Sea Breeze Sailing (B)Log

DATE: May 13, 2007
TIME: 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon
WIND: Strong, Northerly, 8-10 m/s
SKIPPER: Cliff Bernstein
CREW: Elo Kent, Peter Wilson, Mika (Wilson)

I had a killer sail this morning. The wind was clocking 8.9 m/s when we left out of port and if felt like it climbed to over 10 m/s during our cruise in the Bay. We were going to go with the main sail and smaller jib, but with two relatively inexperienced and one rusty sailor on board (in addition to me), we stuck with the main. The boat sailed pretty well, but the jib is really needed to get it around on tacks.

Everything seemed to be in good shape. I had trouble getting the spring-loaded transom to come up while we were under sail, but the engine worked fine for the most part. It conked out once as we were coming into port when I tried to put it at its lowest throttle setting, but it picked up again easily. There seemed to be no blockage in the cooling drain at all.

A friend of mine who has had a few outboard power boats recommends getting a bucket in which to put fresh water and running the engine in the bucket to let the fresh water flush out the cooling ducts after each run.