Nice day on the water

[Ron]

I apologize to anyone who's snowed in now, but I was out the other day in 4 to 5 knots of steady wind on a beam reach and wound up doing about 110% of wind speed consistently for about 3 hours with just the genoa and main (no screecher or spinnaker). I must have spent half my time just staring at the knot meter (it's corrected). The damn thing even got up to 6 knots briefly.

The steady breeze, flat conditions in Charlotte Harbor that day, and being single handed helped, but not many boats can easily go faster than the wind. The local boat club was racing and I went past them like they were standing still (actually, most were). No multihulls allowed this year (and you can see why). The boat really likes these conditions. "Steady" works very well, "Light and Variable" would probably have halved it.

[jeff432]

Ron, I was wondering if you do most all of your Florida sailing in Charlotte Harbor? Do you spend much time out in the Gulf?

[Ron]

Jeff -

Charlotte Harbor is pretty big - 2nd biggest in Florida and 17th in whole country. I like it there because it's well protected. The Gulf can be rocking and rolling and the harbor will be manageable. That said - I probably spend about 90 percent of my half year in Florida in the harbor. NJ is similar - 90 percent in either Raritan or Barnegat Bays and the other 10 in the Atlantic.