I've mentioned many a times before about my annual trip to beaver island. Usually we set sail from Charlevoix. This year we attempted to make the trip from home, Indiana. a little synopsis.
Friday: Departed 5:15pm made 35nm averaging 14.5 knots. this was our best sail. wind from south sailed a screaming broad reach all the way to sunset. slept on boat in Warren dunes.
Saturday: Sailed 13.5 hours. making 53.6nm light variable winds. changed direction many times through out the day. Eded up sailing into a beach just south of Saugatuck an hour after sunset. 4 knot average. long day. Slept under pavilion in park to dodge over night rain.
Sunday: more south winds building to 20 knots in the afternoon. Weset out early. 34 gybes got us 52nm by lunch. This was another great day. Had to pull off in port Sheldon to dodge a front coming though. we got very lucky here. not 10 min after we pulled up the beach there were 30 plus knot winds for a half hour! after we set pack out we were surfing up to 5 footers. we sailed unirig from grandhaven to Muskegon as we nearly pitchpoled right off grandhaven light. we pulled in early to quit while we were ahead. averaged 9.8 knts. we got a hotel in Muskegon. we thought we deserved it.
Monday: Sailed 63.3 nm our longest ever single day sail. Was a truly great sail averaging 7 knots for the first 8 hours. The trip was spoiled by losing wind and spending the next 2 hours trying to make the last several miles to shore. Landed at Ludington state park where the concession stand was serving pizza for 40 more minutes! Slept on boat.
Tuesday: nice wind in morning. then it died completely. we paddled into portage lake. where locals chauffeured us into town for food. slept on the boat. sailed only 27 nm in 6 hours. make the first 20nm in 2h 17m.
Wednesday: Winds were predicted to go north at 20 knts today. we sailed 25nm up to Frankfort where the winds hit.20 knots on the nose in 4ft seas. these were pretty miserable conditions. for those who are unaware waves on the great lakes have a much shorter wave length. especially when the seas go from flat to 4ft in a matter of 45 min. we pulled off in Frankfort and called it a trip. the next 36 hours had the same conditions forecasted. I would have liked to go on, but we had a good sail all the way.
Couple things to note.
We sailed exactly 300 statute miles. Averaging 5.9knts. a respectable average especially looking back at the hours of paddling.
I was worried about having issues finding beaches and locals having a problem with our camping especially in big towns. Everyone was very welcoming. No issues at all. Even the sheriff who woke us up in the middle of the night under that pavilion was happy to hear of our adventure.
No mechanical problems. lost 2 of the set screws on our harken blocks. borrowed one from one of the jib blocks to get by. the main is now pretty much toast. it was toast when we took off. Lots of the Mylar panels delaminating leaving the raw mesh exposed. We have a new sail, but reckoned we could get another 300 miles out of old one.
I'd like to retry sometime and you should all join me.
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Nacra 6.0 NA
Ogden Dunes, IN
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