Beautiful Weekend

Finally a great weekend and the boat is working. We arrived on Saturday after breakfast ready for a day sailing in the light breeze to get a feeling for On The Brink. Much to my surprise after the previous evening's success with the Atomic 4 it was a no-go. All of the spark plugs were fouled and it was still getting water in the cylinders. I had a quick meltdown and after a few swift kicks got to work on fixing the engine... again. Swapped out the sparkplugs, dialed back the raw water valve and eliminate a big dip in the exhaust hose. The engine started up and ran ok-enough to get out of the harbor.

Our sail was shortened by a fast approaching evening and not wanting to be out after dark. The light winds made sailing a bit tricky but we  managed and had some fun in the meantine. Most of all it was great to spend some time out on the lake as intended with my wife after the long past few weeks. We got back to the dock with little difficulty and I learned an important lesson: go slow, painfully slow when dock and all will be much better than trying to power in and control 7400lbs of momentum on a dime. We spent the rest of the evening tied up enjoying the sunset, skyline and a few much deserved beers

Sunday morning we got good start again and headed to the harbor a bit before lunchtime. The forecast was calling for 10-15mph winds and a possibility of rain around dinner time. Perfect weather again! This time the motor started right up and we headed out of the harbor pretty quickly. The wind was dead near shore so raising sails was easy but getting out onto the lake was not, with a little hope from our kinda-sorta reliable motor and we were out in the lake where the winds were perfect. It's amazing how much good wind makes sailing easier. We made good time north to look at the skyline and turned around just past Navy Pier.

On our way back to Burnham we got some great winds and made great time, occasional glances at the knot-meter verified that we were nearly making hull speed! The boat sails beautifully, almost no weather helm and it really loves to be on a reach, hardly any heel and good balance. I'm interested in playing with bigger jibs to further reduce weather helm. Dropping the centerboard helps as well on a reach and you can tell when I lift it on a run, great design feature! Back near the harbor we ran into a little trouble dousing the sails, we had a last minute wind change and had a hard time adjusting so my first mate nearly got knocked in by a swinging jib; but all's well that ends well!