Our August sailing day saw several WBA members on the lake, in blustery conditions. After my first trip around the island, with Ethan, I decided that reefing would be a sensible step. Detatching the booms, furling the sails around the mast, and then reattaching the snotter through the reefing points and connecting the booms again is a lot faster with the new setup I’m using, but is still a bit cumbersome. To a certain extent, I think this might be a matter of lack of practice - very much a matter of use it or lose it, as I haven’t been doing much sailing recently... With the sails reefed, Pitthirrit handled well, and still pointed upwind quite reasonably, so I’m happy with the way I have arranged things now.

The winds were quite strong at times, with a few boats on the lake capsizing, but none of ours - just... (but that’s another story, for someone else to tell). Those with boats took out members who arrived without boats, so most who came for the day managed to get out onto the water. Peter Murphy and his son showed up with a very nifty nesting Eastport pram. Lunch on the verandah was a great time to catch up with friends and share a few stories and ideas. The weather is improving, and we are hoping to see even more members at coming sailing days.
Peter

 Thanks to Steve Taylor and Ethan Urch for photos