WOW

Wow, is all I keep saying every time we hoist the new sails.  We are in Lake Worth and heading for Miami tomorrow for a few days.

Sailing from Fort Pierce to Lake Worth, we actually tacked down the coastline.  The winds were 10-15 knots from the SE.  We didn't make it all the way, but sailed more than half the distance before we fired up to make it in before dark.

LIFT:  You may remember a previous post talking about the under body and the lift required to avoid excessive leeway when heading to windward.  Kris, at Haarstick, said he was hoping the news sails would help eliminate some of that leeway, and it did.  It is one of those things when you are sailing to windward in the 7 knot range, you think your sails are performing well.  Therefore, I forgot about the lift in sails and how that can help with leeway.

When you think of an old Dacron sail and how the draft has moved aft, you realize that you have created lift at a 90 degree angle to the boat.  This forces the under body to do all the work to try and force your boat forward, instead of sideways.  When your draft is located forward of mid-sail, than you are creating lift that helps to pull your boat in a more forward direction. With the new sails, I can actually see the draft and adjust it to the position required for the point of sail and wind strength.  With our old sails being so stretched, I could not do anything to adjust the sail.

In similar conditions, with our old sails, we were seeing 10-15 degrees of leeway.  This was giving us 65 degree tacking angles.  This will take longer, or as we found out last spring, even never make it to your destination.  With our new sails, we are seeing 3-6 degrees of leeway now.  Still not perfect, but such a great improvement that we felt comfortable tacking down the coastline.  Never thought that would happen with a fully loaded cruising catamaran.  Many monohulls passed us motor-sailing in a straight line and we saw them later in the same anchorage.
                 

 Kent and Jane took some pictures as they PASSED us in their new Cat-Trawler.  You can't see it, but I am wearing my Turtle Towing Service shirt since every time we come across Kent, he passes us.  Towing a turtle is a good excuse for going slow.

 I thought this was a cool picture.  We are sailing in only 3 knots of wind on the Indian River.  It is one of our favorite parts of the trip down because you get flat water sailing and anchorages every 10 miles. So, I refuse to motor.

 Kent and Jane aboard Serenity (soon to be Rising Tide), their PDQ34 trawler.  Twin 100 Hp turbo charged Yanmar's.  I think I still don't have a prayer to beat them.

 The happy couple enjoying the great views from their flybridge.

 Rocket launch from Cape Canaveral.  We didn't know it was going to happen, and it took place right in front of us as we were heading down the ICW.  Couldn't get the camera out fast enough to get a better picture.  Found out later it was a satellite going up.    

All wooden sailboat with high gloss varnish everywhere.  I may like the smell of varnish, but that would be a little extreme.