Kari Elizabeth Cooke

First place in our class! Yay! I mean…it’s a handicap race, so we won’t be first…but still cool. 3rd place!

Perfect conditions for a sail with Nanette and Sue. Everyone got to try everything. At first we sailed with just the main to the boat show downtown, then practiced on the helm in open water, went under the bridge, and then took out the jib to go to castle hill and the lighthouse. Nanette did an amazing job skippering for the second half of the time. She did great with tacking too!

A short sail…

Great conditions for a solo sail. I’m used to so much activity and I think I’ve only gone out a few times alone on the J/7, so I wanted more to do. Took out the jib, but then felt a little uncomfortable with gusts, so I furled it up and then soon after, reefed the jib and I was happy with that. I’m getting better with docking and grabbing a mooring, but I don’t feel confident to do it on my own yet (like I did with the J/22s); maybe next year. I had a staff person catch me at the dock. It was a bit puffy and variable and I managed to come in okay. It’s easy to come in hot with these heavier boats. I’ve gotten used to Steve N. onboard and with our timing and everything too. The J/7 is a completely different boat than the J/22. I miss the J/22s in a lot of ways while I solo sailed…Next year, I’ll attempt to dock and grab a mooring by myself on these guys. Oh and a power boat went by super fast north of Castle Hill and I headed up quickly for control, but the wave made the biggest overhead splash. I think they wanted to intimate me, but I was laughing and having fun with that. I thought that was pretty cool. But yeah, literally, they didn’t have to go that close and fast…purposely making huge waves on my starboard side, it seemed…or just negligence.

Sporty! Issue with jib furling line conflicted with spinnaker sheet unbolting lifeline hardware due to pressure when winching and unfurling jib. Portside spinnaker sheet was rigged on the inside and incorrect. We rigged it correctly before deploying the spinnaker and fixed hardware at the dock. We had other issues too like the spinnaker caught on the radar dome - easing the spinnaker sheet fixed that, although I could’ve done that faster but afraid to be yelled at. The control line for the spinnaker sock also got stuck above while dousing.

It was a very light wind day but eventually picked up. Everyone took turns doing everything!