Welcome to Yachting Girls

Welcome to a blog where the adventures of a team of crazy women who are mad about sailing can be shared.
We are living in the beautiful Huon Valley in Tasmania, surrounded by outstanding sailing waters.  In June 2007 my husband and I purchased a Columbia 27 cruising yacht.  My husband crews in a Top Hat 24 in the races held by the Port Cygnet Sailing Club so our yacht was going to sit idle for most of the sailing season.  A great idea came to us - lets have an all women crew and take on the men!

Follow our adventures...share our laughs...cheer us on...

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Sunday racing again!

Having planned to sail on Wyvern with the Cap'n and my "Significant other" I was delighted to receive a call from Skipper Jim suggesting we take Pathfinder on the long race from Cygnet to Port Huon. I jumped at the chance and we had a really interesting day.  The wind was very light at the start of the race - not unusual and at one stage we were completely becalmed on the far side of the bay and going nowhere. Wyvern was not far off and in the same predicament.  Out came the Spinnaker.  A new experience for me and quite a challenge to set it up.  It helped us make headway and once we got into the Huon river the sea breeze kicked in and we were flying.  The sea breeze unfortunately got too strong for us to manage the spinnaker so in she was hauled.  We managed to run before the wind very well under just the main and genoa and left we Wyvern in our wake. We made good time and crossed the finish line about 5 minutes ahead.  We were unfortunately a long way behind all other competitors so only came second last.  But we had a great sail.  Skipper Jim will not be available for a while so we will not be doing Sunday races for a while.  The learning curve continues.  Once across the finish line at Port Huon we had to return to Cygnet so we motored and sailed and made very good time into the head wind.  I had considerable practice on the helm, mainsail and job which is helping me gain more confidence and knowledge. 

No comments: