Novice quandry

graeme

graeme

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14 Sep 2004
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I inherited my 19'er in the summer, did my Comp Crew (plus a bit more) a few months ago and sailed it down to Sunderland with a hired skipper last month. I've been itching to get out on it, but having vowed not to take it out in more than F4 to begin with, I've yet to see any wind less than this! The weekend forecast is F4/5 - reckon its not too risky to take it out (maybe with a storm jib and heavily reefed main) - I can even stick within the harbour! I just want to try putting it on and on its berth before I get too rusty.

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go for it, of course. suggest though that you resist temptation to go further. it may seem very civilised in the harbour but will be a lot nastier outside.

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Don't know Sunderland, but looking at it on Multimap it does look to have a fairly large and well protected harbour - I'd agree that you should have a good sail even in quite strong winds within this. Your suggestion of storm jib and well reefed main is prob better than jib alone, which will give a very unbalanced feel to the boat, which probably won't tack (because all the sail in front of the mast is trying to push the bow down to leeward, without any mainsail to balance that effect at the other end of the boat).

Don't forget that weather forcasts are inherently rather unpredictable, too. From a very quick glance at the charts I'd say you might well experience quite a bit less than that at times, esp on Saturday. But equally it might be more. See what other boats are doing, then try it and see. If its definitely much too windy then try again later in the day - don't forget the wind often drops a bit at dusk, also tends to increase in strength as a rain shower comes through.

Good luck.

Cheers
Patrick

<hr width=100% size=1>Sailing a Victoire 25 on the Scottish West Coast
 
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