When we left the dock, the tide was low, really low. The wind was out of the NW at a steady 8 knots. We made it out to Boston Harbor, that's five and a half km in less than an hour. The current was against us. We only tacked once to stay in the channel. The wind just wanted to lift us up--couldn't believe we were that lucky.
Coming back was better. The wind shifted; came out of the SW and WSW at 8 knots--no waves. We were close hauled all the way, The current was with us. We turned south at exactly 1800. At 1830 we passed the Olympia Shoal--4.4 km in exactly 30 minutes. We were throwing a nice clean wake all the way; add in the current and we were way faster than hull speed.
Sometimes you get double lucky!
And--by the way--the new sail from Schurr worked well. Well built--great service.
*It was a lot easier hook up the luff since I use the winch on the trailer to raise the mast. I had some mechanical advantage so that I could over-tension the mast against the shrouds, hook the Genoa, then back off the winch tension. It was also helpful that I have temporary supports (shrouds) in place as part of the gin pole mast raising process. It allowed me to disconnect a shroud while I worked on the spacers and still keep the mast standing in good control. Without that feature, I would have needed to raise and lower the mast three or four times.
Jim, great speed! According to NOAA's current predictions, the current at Dana Pt. (closest station I could find) reached its peak of 2.36 kts at 1709 on 6/22 (I'm assuming that is the date of your test sail). You probably had a nice 2 kts push most of the way back. How much do you think the new sail improved your speed?
ReplyDeletehttps://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/noaacurrents/Predictions?id=PCT1846_1&d=2016-06-22&r=1&t=am%2Fpm&u=1&tz=LST%2FLDT&threshold=leEq&thresholdvalue=
Cheers,
Scott
My chart shows a distance from abeam Boston Harbor (actually it says Dofflemyer Point) to Olympia Shoal of 2.95nm. In 30 minutes that gives SOG of 5.9kts. Don't know what the speed of the current was but I would not accept Dana Passage which connects several inlets while Budd Inlet is a dead end, so to speak. A better current station would be the entrance to Eld Inlet, a similarly sized inlet, and the current there at the time of your run was shown as 1.29kt at 1800 and .88kt at 1900, so make it 1.0kt, meaning your knotmeter, if you had one, would be reading 4.9kts. Anyhow, 5.9 over the ground is really nice and 4.9 through the water is good speed too.
ReplyDeleteWe always tried to make passages when the current was with us. Try Seattle to Port Angeles against the tide, Whew!
NOW, wait for a good SW wind, and an ebb tide, and try that again with the spinnaker up, (and I'd love to join you for that one)
Fred
What I meant was: going North with an Ebb in a SW breeze under kite, all hands on the weather rail aft.
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