Wednesday, October 16, 2013

LASERS WEATHER THE STORM


Lasers weather the storm.  Sorry about not putting up this stuff before.  Maybe a month or so ago we had a little storm that got everyone in our little fleet in some kind of trouble.  Not serious, but suggests this review of what you might do.

1   Safety position and for you old folks, that is boat across the wind, boom out at 90 degrees and luffing, center board all the way down.   Boat not moving and you can drop the tiller and think about what to do next.

.2      Turn the boat over and sit on the high side balancing things so that upper mast is about half in the water.   You won’t drift very fast and easy to sit out a little thunder storm.  When the wind moderates, right the boat and sail home.

. 3     If it is a broad reach or a run back to your shore, you can let the sail out in front of the boat and let it luff while quietly going home.  With standard length sheet you need to take the knot out of the end of the sheet, let the end go through the ratchet block and it will make recovery easier if you tie a knot in the end of the sheet before it goes through the boom block. Do this knot stuff from the safety position..  If wind moderates before you reach shore and you change your mind, you can turn quickly into the wind and recover the sheet at the boom block, trim and get going again.

. 4     If you need to go up wind, take the vang off.  You may need to undo it completely so that the boom can rise and then go up wind close reaching.  With the boom up the top half of the sail can luff and you sail on the bottom half.  An old friend of mine called that the “fisherman’s reef”.

.5      You can use the one above to get to shore if it is a reach.

. 6     If you sail to shore and it is not where you want to go, unplug the mast stuff, lengthen the out haul, turn the mast a few times  to roll up some sail.  If you take the top batten out you can roll put quite a bit of sail.  Pug the boom back in and adjust the outhaul.

. 7     If it is a hot day, turn the boat over and play around in the water till the storm is over.