Devin's first sail

 His first sail on Salty Beach that is. It was a decently nice day, a bit cloudy with temps in the 70s (F). The breeze was forecast as 10-15 knots, gusting to 25 from the northwest, but we found it more like 10-12. We went out for a short sail just across the bay to the house on the rock (aka Clingstone). Devin gets nervous whenever the boat heels much so he objected to my suggestion we put up the jib and we went under main alone. Leaving the mooring under sail was calm and uneventful, but sailing back to it was a little nerve-wracking. The main issue was that northwest winds are fairly unusual here and it caused the neighboring boat to be just 10 feet or so upwind of our mooring ball, not allowing much room for excess momentum. Twice I failed to carry enough momentum and the boat stalled just out of reach of the mooring pennant. The third time I made it. Quickly looping the pennant over the bow cleat, I ran back to lower the main. It was about halfway down when I realized the pennant had come off the cleat and we were drifting! I scrambled to start the outboard and even then it took a couple attempts to get back. At least we didn't get hurt or break anything. We returned to the club by launch and my dad happened to be there, treating us to dinner. All in all, a fun day!





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