June 4th and 5th summer finally arrived on Lake Pepin in Minnesota. We had actual warm weather, I mean, turn on the fan in the saloon and still be hot, weather. The first of the season and happy for it. Lots of folks were out enjoying their watercraft this past weekend, including us of course. We were joined by our son Nick and fiancé Emily for a Saturday afternoon sail which was very fun. We saw winds from the south between 8 knots and steadily increasing to a peak of 17 knots for some sporty sailing.
Sunday, Honey Bunny and I had the boat to ourselves and had winds from the south again at 7 to 9 knots blowing very steady, which is not that common around here. Later in the late afternoon the wind died. Like 0 knots dead. So we motor sailed back to the marina and gave our batteries a good charging.
Cloud Nine flies the spinnaker.
One of the highlights on Sunday for us was having an Islander 36 cruise by flying their spinnaker, very nice. I believe the name of boat was Cloud Nine, I bet they were! As was every one else this weekend. We saw more boats out on the water than we have all season. So far, this spring has been a might cool and a might rainy shall we say. But enough with the past, summer is here and we are very excited to be sailing yet again.
We have been spectacularly happy to date with our Islander 28, she sails like a dream in heavy conditions and light. We have sailed in winds to 27 knots and felt totally in control with proper reefing. Light winds so far have been 7 knots at which we were able to push her to 4.5 knots on a beam reach. She has all the room we need for weekends and extended weekends as well. We will be spending 10 days aboard in July and we can’t wait to see what that is like. The cruising life here we come! Well, maybe not quite yet, but some day.
We are still learning our way around our Islander 28, new sail controls, new gadgets. I messed around with the back stay tensioner a little and used our auto-pilot while we motor-sailed. All good stuff. Having a traveler is a welcome addition too, not to mention the whisker pole. Why we even discovered that all that extra sail material at the foot of the sail is called a shelf-foot. And it is supposed to be there, contrary to what we had been thinking. Apparently it is there to add fullness to the draft when you ease the out-haul. So much to learn, so little time. Isn’t that always the case.