Thursday, June 14th, Flag Day, 2007...my 69th birthday! My son Mark met me at Mobjack Bay Marina in the morning, and although it was cloudy and a brisk wind was blowing from the east, we decided to go out on my 25' Lancer sailboat "StarLady" anyway.
Looking out into the bay, I could see whitecaps, so I reefed the mainsail before we even left the dock. The wind was blowing between 15-20 knots, and we absolutely ripped along on a broad reach, straight down the bay, past the mouth of the East River toward New Point Comfort.
The GPS indicated that we were making 6.5 mph with occasional bursts up to 7 mph, which is supposedly faster than the possible hull speed for the boat! As we approach New Point Comfort the already strong wind picked up a little more heeling StarLady about 25 degrees, and things began to fall off shelves below in the cabin.
Mark scrambled forward on the deck and dropped the jib, which eased the pressure, and we continued at about 6.1 mph.
We turned and ran before the wind, mainsail far out on the starboard, and ran the jib back up, positioning it off the port bow, running wing on wing, surging along with the big swells back toward safe harbor in Greenmansion Cove.
A memorable birthday!
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