The plan was boy's day out sailing. The wind looked good for
a fast 27 mile round trip from Stratford to Port Jefferson.

At the last minute one fellow substituted his wife and her sister
and begged off to study for a course he's working on. So I had
two ladies along with one of my favorite sailing buddies Fred.

I warned the ladies to pee now before we left the dock, after
which we'd only have the bucket, and I talked about how we'd
use the back of the boat and everyone could look the other way.

With five people, dropping HOOT in the water has never gone
faster. George headed home and we were off. The new battens
looked and worked great. The main looked good even if it was
a shrunken dwarf of a sail.

While sailing out, I pointed out to the two ladies, both natives of
Poland, once again that if they needed to pee, to use the bucket.

We took a bit of water over the bow, sailing close hauled down
the channel. My friend Fred was amazed at how high the Etchells
can point. I said wait a second, sheeted the jib in tighter and told
him to try again. He was more than amazed, we cracked off again
and laid it right out the channel like a rocket. Any other boat
would have had to take a couple of hitches. We did it in one tack
with room to spare if we needed to head up. If you haven't sailed
an Etchells, you don't know how high a boat can point.

The ladies had gotten their bottoms wet, and so did I, from maybe
a dozen or so waves that broke over the bow. After clearing the
harbor we cracked off a bit more, and the chop flattened out and
no more water came in the boat, except for the occasional wake
induced wave.

I didn't bring my GPS, but I'd bet we averaged 6 knots blasting
across the Sound to Port Jeff.

I'm not one to hold my water. I used the bucket to pee once
on the way across, when we were heeled sharply. Later on the way
back, when the wind died I peed off the back.

Halfway across I noticed one of the ladies had a very wet bottom
after everyone else's bottom had dried off. The poor gal was too
embarrassed to use the bucket and pee'd in her pants. She never
complained, so Fred and I pretended not to notice.

It was her first time sailing. Maybe next time, she think about using
the bucket rather than have a wet butt for 6 hours.

After a quick spin around the Port Jeff harbor, pointing out the hurricane
hole and other feature of this fabulous harbor, to my friend Fred, we
headed out. I like to learn about new harbors. It's always nice to have
local knowledge of choice harbors.

Fred is the fellow with the Valiant 37, I've talked about in the past. He
like to blast along the south side of the Island and head for Cape Cod, or
Block Island. When you don't have time to linger, perhaps you shoot
for longer distance runs. Nevertheless, I think LIS is one of the best
cruising grounds in New England., if you know where to go.

On the way back toward the Middle Ground (Stratford Shoal), we
had some company.

Question: What is faster a Mac 26 with a 30 HP outboard or an Etchells
close reaching in 10-12 knots of breeze?

It was neck and neck for a long while. It's not a sailboat, it's a boat
with
sails. The Mac, turned back briefly to look at my stern. I guess he wanted
to know what kind of sailboat could keep up with his POS under power.
His boat rolled in the waves on his round bilge. I wondered what this guy's
wife was thinking about that miserable ride. What was he thinking, not
putting up at least a steadying sail.

After a while he edged away, heading off to windward. I bet he wished he
had the 50 HP outboard. I'd say he barely had us beat in those conditions.
I don't know he ran the motor flat out or not. Usually boats under power
get ****ed and run flat out when I blast by under sail alone.

Shortly after clearing Middle Ground the wind died to nothing for about
90 minutes. We could barely make way, heading up a bit--at right angles
to our course.

Later the wind shifted 180 degrees and even though it was still very
light, I tried to set my new spinnaker.

Disaster! This was not an Etchells spinnaker my friend Bill had given me!

My gorgeous new spinnaker was four feet too long on the hoist. Maybe I
can have it recut. I pulled it down and put up my trusty Red and White
Reacher. There was not quite enough wind to fill it, so with 2 miles to go,
I
started paddling until the wind filled in a tiny bit, and veered to a beam
reach.

I lowered the pole, set it just off the forestay and sheeted it in. It pull
us along
ok for a while and then the wind went farther forward. We were making
less than a knot. I dropped the pole nearly to the deck and this flat cut
reaching spinnaker, actually worked like a genoa to pull us along upwind in
these light conditions. It was tight enough across the foot, to crease in a
shelf.
So the sail looked and acted like a drifter.

I noticed the spinnaker was backwinding the main, and Fred suggested hauling
up on the traveler. With this unlikely combination, a tighter reacher, and
an over
trimmed main we had nice looking slot, got some flow across all this, and
started
moving north again.

By the time we got back to river the wind had picked up making trim
adjustments difficult, and after another 1/4 mile I decided to strike the
spinnaker.
At this point the jib would fly and we cruised right back to the dock.

That was the first time I used a spinnaker, albeit a flat cut reacher, to
sail
upwind. I wonder if the Etchells class rules allow for something like this?
Probably not. I'll have to check. For the light wind days on Long Island
Sound
a sail like this could be a rule beater--maybe in PHRF.

Bart