A little bit more like it

Today's sail was the sort of sail we had been waiting for, almost every day so far we've had to do at leat an hour or so motoring, some times more. Today however we managed to sail from one port to another, and at a good speed too.

We left Arklow at 10:00 and had the sails working by 10:10. We had breakfast while doing around 4 knots. Then we got out the cruising chute, and our speed went up to 6 knots, and stayed there until we had to change course and the wind went behind us. So for the first time we were able to get the spinnaker out, in all its aging rainbow glory. This big rainbow coloured sail helps us go down wind, and to day it worked perfectly. We were able to keep it flying for 3 hours up Irelands beautiful east coast. It made light going of the southerly wind. Eventually the wind increased and we had to get it down. One of the advantages of our Garmin instruments is that it’s possible to set alarms for different things, today I was using one for a high windspeed. When sailing down wind it’s easy to not realise the wind speed is increasing because it feels less than it is because we were gong down wind. I’d set the alarm to 18 knots, which isn’t that high, but it gives us warning that the wind is increasing and we should think about getting it down.









This was the first time we’d had the spinnaker up on Pixie, and so it was also the first time we had to get it down. It’s different when you’re racing and you have many hands to help you, on Pixie there is just Kirsty and myself, we have a tiller pilot, but after that took a tumble it’s just the two of us now.

I explained what should happen, Kirsty let the guy off, the idea was that it would run free out of the pole. I pulled in on the sheet. I started pulling in on the sheet and Kirsty went to release the halyard, which holds the sail up. At some point the guy managed to snag itself and stop going out. I was pulling in on the sheet when the spinnaker filled. All that was holding the weight of a full spinnaker was the halyard, the snagged guy and my hand, I felt the tension and let go. Unfortunately I didn’t let go quick enough and got a rope burn across my hand, not a bad one, but it hurt none the less.

With the guy snagged and the sheet blowing away downwind, I went to the bow and grabbed the guy and pulled it in by the armful. Kirsty let off the halyard and the sail was bundled below. Not the way it should have gone, but we got in down in one piece, and kept it out of the water.

My next silly move came when I wanted to cool my hand down. Having replaced the spinnaker with the genoa and poled it out we were doing a deceptively fast 6 knots.

I say deceptively fast, because I didn’t realise we were travelling that fast when I threw the bucket over the side. I did however realise a before the bucket hit the water, probably a fraction of a second before it hit the water. Before I could pull the bucket back it filled with water and pulled me back the length of the cockpit, only my reluctance to throw away money stopped me letting go of it. I was struggling not to either be pulled over the side or let go. In the end Kirsty turned Pixie off course and I was able to pull the bucket back on.

The water was refreshing and it cooled my hand down nicely

The rest of the sail to Howth was lovely, and sailing up through Dublin bay with the sun shining, making good progress, was memorable.

Howth marina is run by the sailing club, and the facilities were good.

Howth harbour