Mill Creek to Fishing Bay
Staysail Works!
The voyage of the Good Karma continued today to Fishing Bay, Virginia. We had more moderate wind today but enough to test out our staysail. This is a foresail you use in place of the jib, which is the front sail on a sailboat such as ours. The mainsail is the largest sail that is behind the mast, while the jib and staysail are in front of the mast. In the picture above you see a sliver of the white staysail. In front of it is the jib rolled on the front stay, it looks like a thick bar running vertically to the left of the staysail. The staysail is used in higher wind conditions to get better performance than a reefed the jib. On this type of boat you use either the jib or staysail but not both at the same time.
We really needed the staysail yesterday in the 25 to 30 knot winds we had but the wave action was too wild to put it up in those conditions. You kind of have to anticipate when to use it, at least we do at this point in our learning curve.
Today was shorter, about 35 nautical miles and far less windy which made for a very enjoyable ride.
Tomorrow we move again.
Posted in Sailing by Mark with comments disabled.