Red stick

 

Another grey lock down day, but the wind forecast was not too bad so Oz and I got out in Derry the Skerry.  Low and falling tide, so I rowed to the dog beach, just past the wreck of the yellow peril, and beached so Oz could have a leg stretch.  He likes arriving at the beach from the water, it adds status.  He met his friend and relative Lilly and had a jolly good bark.

Some good gusts of wind came through while we were on the beach, so I figured rowing into the wind would be a better idea than getting blown a long way down leaving a hard slog to get home.  We rowed into the little bay up to the Seaholme Boat owners jetty.  When I stopped rowing, we drifted about 1.6 to 1.8 knots.  I tried out the small sea anchor, which slowed me down to about .6 to .8 of a knot, so about half.  The boat still seemed to want to drift on the quarter, I had hoped we would lie head to wind, but it could be that I was just holding the end of the line sitting in the middle of the boat.  If it was tied off to the bow, it might work better.

After I retrieved the line, I rowed around the red stick.  The wind had really cranked up.  As I got close, I was moving very slowly indeed relative to the stick.  Laverton recorded 20 and 23 knot gusts while we were out there. The boat is very stable. Ozzie sat stoically at the bow.  I was worried that as he had got wet, he would get cold, so we didn't stay out too long.

My new iteration of the rear view mirror attachment is much better, and I enjoyed rowing more today, learning how to use effort judiciously. 

Backing the little trailer is a challenge.  I loose sight of it, then over correct.  I am glad the ramp is quiet at the moment so I can work on developing better technique.  Very easy to launch, retrieve and put Derry the Skerry to bed, the ratio of time and effort required to get on the water to the amount of time on the water, which is restricted to about an hour or so thanks to lockdown, so pretty good.

It was a good outing.