Day Three

Keeping Little 'Half Pint' Happy!

Waking up was quite a surprise. It was wavy and totally different. Previously, it was still very calm and flat! It was manageable though, the boat handling it well. At first, I was not overpowered, in fact I felt I needed my full headsail to power me through the waves, it was like the waves were larger than the wind was strong; but at some point it was obvious that my auto pilot, AKA: Half Pint was not happy! The wind increased to well over 20 knots and the waves kept building.

Mascot encouraging Half Pint! Yup, kinda dumb but well that's reality! 🤣 He gets banished into the boat when it gets rough.

Lots was changing, and the wind velocity ever increasing. The waves were large at this point! Half Pint was struggling somewhat, I was getting cold and wet and needed a break from steering yet wasn't able to leave the helm. At this point the boat was overpowered. I was somewhat in a sailing trance neither fearful, nor taking much action. Pulling in some of the headsail sounded like work! Despite being overpowered for the auto pilot, it wasn't causing the boat to round up; it was simply affecting Half Pint to the point that he was not very effective. Yet, we kept sailing!

There was a time when the waves were so huge that I was almost sitting on the cockpit floor and could see them (the waves) over the top of the high side of the boat. Despite all of this, the boat still felt fine. Just need to reef!

Reduce Sail

Learning from past sailing experiences, sometimes you need to head towards shore! Deciding to tack back and forth up along the coast to escape some of the craziness; seemed like a good plan! The goal was, keep heading North and hope the waves would be a little smaller. The sailing was more difficult now! Eventually the waves lessened slightly, but the strange thing was, over near the coast the wind was more intense! Finally, managing to get my head sail furled in a little solved my auto pilot troubles. Half Pint was happy again!

Back on track, but still sailing in aggressive conditions, after a break from the helm, putting on foul weather gear, using the restroom it was time to rock and roll! Getting pretty close to that beautiful shoreline, one of my boating friends texted me via my Garmin InReach and asked why it looked like my boat was sailing on land! It must have appeared that way on the tracker.

Another shot of my track showing proximity to shore:

Back Towards The Rumb Line

Finally, my last tack took me away from shore and headed back out towards the center of the lake. I remember hoping that the current sea state would not last all night! Doing fine though, at 5:04pm S/V Eloxy crossed back over the rumb line and was finally headed at least closer to the right direction. Learning later that others had some issues from that wind event and some ended up sailing straight to Erie. We kept sailing...