Sailing at Elephant Butte Lake, Friday, January 23, 2009

Etchells USA 38 Constellation in winter sun at Elephant Butte Lake, New Mexico

Constellation ahead.


Friday, January 23, 2009, Seventh Day:
After Thursday's sail, I'd hitched a Jeep ride with Dumbledore to the Saturn, driven north all the way back to Albuquerque, and taken Carol Anne to work. After picking her up at the Montoya Campus after her class ended at 9:20 and stopping by home, it was nearly midnight by the time we got to our motel room in Truth or Consequences.

Thus, we were slow getting going on Friday and didn't check out until late morning. Zorro helped us re-attach the traveler control lines in spite of a few challenges before he went out. But, before long we had a bit of wind waiting at the marina, so off we went to catch up with Zorro and his boat, Constellation. Cornhusker and Bassmaster came out on her Freedom 21, Free and Clear 4, so we enjoyed lots of sailing. We did some rough tuning with Zorro, which consisted mostly of following him around some navigation buoys that we used as turning marks. We also got in some a bit of downwind spinnaker work early on, but then settled in for lots of windward-leeward work. All in all, this was yet another one of a surprisingly large number of good sailing days we'd enjoyed in January.


Constellation and mountain scenery


Constellation turning at a navigation buoy


Freedom 21, Free and Clear IV with nearby mountain scenery.


Free and Clear IV with Kettletop Mesa in distance




As we passed to windward of Free and Clear, our shadow passed over her in the mid-afternoon winter light.



Freedom 21 Free and Clear IV and Etchells 22 Constellation



Free and Clear IV and Constellation

Part of a lines drawing for the Etchells class sailboat that is said to be one of the last drawings Skip Etchells made for the boats.