So after a season of sailing them, how do you like the Excite?

Do you need wet suits to sail them?

How about a boat review for us?


The Housatonic River where I sailed as a youth in a centerboard
Mercury is the not the best place to sail a 30 keelboat with 4.5'
draft. San Francisco is a far better place since grounding is never a
problem. Currents in the Housatonic River get over 6 knots on the
ebb--I've heard numbers as high as 9 knots after a heavy rain--which I
didn't believe when I first heard it. Now I'm not so skeptical.

I spent most of the summer away on business and did not sail much this
year. In half a dozen sailing adventures, I've managed to run HOOT
aground 6 out of 6 times in the river.

Some boats are easy to clear a grounding-the 23' Ensign for example.
It was interesting to learn that Etchells are very hard to free on a
grounding. Usually I see groundings are training excercises for my
crew. Not in this case.

I'm the only dry sailed keelboat at the Boat Club that tacks in and
out of the river. The other dry sailors consist of a fleet of J-24's
that use their outboards. Not having a engine gives me the excuse to
sail in and out of the river. I thoroughly enjoy dodging the parade
of power boats going either in or out depending on the wind direction.
And so far few of the power boaters have gotten mad at me--I think
this is because the boat is so pretty and I make a effort to stay out
of the way. Still they can make it difficult when they stack up
close together where the channel is very narrow. I'm still not fully
comfortable with the shoal areas. I try to depart on a rising tide
because the potential to sink the boat if grounded on a falling tide
with any kind of chop is very real.

Etchells are very stiff boats and it's nearly impossible to get them
off a grounding with body weight alone to heel them over. Nor does
kedging seem to work. Saturday, I was very surprised to touch bottom
because we were very close to the edge of the channel in an area I
thought was safe. I used the wind--sheeting the main in hard and
backwinding the jib to point downwind, combined with weight to leeward
to free myself.

It is against the class rules to install a depth sounder, but I'd be a
fool not to. That is something for next season.

Bart Senior

On Sun, 26 Oct 2003 10:58:01 GMT, "Pony Express"
wrote:

Ok, now try that in a 10' dinghy like the Xcite.
The morning was dead, but then about noon it
picked up and was blowing up to 22.
(http://www.millersismd.com/home/millers_island_md
.htm) Water temp is about 55°.
We're running a level 1 instructor training class.
We've got two young girls from Barnegat Bay that
are hot sailors. What a blast racing against
them!