sailing and have gotten up to around 8 mph before but I'm hoping to go even faster in the future. I suppose theoretically anyway, this boat should be able to plane off with enough wind but I still haven't been out in over-20 conditions with her.