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Christian Allaire's Sailing Life: Atlantic City to Cape May New Jersey

Posted 1 year, 9 months ago

Christian Allaire's Sailing Life: Atlantic City to Cape May New Jersey
Well I lost a great asset this morning in John Gamble. Sadly I dropped him at the Trump Marina this morning and left him waving on the dock. He was a great shipmate and even humped the trash off the boat. I cleared the Inlet out of Atlantic City around 7am for the first leg of my journey solo. The conditions were lumpy with a SE breeze which put me hard on the wind. The forecasted 10 knots were closer to 15 with about a 3 to 5 foot chop. Christa is a Westsail32 and clearly not known for her ability to point into the wind. She is very wide in the hips and broad on the bow. When bashing into waves Christa more or less plows into them vice cutting through. This hinders progress to windward. To overcome this it's required that you crack on as much sail as possible to keep her powered up. The issue with this is healing, I was rail down most of the day with a single reef in the main and the jib unrolled. This puts a strain on all gear but is the price you must pay. We made adequate progress, averaging 4 to 5 knots. As the day wore on I was able to ease the sheets and bring the wind further abaft the bow. She liked that and so did I. I get so jazzed observing the boat doing what it's designed to do. So a good day. Full Story »

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