On Friday I took a vacation day and went for a single handed sail.
Winds were in the 15 – 20 knot range when I left the marina and quickly started gusting in the 25+ knot range. I had to put a reef in the main and let the jib out a bit. After about an hour the winds calmed down a lot and I un-reefed the main.
Because the weather radar was showing rain heading my way, I headed back towards the harbor, but it turned out to be just a few sprinkles and quickly cleared up. So…I kept sailing and had another couple hours out on the lake.
Check out the YouTube video for the day’s sail. I was playing around with the “slow motion” feature on my iPhone and set the slo motion clips to “dramatic” background audio.
On Saturday, my brother and I went for a sail. Winds were almost nonexistent when we left, but picked up nicely after about a half hour. We had a nice sail 6 miles straight out from the harbor when someone turned off the fan. We tacked back towards Waukegan and didn’t go anywhere due to the lack of wind. We did catch a slight breeze for a while, but it didn’t last long so we motored back in and were all tied up by 4:00.
On Sunday the forecast included a small craft advisory and the winds in the Waukegan area were in the 25-30 range so we did not go sailing.