The Weather Forecaster Nailed It

Shelburne Bay
N 44 25.555 W 73 14.961

Considering all the bad things I had to say about the weather forecasts this year, I should give credit where credit is due. The forecast for today was sunny, cool, southerly winds 15-25, diminishing late afternoon. That is precisely what we got. Finally, they nailed one of the forecasts. Perhaps they do have forecasting tools beyond the Farmers Almanac.

The weather was important because today was the one and only day this summer that Jenny could get away and sail with us. Her boyfriend, Christian, stayed at home demolishing their garage. (They are going to build a new one.) It turned out to be a perfect day.

With Jenny on board we did a close repeat of the day when Pete came to sail with us last week. With Pete we sailed from WIllsboro Bay to Burlington for lunch, then returned. The trips to and from were both very fast with strong winds on our beam. We needed only the foresail to make Tarwathie go full speed, up to 7 knots with Pete. Today we did basically the same thing with Jenny but we started in Burlington, sailed to Willsboro Bay for lunch, then returned. All the way over and most of the way
back, we needed only the foresail to exploit the steady 20 knot wind. From the middle of the lake we had magnificent views of the mountains in both New York and in Vermont.

Halfway back Libby wanted practice reefing the mainsail, so we took a double reef and raised that too. Being Labor day, and being superb sailing weather, just about every boat on the lake was out sailing. However, Champlain is so big that we never felt crowded no matter how many boats were out there. All the sailboats I saw appeared to be performing at their best, regardless of the point of sail.

The best part of the round trip was that the autopilot did a great job leaving the three of us to loll in the sun on the foredeck and shoot the breeze. Tarwathie held a nearly constant speed, heading and angle of heel all the way over. Jenny had a great time and actually had time to relax. All three of us appreciated the quiet time to just talk knowing that this is the last time we'll see each other this year.

There was another treat in store. Libby made lasagna and Caesar salad for lunch. She does that only on special occasions.

My oh my. Sailing days don't get much better than this one. I'm out of laudatory adjectives to describe it.