July 3 - Floras Lake

3673km

Langlois, OR, USA - Floras Lake

Sailworks Retro 5.5, Goya Bolt 95, MFC KP-RC-360, JP Freestyle Wave 77, Black Project 26 plus two 10 side fins. Wind: 15G28 knots, then blown off water.

Personal Training Camp Day 5. Goal for today was 'hang on'

Short session cuz, just cuz.

Wind was forecast to ramp up today, which it did. Figured, based on yesterday's muscle cramping that I would not last very long so waited for wind to become stable. Launched around 2:30 PM on the 5.5/95 with winds gusting to 27-28 knots. This was at my upper comfort level for the 5.5 but doable - and the wind was still a little gusty. Made a psuedo-speed run just in case but blew the jibe. Made a run back to the east, actually made the jibe. OK, 'speed' and alpha were both in the can, actual number values were irrelevant. Decided to try the FSW 77 for a  quick comparison. Had to open up the footstraps just a tad for the new booties which cause some futzing around. By then the wind was starting to ratcheted upward and the holes filled in. The FSW was yippie-skippie time bouncing over the chop and being twitchy, but also fun in an adrenaline rush sort of way, which required some standing around after blown jibes in order to calm down. By about 3:30 it was clear that soon I would be more than an accident waiting to happen (of course, took one launch to convince me) and the wind had ramped up to gusts over 30 knots. Time to bag it. One more run, made the jibe, OK, homeward bound. A fellow sailor, Jim, about my size, was on a small Open Ocean glass board and a 4.2 and also decided enough was enough... and the wind just kept slowly ramping up for the rest of the afternoon. I had experienced enough, no need to rig down and get trashed.

Learnings: The FSW is obviously more controllable in 28-30 knot winds than the Bolt 95 but being so light, it was surprisingly twitchy (or should I say agile) in these conditions and didn't provide a whole lot of 'stick me to the water' help when a gust would hit. While these conditions provide some 'excitement', from a speed standpoint, I would rather sail in 10 knots less wind as I could go about the same speed (and faster) with a lot less effort.