Strong Breezes

Plan to sail – Niantic to Sheffield Islands. Twenty-five knots from the East. This means big fetch.

While Michael happily futzed with polled out jib, sheeted the happy sail through the end of boom and put two reefs in mainsail, I was quickly turning darker shades of green in the cockpit.  Pictures never do waves justice, but I assure you it was a bit rough.

The waves, the radio warnings and the view of Michael on deck in the heavy winds was the perfect recipe for seasickness. To make vomit feeling: add 2 tsp yawl to 1 first mate, then add 1 cup waves, and slowly stir in 3 teaspoons fear. Be sure not to pay attention and voila! You have one grumpy, nauseas wife! The wise Captain decided to change course to Port Jefferson where we anchored for the night.

Morning came with a full recovery and a nice walk on the sandy bluff east of Port Jeff harbor.

Feeling confident in both sailing and the fact that my stomach contents were indeed going to stay in my stomach, we had a great sail back to Mamaroneck, wind 20-25 knots from the South.

Things broken:
• Happy sail, but not really. When we pulled it out, it was tangled on itself, likely because it was rolled up wet the day before in high winds. Michael has since released and untangled it while on our mooring. No big deal.
• Wheely thingy in the deck organizer (sheave). When we pulled down on vang to stop main from touching shrouds it busted. Michael very frustrated.  It should have been stronger and definitely not the weakest link.  Will order a better one but it will be a pain to fix since the largest ceiling panel will have to be removed to get to the bolts.