Cdubb
New Member
I took my fish out for the third time ever two days ago and I had the most frustrating experience I've ever had on the water. I'll do my best to describe what was going on so a maybe a more experienced fish sailor can tell me what went wrong so I can not have this happen again.
So at the lake I sail on there was a constant 10-15 mph wind, the strongest I've had a sunfish in yet, it wasn't super favorable for launch from my dock. None the less I got it out and started running a tack, starboard close hauled, close to the wind and was making headway with it at a fair speed. I went to make a tack to port so I could run beam reach but as soon as I turned to port and went into that moment of being in irons I was pushed back to the postion I was in before the tack and was going straight sideways with a sail full of wind. Since I still had wind I tried turning her out from the wind a little bit to get some momentum back but it kept going sideways no matter how I trimmed the sail or what I did with the rudder, I wasn't in control and I couldn't figure out why , it was like I had no steering. The rudder was all the way down as was the daggerboard. I was in this postion for a few minutes trying everything I could think of when a friend on a pontoon nearby recognized my boat and my predicament and came to help. He tossed me a rope and we got the nose turned after that I was fine (other than hugely embarrassed and frustrated). I know if you get into irons real bad on a Hobie if you can get it to go backwards you and jibe out of it but I couldn't get my fish to do anything but go sideways. What the hell happened?
So at the lake I sail on there was a constant 10-15 mph wind, the strongest I've had a sunfish in yet, it wasn't super favorable for launch from my dock. None the less I got it out and started running a tack, starboard close hauled, close to the wind and was making headway with it at a fair speed. I went to make a tack to port so I could run beam reach but as soon as I turned to port and went into that moment of being in irons I was pushed back to the postion I was in before the tack and was going straight sideways with a sail full of wind. Since I still had wind I tried turning her out from the wind a little bit to get some momentum back but it kept going sideways no matter how I trimmed the sail or what I did with the rudder, I wasn't in control and I couldn't figure out why , it was like I had no steering. The rudder was all the way down as was the daggerboard. I was in this postion for a few minutes trying everything I could think of when a friend on a pontoon nearby recognized my boat and my predicament and came to help. He tossed me a rope and we got the nose turned after that I was fine (other than hugely embarrassed and frustrated). I know if you get into irons real bad on a Hobie if you can get it to go backwards you and jibe out of it but I couldn't get my fish to do anything but go sideways. What the hell happened?