So the shake down cruise was a success with a few lessons learned. We left at lunch time on Thursday 15th Sept. and sailed out going through Victoria on sun set. We had fair winds blowing about 10 -15 kts which made for a great sail.
Sailing up the Juan de Fuca Straight in the dark with all the shipping going to both Seattle and Vancouver kept us on our toes. We saw about a dozen large ships through out the night. The prettiest ones were the cruise ships as they had so many more lights on them, however this did end up ruining your night vision.
By the time we got to out of the Juan de Fuca Straight past Cape Flattery the wind had died and the tide was pushing us back the way we came. So we had to use our engine to motor out of the shipping channel. Once out of the channel we went back to sailing but we became engulfed in fog. This meant putting on the radar and staring at the screen and the wall of grey/white all around us as we slowly went along the West Coast of Vancouver Island.
We also saw some wildlife too inlcuding whales, sealions, many birds and a seal as well. We had one of the sealions playing our bow wave which was kind of neat too.
The fog cleared by the afternoon but this brought stronger wind along with the building ocean swells which lead to some very lively sailing. The swells were not too big, being only about 8 to 10 feet high and the wind were steady at 25 knots gusting to the occaional 30 knots. This lead to some very lively sailing as we countinued in a north westerly direction sailing down wind. By the time it came to turn around and start heading back it was dark. Sailng to windward in over 25 knots with a reefed main the boat handled beautifully and was so light to steer with only a small amount of weather helm. The sleeping in the front bunk was anything but restful though with the bucking boat leading to bouncy ride in bed Loree finding Vada in her lap as the boat pounded to windward heading back the way we came.
Vada (dog) was fine with no sea sicknesses and only a few nervous moments. Additionally Vada is now toilet trained to go on a mat in the cockpit of the boat, which is a relief. All in all Vada handle the rough weather very well. Loree while feeling nausis ended being fine without being sick.
For me I was super happy to be sailing at sea and battling the elements. By the time morning came the wind had increased again the weather report forecasting even more wind. This meant I took down the 140% head sail and rasied the 90% head sail. This was the first time using the sail in any decent wind and I was please to see it performed well, even if the forecasted wind increase never came.
By the time we got back to Juan de Fuca Straight it was dark again which lead to another night passage avoiding all the big comercial shipping. Loree did a great watch steering by herself for 6 hours up the very busy shipping lane allowing me to sleep. This was a fantastic effort as by only her 4th night watch she was able to navigate busy shipping lanes in the dark. I can't take the credit for teching Loree though as she is a fast learner. We finally made it home safe at about 4am and tied back up to our mooring in the light of the almost full moon.
Lessons we learned from this are great preperation for the upcoming trip
- Manage fatigue better by ensure getting enough sleep and sticking to watch schedule
- Loree to gain more sailing skills (but we knew this any way)
- Don't worry about sail changes (down to smaller sails) unless you have to. Just keeping reefing/furling instead because sailing short handed sail changes any sail changes increase fatigue.
- Keep an eye on electrical power levels when we have constant days of cloud, rain, fog as we need power for the Autohelm to work.
All in all it was great preperations for the upcoming first leg of the trip to San Francisco.
