Hello. This summer I made a dream come true and bought a new sunfish to sail on Peconic Bay, Long Island. I should tell you that I'm 67 and have scant experience except for light sails on a Maine Lake. I took lessons with two instructors at a sailing school here and think I have the basics down pretty well. I can sail but learning about the nuances of the wind and tides is challenging. Today I went out in 8 mph winds with some gusting and zipped into the bay swiftly. Coming back took an hour though and I hope to understand what went wrong. I was sailing pretty near into the wind so I close hauled and tacked. However the wind pushed me off tacking 8 out of 10 times. It was low tide so I had to pull daggerboard up because I kept on hitting sand. I thought I was going to have to get out and walk boat back in. By the way, it was early in the morning and nobody around except my darling husband who watches from shore to make sure I'm ok. I'm wondering what else I could have done in this circumstance? Also, the daggerboard stop fell off and sank and so did the daggerboard bungee cord. I've ordered new ones but would appreciate any tips. So excited to be part of the forum!