A cracking sail Gromit!

[Aldebaran_III]

I leave those that don't know Gromit to Google, more a British thing I think.

It's Heineken Regatta week down here, so we've kept a low profile. Too many big, expensive things wizzing about at insane speeds. Like Phaedo 3 breaking the round the island record with speeds up to 37 knots http://www.heinekenregatta.com/news.php Probably around 200 boats racing today and we don't want to be the filling in the sandwich!

Anyway last Monday we did get that cracking sail. The Anguilla channel was a bit lumpy for our normal windward sail to the NE, so we turned downwind to keep the island to port. The wind was around 20 knots true on our starboard quarter. Oh boy! we were surfing, we were seeing GPS SOG up to 7.8 knots!
I know everyone will say, oh yes you had tide/current under you, you were surfing off waves etc. I don't care, it felt fast and we've never seen anything above about 5.8 before.
At the western tip we turned onto the wind, but found that instead of tacking we were just able to keep our course along the SW side of the island. We were hard on the wind, but now a little sheltered. The sea was flat in the lee and we were making great progress mostly around 4.8/5.0 knots.
All too soon, we were able to tack into our destination bay, past the 536ft megayacht "Eclipse" (small boat sailors have more fun!) and anchor for lunch.
Such a great sail, the Admiral had to stop me from going round again! So glad we got this HC, it's the perfect boat for us.

Cheers,
Derek and Marilyn

[rbh1515]

Definitely sounds like a cracking sail!  Are you reeling at all, or did you have full sail up?
Rob

[Craig Weis]

Huuuuuuuuuuuu???
All that British huff and puff aside isn't it exciting to exceed calculated hull speed no matter how it's done?

We all should go there a few times a season ...

skip.

[Aldebaran_III]

Full sail. The first leg was downwind so although around 20 kts true it was less than 15 over the deck and the windward leg was a lot more sheltered.
Derek