Sailing

Just been sailing for the first time in a couple of years or so. Went out on my friend James's Sunburst (though his doesn't have a spinnaker). It was very calm this morning, though with 40 knot gales forecast for this evening. As we were launching, the wind started picking up and everybody else was coming back in. We had a bloody good run though; timed it just right. The wind kept on increasing all the time we were out, and heading into the wind the swell tended to knock our bow off the wind but that was no biggie. We tacked halfway up Evan's Bay a couple of times and had a couple of brilliant broad reaches back down, planing on the waves with the boat humming. The gusts got up to 15-20 knots probably. Absolutely brilliant.

Even though it'd been a while, I found I had no problems at the tiller. A gust would come and I'd luff up automatically, without hving to think about it. I feel a bloody good summer coming on.