5 days of sailing Pensacola

Allatoona

Member
Me and 6 others chartered a Catalina 36 MKII for the BEER Cruise in Pensacola, Florida last week. We towed my Capri 14.2 for the trip. We had 5 other boats from our Atlanta sailing club that were also doing the BEER Cruise. The cruise is 4 days of sailing the intercoastal. Since we chartered, instead of hauling our own boats, we had an extra day of sailing, we arrived on a Thursday evening and left Tuesday morning.

I sailed the Capri 14.2 at each location we dropped anchor. One night I was surfing the boat on the rolling waves in the bay and broke 9mph a couple of times. I also sailed one leg of the cruise as well, about 6 miles and outran the 36' Catalina. We were picked up by the mother ship and towed under the Pensacola Bridge and back into the marina. We slept in the marina 3 nights(with the A/C running) and on anchor 2 nights.

Beer Cruise details:
http://www.beercruise.info/

I don't have any video of me sailing the little boat, but here is a video of it in tow. I forgot to put the centerboard down so it was not tracking very well. I found putting it down just about 3" was enough to help it track well, with it all the way down it did not track well either.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQXtjRpMeRM

Our last day of sailing we had high winds and sailed the big boat across the Pensacola Bay and outran all the other boats. We were all racers on our boat, and I was skippering the big boat this afternoon so it wasn't too difficult to out sail the other boats.

Here are some pictures/videos from the cruise. Our 3rd night out(1st night of the BEER Cruise) a nasty storm blew over us and another boat clocked wind gusts at 67mph. There were about 50 sailboats on anchor that night and everyone stayed on anchor, thankfully.
https://picasaweb.google.com/rlforrester/BeerCruise2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d1WAIk6uho
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5dm-Cpl4Lc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUc3Am2653U

We even got to see the Blue Angels practicing on Friday before their Tuesday show:

-Robert
1989 Capri 14.2
1984 Catalina 22
 

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