The Eclipse sailing today

[alsantini]

A top ten day today on the Gulf of Mexico.  Virtually not a cloud in the sky, 10 to 12 mph steady winds and 2 great friends along.  Today was the reason why I bring Off the Wind to Florida.  I arrived at the Venice Train Station ramp around 9:15AM and stepped the mast, etc to get ready for sailing.  First friend arrived around 9:45, we launched and motored to the second friends dock, about a mile North.  Once we had everyone we headed South toward the Venice Jetty.  We raised the main and motor sailed out to the Gulf.  With the wind out of the West we turned North and unfurled the Genoa.  My chart plotter said 3.5 mph which in less than an hour was up to 4.3 mph.  We had 1 foot rollers that the Eclipse cut through.  My friends both own Precisions (a 21 and a 23).  Both were amazed at the lack of any pounding as we sliced our way.  Halfway to Sarasota, we tacked with a bit of a wind shift to the NW.  With the wind at our back a bit we pulled up the board, let out the sails and locked the tiller.  For about a half hour OtW just continued along at over 4 mph as we had lunch and a beer.  We sailed down to Sharkey's at the South end of Venice, turned and headed in.  All in all we covered close to 20 miles (19.62) in the 5 hours we were out.  What a great boat, a great day and wonderful friends.  This was a sail to remember for all those times we get skunked or drowned with rain.  What have you guys been up to?  Al   Sail On

[GeorgeH]

Al and all, from the other side of FL:   Silvergirl, aka #59, had a great sail on the skinny in depth and width Indian River Lagoon between Sebastian and Grant. A NE wind around 10ish, just a few clouds for contrast, gave us an unusual day of little tacking.  Crew was Potter (19) Bill.  Hardest thing was heading back to marina around 5 PM.  We even had a "hat overboard drill".   We see many sailboats heading south in late fall, north in early spring on the ICW, but few are under sail.  Over the the years we have found many places in the lagoon's skinny water perfectly suited for an Eclpise.

As you say, Al, we're sailing on!
George

[Vectordirector]

Hi Al,

Glad you are enjoying the boat.  Thursday with a forecast of E winds @ 10 knots I thought I'd take the Eclipse out as I hadn't sailed her in a month or so.  Motored out of Ponce into a nice 6 knots out of the west and I immediately knew that the weather was "different" than forecast.  That light breeze lasted until I got the sails up and then immediately died.  It was up and down between nothing and 3 knots all over the compass.  I bounced around on the power boat wakes for a half hour, sailed slowly for about an hour, then it died completely and I motored in.  I was joined by a dozen other sail boats waiting for anything to come up but it never did. 

Yesterday was forecast for calm here and that is what we got.  Today is 15 gusting to 20 so I'm hanging out by the pool. Tomorrow is supposed to be the same.  Monday looks good but we will see.   Arthur is out of commission for a month as he got shoulder replacement surgery a month ago.  He's doing better and improving every day.
Come sail with me sometime soon!

Vectordirector aka
Bryan

[captronr]

Glad you guys are getting out and enjoying some WARM weather.  Kansas weather is always wacky, and no different recently.  We escaped much of the snows that blasted the midwest.  The snows that typically hit western KS and eastern CO did do their damage, plus a few real accumulations.  More normally, western KS gets 1-3" of snow, plus 50 MPH winds.  If you could SEE the roadway, you could drive on it; Unfortunately you can't due to whiteout conditions.  I 70 closures are typically from Limon to as far east as Hays.  You could travel farther west maybe to Wakeeny, but the Patrol closes the road farther east as the towns reaches max capacity on hotel rooms, restaurants, etc.  When the winds die down, the roads open..................

In Wichita, our snow accumlations total have been less than 6 inches.  We had several freezing rains, then cold temps, so our roads were solid ICE.  Several nights, we had freezing fog.  No rains actually, but the fog froze to the ground/roads resulting in solid ice.  One night, I heard it thundering, and it sounded like hail.  Not really sure if it was hail or freezing sleet.  Result was the same--I couldn't get out of our house for three days!

I need to learn that every Feb is like that here and NOT be here!  I checked our calendar, and first we can bug out is early March.    Probably about the time it warms up here, we'll head south.

Keep the stories and pics coming pls.
Ron