February sailing at York Point.

York point has turned out to be a great cold weather SW sailing site. When the tide is right you can sail in waist to chest deep water for nearly a mile. If it's low you can sail the channel and pretty much parallel the shallows. That was a real benefit Sunday, the air temp was in the upper 50 to low 60's but the water was around 37 degrees.

Dave and I hit it just after high tide. The winds were anywhere from 14 the 21 knots. Dave rigged up a 6.7 race sail and grabbed a slalom board. Even with the shallow water I wasn't real keen on spending much time in it so I grabbed my 140 l board and rigged a 5.8 and a 5.1.

Dave was pretty well lit, there were a couple areas where the holes were pronounced and we had to schlog through but for the most part we stayed powered. It took me a few runs to get my harness lines right. I can't figure out why they were so far up on the boom. Their position gave me fits in the early gusts but once they were in the sweet spot it was smooth sailing. Dave went out sans gloves so frequent breaks to warm the hands were in order. I sailed with full protection, the Glacier gloves kept my hands nice and toasty so my breaks were due to fatigue.

Toward the end of the session we got a half hour or so of stronger wind in the 18 to 25 knot range. I was still using the 5.8 and blasting on the edge of control in the strong gusts. That is until I hit a piece of chop wrong and got pitched. I often wonder just what I look like as those crashes occur. It has to be hilarious because I was laughing the whole time I was flying through the air and skipping across the water. The only part that wasn't funny was that cold water. After that I went in and swapped out sails. The 5.1 was better suited for the gusts unfortunately it was like hitting the brakes in the lulls.

I offered use of the 5.8 to Dave but he said his sail had so much range that he will usually go from it straight to a 5.0. He was right he handled it no problem. He looked like a rocket skimming the water. It would have been interesting to see the GPS speeds if he'd had one on.

I forgot to bring my camera so there aren't any photos.

After my last run I did come in and grab my cell phone hoping to get a little video clip of Dave coming back in. I was successful capturing the video and it looked pretty good on the little phone screen but on here it's not so good. The clip shows him completing a nice jibe around a channel marker then Murphy says hello on his way back out... Darn sand bars.


I know it's terrible. A video camera is on my wish list. I hear there is a new waterproof one coming out. I am available for product testing if someone wants to send one my way. If only I could get so lucky.

This coming weekend and part of next week we are looking at a string of 65 degree days. Might get a couple more February sessions in short order.