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Sailing with Wendy

On July 4th, went down to Fish Creek to sail with Wendy. The anticipated wind speeds were 15mph. We got there and there were waves on the water but no whitecaps. We got the Scorpion into the water and began getting ready to go out.

When we were ready, I had Wendy get into the boat sitting towards the stern and I got up by the mast and raised the sail. The boom knocked Wendy about a bit but I had told her not to touch the tiller or sheet so that we wouldn’t immediately get blown over. Once I had the sail up, I moved to the back and began to trim the sail. The wind was blowing quite hard so it is a bit of a blur but I seem to remember having to do a fast jibe to get us going away from land.

We then realized that the wind seemed to have picked up. Water was splashing up on the sides and over the bow. Wendy got quite wet and as there were now whitecaps on the water, it was getting a little scary. I had to keep the sail fairly loose and we quickly got back to the dock. Wendy offered to have me go out alone for a while so as we pulled in close to the dock, I turned up into the wind to stop and Wendy jumped into the water and swam to the dock. Then I had a fun time getting out of irons, almost drifting back into shore.

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