9/11 and the wild sailing

09 Sep. 09

Hoisted Greg up the mast to install my new wind indicator. This task looks quite scary and Greg being and old salt at the game obviously has a lot more faith in the winches than I have. He had his assistant do the winching and I tailed the halyard and watched as he was hoisted and clambered up to the top. Once he got to the top we took another halyard and attached a bucket with all the necessary drills and screws required and hoisted that up to him. Standing watching him from the relative safety of the deck I started to imagine having to perform this function out on a rough ocean with the mast swinging around and having to hold on for dear life, something to look forward to or not. With the new windex fitted we set sail across the dam to test the working and sadly there was not enough wind to really sail so after drifting about for a couple of hours we decided to call it a day and motored back to the marina. On Tuesday morning when I was washing the dishes I looked out of my kitchen window and seen that the top of the trees were blowing in the wind so we decided to bunk work and headed for the dam with two of my managers for a team building day. This turned out to be a great decision as the sailing was absolutely fantastic with just the right amount of wind to allow for a great sail. Neither one of the managers had sailed before but by the end of the day they both wanted to know if the boat will become a company boat for them to use once we set sail around the world, ha ha. I believe the bug has bitten.

14 Sep. 09
Had a really good weekend, Tammy and Jason on Friday night for Tammy’s nine eleven birthday party. I call this the nine eleven because her birthday is September eleven and afterwards it feels as if the twin towers collapsed on you. We were set to take my Mom and Stepdad sailing on Saturday morning but could not get up under the rubble until after midday. Lola myself and the kids did manage to get to the dam in the late afternoon as we also had arrangements with Axel and Peta for a braai that afternoon at four. At five when we eventually arrived we apologised for the lateness and the state we were in. The evening braai was good with good company, myself excluded, but here by eight we called it a night and went down to the marina got on the boat and slept. Now normally the bed is a bit uncomfortable but that night it was pure bliss being rocked to sleep gently. Sunday morning with a strong westerly wind blowing we left the marina and did some wild sailing. I call it wild because even though its just the dam the wind was howling and the boat was heeling over far enough to almost touch the water whilst standing in the cockpit. Now with my limited sailing experience we decided to reef the main sail and the Jib in order to get a less of a wild sailing experience. Whilst hove to Lola and Rauen did the main sail reefing one reef only as our sail only has one reef, and Lola reefed the jib with five rolls. The sailing was less wild and I believe just as fast and all in all made for great day out on the water.