September 16 | 2.7 Nautical Miles

An odd day. I had planned to take my father out for a sail, but he had to cancel. I went down to the boat anyway where the wind seemed pretty light. I raised the main and beat up toward Clapboard into a rapidly strengthening breeze. As I cleared the lee of Clapboard I felt the full strenght of what had to be 30 knots of wind! I eased off to a beam reach and I still had the rail buried. Yikes! I tweaked my elbow a bit releasing the main sheet, and combined with the really strong wind I decided to just pack it in. I could have reefed, but decided to just bag it instead.

Rolled the jib and ran back into the lee of Clapboard where I dropped the main and headed back to the mooring. On the way I passed a HUGE pilothouse ketch anchored just outside the mooring field. I snapped a few pictures. Here's a beam-on view. Here's a quarter view.

Returned to the mooring and packed the boat away. By the time I had things put together, the wind seemed to have died down to just a few knots! Went over to PYC to see Heather and her mom. We sat on the porch and the wind came up strongly and then died again a couple times during the 45 minutes we were there. Strange.