Consistently Seeing 18+ knots at the mast head. Often seeing 20. The highest number that I noticed was 23. When running down the river, the wind instrument often showed 13 knots while the boat was doing six, or more. Wind moderated towards the end of the sail.
White caps on the Severn. The Woodwind sailed with double reef main and main staysail only. Least sail that I remember seeing on the Woodwind.
Attached cars and blocks from Interrupt to the inner jib tracks. Removed the original 160LP genoa from the roller furler. Headed out.
Started with a single reef in the main and the 80LP working jib from John Irving attached to roller furler via a section of luff tape puchased from Quantum Sails in Annapolis for $1.00/foot and grommets inserted into the luff tape to receive the hanks on the sail. Worked. Need to check the rest of the grommets, as I found that the topmost grommet had ripped out of the luff tape when I lowered the sail.
Changed from first reef to second reef. What a mess. Possible to do, but not desireable at all. The second reef needs to have its lines run before leaving the dock. Purchased the required line, 45 feet of 5/16" red Sta-Set , soft shackle, and low friction ring from APS on Monday, October 8th, but the store's stock of low friction rings was depleted. On back order. As a result, did not have the second reef line run. Took a considerable amount of time to shift the low friction ring and soft shackle from the first reef clew cringle to the second and later back again. Enough wind that the boat was moving near or at hull speed with the reefs in place.
During the last beat up the river, sailed parallel to and below the Woodwind across the river till we had to tack. During that board kept up with the Woodwind. Was working the boat like a dinghy, shifting my weight in and out on the seat.
GPX formatted Track distance: 12.00nm, average speed: 4.6kts, duration: 2:36