Matt Fair and I decided that we were going to go for one last little cruise before the boat got put away for the winter.  We did the same thing last year only on Goose, the Newport 27 that I had last year.  This year we took Matt’s Shark to the foot of Wolfe Island, where the club as a piece of property.

We left on Friday evening, and both of us had been watching the weather all day.  Environment Canada had a gale warning in effect (more than 30 knots of wind) and waves from 2.5 to 3 metres, so we were both a little nervous.  The big low that came through on Friday was pretty strong and we were just at the leading edge of the front when we left on Friday.

Now sailors are a superstitious lot, and I have to say that things were not looking very lucky.  It was Friday the thirthteeth, it was gusting to 35 knots just before we left, and a friend of mine had told me just two hours before we left that a 35 foot boat had been utterly destroyed on the rocks the day before. All very unlucky omens, all of which I didn’t want to talk about until we were tied up in Breaky Bay.

We left the dock at 1830 and had a truely aweful departure.  A weird wind eddy behind the club blew us back into some boats, before we could get out into the strong south breeze.  With a bar full of people watching we eventually managed to get the boat out of the harbour.

We hoisted just the 150% genoa, and headed out into the wind and the waves.  We got settled in and set up the bearing to our first mark from the GPS.  About half an hour into the trip we had pretty solid gusts above 35kts, and the waves were as big as EC said they would be.  When the gusts came through, you could really feel the rig load up, and surfing was almost constant.  I was pumping the genoa like a kite to induce surfing or just keep us on the wave.  

Then the wave came through.  I just fell in love with this wave.  I saw it setting up out of the corner of my eye, and so did Matt.  As it was just about to break, we had a big gust which I’m guessing was near 40 knts.  (We don’t have reliable instruments on the boat, so that’s just by feel.)  With Matt and I hiking almost off the transom, we had the bow about three inches out of the water and were pushing water like Volvo 70, huge rouster tail and white water everywhere.  Both of us were pretty concerned about that bow digging in and pitch poling the boat.

Matt had the pressence of mind to click on the back light on the GPS to see that were were traveling 13.6 knots over ground!  That’s crazy fast for a Shark.  It seemed to last forever, but was probobly less than a minute.  Matt kept the boat just on the top of that wave, and I was madly pumping the sheet to keep us on it.  Eventually we fell off and came back to our regular speeds of 8-9 knots, but it was totally a ride of a life time.   

As we headed down river the wind and waves settled down a bit, hooting and howlering whenever we got the boat up surfing again.

When we got to the club property, we got all tied up and had some food and a couple of beers.  It was pretty damn cold and very wet.  Matt is the most prepared camper I have ever met, and he even thought wood for a fire.  We got it going and just stood around staring at it for a while.  Very good times.

The next morning we had a hearty breakfast and headed back to the club around 0930.  The breeze kept building as we headed up river.  We started out with main and 150, but eventually took down the main, as it was flogging more than working.  My hands are fried from all the tacking.  As we got closer to the mouth of the harbour, we saw that the breeze was a pretty solid 30 in harbour with big waves from two or three days of big breeze. 

We tucked into Ceder Island to put the motor on the back and to lash down the genoa, and get the main ready to go.  This was the hardest sailing of the trip, as sloggin up wind in 30 with 2.5m waves sucks even in warm weather, but in less than 10 degrees, soaking wet and tired, it can be downright uncomfortable.

Needless to say we made it back to the club.  Cory, our chef, saw us coming in and made up some chilli for us.  Best damn chilli I have ever eaten.  It was fun to tell all the war stories to the folks at the club, all of which called us totally crazy for going out in it in the first place.

This was an awesome way finish up the season.  It’s great to have friends who are crazy enough to go out in that, even better to have someone who is competant enough to do it safely.  I’m already looking forward to next year!

PS:  Sorry there are no pictures or video.  It was too damn wet and cold to get any pictures and most of the fun stuff happened in the middle of the night.