Sunday was the day to try the new rigging with light winds. Monday was the day to try the strong ones. The forecast was straightforward: starting at lunch time,the North wind would pick up and grow stronger during the afternoon. Obviously, I had to be there to check if it was true! And it was true indeed!
The wind was constantly around 22 knots, reaching 25 at times. It wasn't gale force, but it was already quite strong to give the rigging a rougher treatment, and see if the performance would live up to the expectations created on Sunday. Well, it did! Speed was faster, but that was not the only improvement to be noted. A very important one concern weather helm. Weather helm is the tendency for a sailboat to turn into the wind when sailing against it at close angles. The helmsmen of Clavadel know this quite well, as when sailing upwind with full sail on, weather helm quickly became very significant with stronger winds, making it hard to secure the helm, and obviously, to gain speed. Not anymore! There is still some weather helm, which is a good thing, but nothing compared with before. Now, it is actually possible to sail upwind in strong winds using the autopilot without draining the battery!
And speed was indeed fast. When sailing at a broad reach Clavadel was easily doing over 7 knots, reaching to 8 knots at times. In practical terms, this means we were keeping up with all the other boats that were on the sea, even if they were bigger, and theoretically faster. There are happy days on the life of a dolphin researcher after all!!!
I went out with my father and João Mendes, an old friend who has also helped in collecting samples in the past. Of course, while some people where hard at work...
... others were playing with a digital video camera!
Fair enough, they sometimes helped as well!
The video will soon follow...
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