Friday night as we were pulling in to New Bern an old
friend called to invite me out sailing on Saturday on his
boat, a Columbia 8.7 which he has restored beautifully.

Great wind all week, then Saturday morning there was only a
light wind. So what, we were ghosting out the creek into the
river when my cell phone rang. It was Katysails, they were
out in Chanteuse just around the corner.

The wind died. We coasted to stop, then the boat kind of
spin at random. Good thing we weren't in a hurry. A faint
breeze started and enabled us to gybe over towards Katy &
Mr. Sails. We than started sailing along together, talking
about various pleasant things.

My friend also took some very good pictures of Chanteuse
with his Nikon digital camera, which I am hoping to get
copies of & forward to them.

It becamse apparent that the Kirie Elite is slightly faster
than the Columbia, at least in ghosting conditions... can't
say I was surprised. They pulled ahead and then tacked away
from Hampton Shoal, just as I was about to call & warn them.
The breeze continued to build and we sailed for another
couple of hours, taking some more pictures of other peoples
boats too. It would have been nice to stay longer, but my
wife was working on our own boat & I didn't want to leave
her in the lurch for the whole day.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King