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...

Monday, March 22, 2010

Mast raising on Pathfinder - February 2010

Pathfinder is Sailing again!

It was an enormous thrill to be able to take Pathfinder out on her first sail in 7 months last weekend. The Challenge Cup gave me the opportunity to test sail her with the repaired mast and re-rigging complete. A worthy Old Salt who had never sailed her before came aboard to take the helm. With no intentions other than to have a great relaxing day we were able to make the 5 hour trip to Port Huon and back in relative comfort and with much better ability to sail into the wind and to sail effectively on port tack than ever before. The usual fickle wind conditions both helped and hindered us. For most of the early part of the race we were well up with all the other boats. We did, however, become becalmed in shore when all the others went out wide and sailed on. Once in the main river we were able to make up some distance on the rest, only to become becalmed again up near the final turning buoy. A strong beat to windward on the return journey, when a stiff sea breeze blew up helped but we were still too far behind to make up much. We finished 15th out of 18 boats and considering the conditions we were happy. The men of the club were again very supportive and encouraging so there is a good chance I will get the opportunity to take her out again before the sailing season draws to a close.