Of course I pretty much knew it would happen when we left the slip.
About the only area that wasn't dark gray with T-storms was right above
us. My ex-girlfriend's father recently died, so this was a short.sail
for her and her sister. Winds were only topping off at 15-17 knots or
so, and I hauled up the big main. Naturally 20 minutes later we really
needed to reef, but I just cracked off on a broad reach. I think it was
only blowing 16-18 knots, but I knew there would be more. The Long
Island Sound can really get boiling on some days. No big swells, but
some nasty and confused chop. North of us was a large dark mass of
cloud cover and I could tell we'd probably get a piece of it. Suzanne
took the helm and I managed to reef down. I never watched to see the
windspeed after that. We were really cooking, probably making 7 knots,
catching some spray and it was really fun! Then, WHAM!!! A nice T-Storm
whacked us, layed the boat over for a few moments. Suzanne, the girls
and Thomas went below for the foulies. Thomas was having the most fun,
yelling a dramatic "Whoaaa!!" whenever the boat heeled sharply.
The 35s5 was really fun in these conditions, even when the brief rain
came. I doubt winds went much above 30 knots, but it was a blast. She
felt light, yet sure and responded to the helm nicely. A couple of
times I headed up too much, then fell off. You could really feel as she
shot off downwind.
More storms were coming I'm sure, but we only had a couple of hours to
sail. When we got back to the slip my friend was just getting ready to
head out with his Tayana. I told him about our bit of action and he
said they'd gotten a bit of rain and almost no heavy winds like that.
This morning he e-mailed me and said he'd been hit with 40 knot winds
when he got to Execution rocks. Ya gotta love the Long Island Sound on
days like that!
BTW, other boats were out sailing and I saw more coming out to play as
we packed up the main. Great sailing day...just way too short!


RB
35s5
NY