regularman
New Member
I took my C14 sailing all last week on vacation in VA on Smith Mountain Lake. Its a big lake with a bout 50 miles of navigable water. Last Monday there was a slight chance of showers and we put on the rain gear and went out because the winds weren't that bad, it was a little on the cool side though (low 60s). We sailed for a couple hours and its spit rain a couple times and then it downpoured on us for about 30 minutes while we were about 3 miles from the dock. There was water pouring off of everything, but the winds were not bad so we sailed on. Then after the rain stopped it got calm for a few minutes then the wind built up to about 15 knots gusting to around 20 at times I would guess. As soon as the wind started to build to where I did not have enough butt to balance out, I furled the jib. It was till hard to balance the boat and the GPS said we were doing close to 10mph with the main sheet out all the way on the best and most stable point of sail I could find( we could not sail downwind due to the layout of the lake). This was not fun because it was also spitting rain still and was damn cold by now. The wind slacked for a couple seconds and I was then able to pull my mains'l reef on the tack and clew and this made an incredible difference. Due to the strong wind I was not able to tie the reef points so it did not look pretty but it was most effective. Our speed dropped to just under 7mph and we could balance the boat fairly easily then and this dropped my and my wifes stress level a lot. When we got back close to our dock, we dropped the main the rest of the way and tried to tie it up as best we could but its real hard when the wind is whipping and gusting like that. With the main tied up fairly well we then had the wind at our back turning into the cove where our dock is and we were still doing better than 3 mph under no sail! We got right up to the dock and I cut the boat sideways and we managed to blow up to the dock without turning over. The wind was blowing leaves off the trees and it was difficult getting her on the trailer. As soon as we got her out of the water of course the wind died down, but my wife was not game for any more sailing on that day The rest of the week we had winds between 3- 10 knots and had a great time. The last day we had to hunt wind most of the day and just ghosted around but thats ok too.