Reefing

We took the boat out this week for a little warmup before we charter a 32 foot catalina this weekend in Santa Barbara. We had gotten a manual bilge pump and cleared out a lot of water from the hull, so the boat has been heeling a bit more and feels lighter. When we got out into the channel and raised the sails, we really had our ass handed to us. We couldn't really get much control of the boat. The wind was probably up near the 20 knot range, which we haven't seen before. We pulled down the sail, pulled ourselves together and gave it another go with a reefed sail. For a few tacks, we left the jib down and when we felt we were ready, raised the jib. Wow! We were really heeling and the boat almost looks like it's underwater when the rails go under. This was some rather intense sailing in a the narrow channel, moving quickly with a little bit of traffic in the channel and fast tacking. We had joked on previous sails that we were never going to reef the sail, and it is good that we had this experience before we got out on open water. It is good to be humbled once again.