Thursday, June 3, 2010

That Damn Lee Shore

No quicker way in sailing to swallow a huge slice of humble pie than attempting to get off a lee shore. This applies to anyone that owns a sailboat that doesn't have a motor. And that means all of us dinghy sailors. You know, the launch off the lee shore that didn't quite go as planned. The one where you didn't walk it out far enough and got blown back to the beach. Or the one where you have to tack upwind between two finger piers, ping ponging off those unfortunate boaters tied off on either pier.

Launching off a lee shore is sailing's equivalent of a comedic pratfall. Most of us are secretly smirking on the travails of someone else failing to make it off a lee shore.... until we screw it up royally (and we all screw it up sometimes).

The following video is lee shore 101. You can't go upwind until you get your fins down, if you can't get your fins down, you get blown back to shore......

I like that reassuring hug at the 2:48 mark.... "Honey, I know what I'm doing...trust me!"

2 comments:

Miguel said...

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doryman said...

Good thing it's the lee shore... could be stuck on the wrong side of the lake in that much wind!
doryman