Sailing south toward Turtle Bay

Date: Dec 4, 2013, Time: 1pm PST
30° 21' N 116° 50' W
Wind speed: 13 / wind dir: NW, Heading: 160, Speed: 5.7
Barometer: 1015, Water Temp: 63.5f
Log: 9758

I left Ensenada at 9:30am yesterday morning in light wind. I motored out toward the open ocean and by noon I had found some wind and was sailing upwind toward my destination. There was a big front to my west - a definite line of clouds, dark and grey - advancing toward me. The front came across me at around 3pm and the wind fell to 1 to 2 knots. I bobbed around for a while and then got fed up and motored SW across the front. Within 15 minutes I had found wind again and resumed sailing, this time on a beam reach. This wind lasted for around 40 minutes at which pint it fell off again. Then came back, then died again.

By 7:30 I had eaten dinner, washed up, done a few more chores and the wind was still nowhere to be seen. I was far enough off shore to wait the wind out this time. The weather forecasts I had before leaving indicated that there should have been a nice steady wind and I suspected that the front disturbed the local area and that eventually the wind would return.

At 3am the wind returned and I raised all my sails again. This wind held, and has held as I write this. 1/2 an hour ago I changed direction to head slightly more east and changed my sails to be wing-on-wing, with a poled out genoa. I'm moving nicely in 6 to 8 feet of swell, downwind and down swell.

The sun has come out, the sea is gradually warming. Everything is A-ok here.


* For land-lubbers. Wing-on-wing means the main and genoa are on different sides of the boat, with the wind almost directly behind. This configuration lets you sail deeper downwind than if the sails are both on the same side of the boat. A poled out genoa means the genoa is being held out and up by being attached to a pole from the front of my mast out toward the side at around a 45 degree angle (but horizontal.) If that's too much detail, its the sail combination that makes sense for lots of downwind sailing. There you go, a little more boat talk.

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