Quick Sail Update... another lovely winter day of sailing

This year is starting out with a better sailing focus than last year. Although it's only February, several days of sailing have happened and some sailing projects are underway.

Today Carol Anne and I got together with "Zorro" on his Etchells and sailed in some fairly stiff breeze at Elephant Butte Lake in southern NM; we also got to see some sailing friends at the marina and afterward. The graph gives an idea of just how breeze... winds got past 25 mph while we were sailing, with enough fetch along the long axis of the lake to brew up a rough chop and plenty of whitecaps.



A couple of weeks ago we also got to do the same thing, also in pretty good breeze, probably a mix of anything from 5 to 20 mph.

In January, I got in three days of sailing and racing on a J/80 in Arizona while Carol Anne was on the race committee signal boat (as timer and general cat herder) and Gerald got to race on our Santana -- for the first time that anyone in our family had raced it our tried out the chute).

Last week I picked up an older Buccaneer sailing dinghy which should with a little work be a good boat for sailing at Arizona's Tempe Town Lake.

And, we have made an offer on interesting boat in California that Gerald and I and perhaps Zorro should get to inspect next weekend.

On a more minor note, we should be receiving a shipment next week from one of our favorite on-line chandleries that will include some new bottom paint for Carol Anne's Etchells, a new inflatable PFD for me, and a personal locator beacon (safety item, with integrated GPS). And I chatted with some folks in Texas about volunteering to help with a regatta there in April.

Oh and a P.S.; We arranged for Tim at the Rock Canyon Marina to start diving on and cleaning the bottom of Carol Anne's Etchells "Black Magic" later this month.