I'm still loving sailing her, and still learning what she can do and what she likes. 

I know some boats can surf or plane off the wind. I always thought those were racy hulls with a fine entry angle and a broad transom. Flutterby is not such a creature, with a kinda bluff bow and a long shallow full keel plus a heavy ballasted centerboard. Her D/L ratio is pretty lean for a cruising boat, and I put plenty of sail area on her. 

Yesterday I was sailing with my mizzen down and one panel of my main reefed, mostly 150 degrees off the wind to dead downwind. It was great sailing in protected waters and the channel wasn't too confined, blowing around 20 knots. As the wind started building to 25kt, I started to notice that when it gusted or built up a bit, things felt different. It felt like Flutterby was climbing up onto her bow wave, although I’ve not done that on a sailboat (keelboat) before. The way the rudder was biting in the water felt a little different, the wake got louder and a lot more white water. The waterline at the transom got up almost to the top of the tiller arm scupper, although water didn’t splash up over the cockpit grate. I saw speeds (on my poorly calibrated and likely underreading knot meter) climb up to 8.0kt occasionally and was spending a lot of time up over 7.5kt. This was very narrow and thus protected waters, with at most 1-2 foot chop, so I cannot imagine that there were any waves big enough for Flutterby to surf down.

It was a combination of fun, exciting, surprising and a bit scary at times. Especially as I find reefing hard to do when the sail is out to 90 degrees and drawing well, so I knew reducing sail area would be a bit more of an operation, likely turning 180 and motoring into the wind to stay in the channel. 

Today's sail, which was in Georgia, USA if anybody wants to actually find the places I describe. 

This was the kind of day of sailing that I designed the rig for Flutterby hoping to do. I don’t know if the original cat ketch rig would have been as good, but I’m sure less people would have photographed it. I wasn’t close to very many people, but I did see one get a camera out today.

I did a late departure, aiming to hit the currents favorably as I went through St. Andrews Sound, and hoping to get the building afternoon SE winds. Around noon I hauled in my anchor and started motoring out of Shellbine Creek, and down the Cumberland River. It was the end of the ebb. At first there was little wind, and it was on the nose, but it started to come around to where I could sail soon, so as I was motoring, I hoisted the main fully, and upon sheeting it in I realized that I didn’t need the motor. It was a nice reach, around 10 knots of wind. With the favorable current and a rather foul bottom slowing me down, I still was making 5-6 knots over the bottom by the time I got the mizzen all the way up and sheeted in as well.

I come to realize that I really like hoisting my sails while underway motoring—as long as the wind is forward of the beam, I can just release the sheet, let it weathervane, and hoist either sail. As the sail goes up, it quietly weathervanes without binding up or flogging badly. I can take a break to adjust course or check navigation, or just rest without any adverse consequences. Then tighten up the other lines, yard hauling parrel, and on the main, the spanned downhaul/parrels. And when I’m ready to start sailing, sheet in and let the sail draw.

So I was sailing nicely along going out the sound. After making the turn to come back in Jekyll Sound, I was going dead downwind, so I gybed the mizzen over and sailed in wing and wing. Apparent wind dropped to about 7-8 knots, but  with the current and everything, I was going faster coming back in, seeing over 7 knots some of the time. I was trying to make it around green can 29A, and had to push it, sailing the main by the lee around 15 degrees at times. I love that about the junk rig!

As I turned a bit more Northward behind Jekyll Island, I had to gybe the mizzen back, and then sheeted in a bit. I checked the tide as I was going in toward Jekyll Creek; I was still a ways from the narrow and shallow parts, but it was going to be a minus one foot tide. I went in under sail, feeling pretty hardcore. As I got farther behind the island, the wind lightened up a bit, but fortunately the current was still pushing me nicely, and it was still a good point of sail, sometimes almost running, other times reaching. My speed did slow down to below 4 knots a couple times. I went past the marina, when under the high bridge, and then went by the other marina. (Somebody there took the one confirmed picture of Flutterby today.

After that, the creek gets really narrow. I’ve been through it at both high tide and low tide, and at least at low tide the wide shallow mud banks all look like mud, and if you stay in the middle of the visible water, you are pretty much mid channel. It was like that this time. Even so, I did see a lot of depths around six feet, and I had the full centerboard down, so I drew six feet. Then I started seeing depths of five and a half, so I cranked up some of the centerboard to get it out of the mud—I was pretty sure I was mid-channel, and there wasn’t a deeper section. The mud was soft, so I only slowed down to about two knots. I saw more depths between five and six. Then I was called by another sailboat, warning me that they were aground, so don’t go close to them as I approached. They said they had a four foot keel, so they must have missed the channel. I kept on going, went around a gentle bend in the narrow stuff, then had to make the sharp turn where there is a range, and a jetty as the creek opens up into St. Simons sound.

As I made it into St. Simons Sound, I found myself fighting the current for the first time, but the wind freshened up a bit and I turned up to a broad reach, and even fighting the current was doing about 4.5 knots. For a while I had to harden up to a close reach, when the wind or the river shifted a bit. The wind was up over 10 knots apparent, and the sails just felt powerful. So I charged out St. Simon’s sound….and then turned back in, with the current becoming favorable again, and the wind right behind me again. So once again I was sailing wing and wing again, making great progress. I kept going in until I got up along Lanier Island, and had to gybe the mizzen over again. By this time I was doing a better job of yanking the sheets around. Another time, a sheetlet caught on the end of my mizzen sail gatherer support pipe, and stayed fouled there ‘till I yanked it around. (Note to self: I’m going to have to shorten those pipes a bit and cut or fold back the fabric there so this doesn’t happen eventually. Especially if they catch when I tack; I’ve not done enough of that yet to know how bad it will be.)

I continued in going up the Mackay River, going around a bunch of bends, sometimes dead downwind, sometimes up to a beam reach, sometimes in-between, adjusting the sails with each bend in the river. The wind might be starting to fade, but it was still OK. I still had current, but I knew that sometime it was going to switch as I started out toward Altamaha Sound. Then I went around a sharp bend and had to point about as high as Flutterby could manage. I still made progress, but it was slow around that bend. I even got the sails backed/in irons for a moment, and came to a stop, but when the sheets went slack I realized I was far from sheeted in hard, tightened up, and found myself going forward again ‘till I made it round the next bend and wasn’t needing to pinch. By this time I was thinking about anchoring for the night, and had picked out a place. It looked like once I got around the next bend I  would be going almost dead downwind all the way, and through some fairly narrow dredged channels, even if the river was wide….so I decided to crank the engine and drop sails while I was still going upwind-ish, and didn’t have to worry about my sails going past 90 degrees when the sheets when slack. Another half hour or so motoring and then dropped the anchor.

With apparent winds of 5~10 knots, Flutterby sails easily and nicely. This kind of light air performance…and this ability to follow twisting channels under sail easily without feeling at risk of something catastrophic happening is a joy. Someday I’ll figure out more about how she goes to windward, maybe when she has a clean bottom, and if I ever get a reliable speed through the water instrument, or stop sailing in tidal areas. I’m really happy with today!