Our Spinnaker! (& The Star Spangled Banner)

Before we start a post on our spinnaker, first we have a little historical note.  Today (Sept 14th, 2014) is the 200th anniversary of our national anthem, The Star Spangled Banner.  Jonathan, a long-time member of KYC had ordered an oversize replica flag (15 stars & 15 stripes) for the event.

Unfortunately, Jonathan suddenly died last week.  So today's tribute was both for our national anthem as well as for the Jonathan himself.  It flew from his mother's boat, which was right off the dock...  I asked our launch operators to give us a quick circle so I could get some nice photos.

Today after boarding Seas The Day, the wind died steadily to around 5 knots.  We tried to sail with little success, and after a bit of fussing, I gave Vicky the helm and was determined to get our spinnaker out.

We ordered the spinnaker (a special sail that helps in light winds) with Seas The Day, but the captain who gave our original briefing wasn't certain about how to use it, and we never had both the knowledge of what to do with it, and a light air day (we wanted wind consistently below 10 knots) in which to try it.  Over the past few months, we slowly learned what to do with it... from Catalina sales photos... from friends in KYC and from folks from G. Winters Sailing Center, but all of it came in bits and pieces that we had to put together.

So the first order of business was to retrieve the bowsprit from the aft cabin and mount that.  Then Vicky helped me hoist the spinnaker which was wrapped around the furler and finally I set out to the foredeck to try and sort out what went where.  You might remember that I'm not a fan of the foredeck while we're underway.  But since we were making only 2 knots, it wasn't bad, and soon I had it set up... I think.

Vicky then went up front and unfurled the sail while I tried to trim it back at the winches in the cockpit.  Somehow we got it up!  (It's the orange and white sail on the left below.)

Once we got it out, we were able to get our speed up to 3.5 knots (out of 7 knots of wind... much higher than the 2 out of 7 we were doing earlier).  So we had a pleasant afternoon sailing from just off Mt. Loretto chapel over to the Ideal Beach area of Middletown.  Vicky used the time to grab a nap, while I grabbed a bunch of photos.

One thing we noticed is that our spinnaker is the wrong one.  We ordered one with orange all around and white in the center... the one we got white on top with an orange bottom.  Hopefully Catalina will get us the correct one.

Finally, as we approached the Navy pier, we decided to turn around and sail (well, motor) off into the sunset, where I grabbed some more photos, before we headed into Keyport Harbor.)