Jason G

10 kn gusting to to 25n. I sailed up the river and the wind started to get pretty heavy in the bottleneck. It became hard to tack. The wind was overpowering the boat. at one point the wind shifted and the self reefing boom blew off the mast and I lost the mainsail for a couple minutes. I had to dock, lower the main put the boom back on mast and carried on. Coming back down the river the wind was behind the beam and in order gybe safely I had to sail all the way into the coves at the edges of the river.

Wind from NW 13 kn gusting to 28 kt, sailing on high tide. When sailing on a starboard broad reach, sustained gusts opposing the current stirred the water making it unexpectedly choppy a few hundred yards from the bridge. I had planned to gybe before I got too close to the Newington Lee shore but the chop coming from multiple directions made it too difficult. I attempted a chicken gybe but made no progress as I tried to head up, so I headed downwind again as it looked to be calmer closer the newington Lee shore and I was able to safely gybe there. Later on I had issue tacking due to similar stirred chop, which again brought me a bit too close to the Lee shore.

10 kt gusting to 20 at high tide. The wind was shifting a lot but I was able to practice safe and controlled gybes. When heading up wind I was working on close reaching to pinching to depower the boat, and shifting my weight to the rail.

10 kt gusting to 20. Went out at the end of low tide and found I was grounding my center board in the middle of the channel, which caused me to raise it. This of course led to less stability and a lot of letting out sail. It was very gusty, had to chicken gybe a few times as I couldn’t haul in the boom in a controlled manner to safely gybe. Overall a great day.