Issue 4 : Jan/Feb 1999
It was a small victory. The first thing after breakfast I left the small bay where I’d been anchored. Winds were as predicted: from the southwest. A high to the east and a low to the west had pinched the isobars together. I could see that the wind would pick up when I rounded the point, and I knew enough not to pick my jib until I had a look at the other side of the point. At various times Mystic was making 4.5 knots on main alone. I waited.
The teapot whistled as I was resolving a crossing situation with a lovely woody trolling with paravanes. When she was clear, I went below and poured my second cup of tea of the day. I came back on deck feeling relaxed. I punched 10 degree corrections into the Autohelm to pass close to the red nun that marks shallow water off the point and sipped my tea. All was well with the world.
On the other side of the point, cats’ paws were dropping down onto the water from over the tops of the high bluffs and forests of the point. The lulls were less than 10 knots, and the cats’ paws were two and three times that. In the lulls Mystic was making three knots. In the puffs she would shoot up to 4.5 … cats’ paws and lulls.
The racer in me had mentally selected the 110 with no foot reef and no reef in the main. This combination would be fast but hard work for Mystic’s crew of one. The cruiser in me is still developing. I was making good progress on main alone. It is not all that far from the point to my destination. I could sit and drink my tea and steer with one hand or even let the Autohelm stumble through the lulls and cats’ paws. With just the main up, Mystic would take care of herself.
But with the 110 up, I would have to steer around the far side of every cats’ paw with some lifters being a 30- or 40-degree course change followed by a turn down to “base course” in the lulls to keep the sails from luffing. If it wasn’t done just right, Mystic would lie over on her ear, which is a thing retired dinghy racers don’t cultivate and maybe never get used to. I know academically that the keel should bring her back, but I have spent too many years dancing with cats’ paws in Flying Scots trying to keep the hull under the spar fly. I don’t know in my gut that the one and a half tons of lead I drag around will save me.
That was the choice: fly the jib and give it everything I’ve got (which is definitely not relaxing) or go bareheaded, relax, drink my tea, and enjoy the morning. It was a small victory. It is not that I didn’t put the jib up. No, the victory is that I finished my tea first.
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