What was your "best sail ever" ??

[Frank]

Several years ago, after several failed attempts to cross from Florida to Bahamas, I left about 4am one morning to motor sail to Bimini. The wind was nearly on the nose and after 6 or 7 frustrating hours motoring "into it" I realized there wasn't enough fuel to make Bimini. Between the wind too close to the S and the stream too strong going N....Bimini just wasn' going to happen under sail alone. I cracked off and after both listening to the OB roar that many hours and feeling the up-down-splash..up-down-spash for so long...I was treated to the nicest close reach of my life! The wind and waves were up. My little Ariel "Revival" just loved these conditions! Hard to beleave such a low boat could feel so "bouyant" in the waves. The wind and waves kept building during the afternoon and "Revival" treated me to the nicest ride of my life. The wind was solidly in the low 20's and the waves were 8+ . Man those lil boats know how to handle those conditions! I had hour after hour of Revival romping through waves at or above hull speed....grinning the entire time. The boat was clearly in her element and I was truly enjoying the ride. Ole Alberg knew his stuff! Running with the stream...the GPS showed over 11 at times and was most often in the mid 10's. (ya gotta love that extra 4+knot push) By the time I pulled into Lake Worth inlet after a very early start to an extremely long day, I was tired but excited. I knew then that I'd had one of the best sails ever. That was 8 yrs ago....it hasn't been bettered since!     What was yours??

[Jim_ME]

I'm thinking that the best sail ever...may be the next sail...  :)

[Captain Smollett]

Sorry, but I cannot define a "best sail ever."  No way.

But, I will relate one that is particularly memorable, brings a smile to my face to think about and coincidentally, mentioned to my wife just a couple of days ago.

She was still in medical school and had some friends there that wanted to go sailing.  I cannot remember if either of them had ever been sailing before; let's say "no."  So, it was one of those stunningly beautiful afternoons with which we get blessed occasionally that I took my wife and her two friends for a sail on an inland lake.

One mini-trip we often took was to sail from our club up to the State Park which was about 6 miles as the crow flies.  Well, as the saying goes, "On a sailboat, the shortest distance is a zig zag line," and with the flukey lake winds, that 6 mile trip often took a couple or so hours.

But not this day...somehow, we lucked into a perfect steady wind and had a comfortable, easy reach the entire way.  The trip was so easy, that we then went exploring....making a game of looking at the houses on the lake shore.  I demonstrated how to steer with the sails, and other odds and ends of sailing and let each that wanted to take a turn on the tiller (standard practice on my boats).

In short, the weather was beautiful and the sailing was awesomely relaxed.

But, the thing I remember most about that day on the water is how much those two women laughed (three, really; my wife laughed a lot, too).  There was nothing about that afternoon that did not delight them, nothing about which they could not make a joke and everything was ... just fun.

From coming up with silly names for our boat (one wanted to call her the "Toast-chee" after the crackers we had as a snack) to improv theater style parody of another sailboat's name (a boat we passed) to a shore house's yard...they were relaxed, in the sun and wind, on the water and extremely in the moment. 

Maybe it was just having a break from the rigors of medical school; maybe it was the weather.  Or maybe a whisper of the wind on the sails spoke to them a gentle word: "live."

[CharlieJ]

Aw` man-that would be a TOUGH one. There have been more than one.

sailing my San Juan 21 back just at sundown one evening over on the St John's River

Ghosting along under main and jib, making MAYBE 3 knots, through rafts of ducks on the water, who rose into flight as we sailed along, and settled back in right behind us, so we were sailing in a moving open spot among thousands of ducks.

All the while a friend was up on the cabin front playing his harmonica.One song was of course "The Sloop John B"

Another time, on my trimaran, sailing offshore from the St Johns River down to St Augustine, slipping into Salt Run, again at sundown, and on a dying breeze, to drop anchor for the night just as the sun disappeared, having never cranked the engine.

Or aboard Tehani. Apalachicola Fl to Tarpon Springs. 32 hours, in perfect sailing- full moon, 10 knot winds, two aboard, changing watches every 3 hours, and really not wanting to go below to sleep.

I'm sure there are more, but those spring to mind immediately.

Of course, the rough ones are the ones that make the sea stories ;D Like 24 hours of pounding into 25 knots and 5 foot seas, to make 38 miles, and lose 8 towards the destination.

The smooth ones make the memories though.

[Sea Rover]

I just recently had the best sail of my sailing career. I wrote about it briefly on the last entry to my blog.

I was coming home from a little two night local cruise that had not at all turned out the way I wanted it to. The first sail of the trip was one of my worst. Seas were choppy and confused, the wind was still howling from the norther that blew through the night before. It was rough, wet, and uncomfortable. We ended up running for cover and spent the next day without sailing in protected waters.

On my way home on the last day, as soon as I got back into Tampa Bay I knew I was going to have a nice sail. I hoisted my sails and fell off onto my preferred tack. We sailed that tack for nearly two hours, the whole time I was grinning like a child.

The winds were perfect, just enough for all sails, the bay was flat, and the sun was out. My boat was at hull speed the whole time and steering itself like a dream. It never ceases to amaze me how well my boat will hold a course under sail if balanced right.

The whole sail lasted maybe three hours with me taking the longest possible route to extend my time with these perfect conditions. I tacked over and sailed right up to the mouth of the channel to the marina, patting myself on the back for only having to make one tack the whole time.

Unfortunately all good things have to come to an end though. Luckily I had another day that was almost as good the very next time I went out.

[Sunset]

I had a lot of very nice sails on my Belhaven 19 but the best ones were at night with a nice moon lighting the way. One sail was a short Ohio river sail of only 20 miles with the currant and wind to our back. I'll never forget the wife and I rounding one of those 1 mile bends in the river and far off seeing this yellow glow just below the tree line 3 or 4 miles off wondering what it was. Knowing the sun was long gone it was strange. We laughed our self silly when we got close enough to make out this intruder. It was a Mac Donald sign in Owensboro KY.

Another sail was sailing from the Outer banks. We set sail in a small craft advisory late in the day to sail across Pamlico sound to Vandemere NC. It was dark in a few hours and the wind slowed enough to knock out the double reefs in the sails. We had been surfing down waves on a broad reach that were much bigger than my little boat. Now we were doing about 6 knots and the moon was lighting things up. There is just something special about sailing at night with the moon up and making good way. Nothing but the sound of the boat making its way through the water. The occasional sound of a line or block making contact with the mast or deck. This is also the first time I relied on my chart plotter to find our berth. So wished I had strapped the video camera down somewhere for that trip. But the video probably would have been a let down after experiencing the real thing. I would trade a week of work just to go back to that sailing trip for an hour.

[DavidCrosby]

I have been sailing on Carlyle Lake, IL for nearly 40 years. The vast majority of that has been racing. As a racer, we would pretty much sail straight out into the lake, race around the bouys, head in for lunch go back out to do it once more and then call it a day.

A few years ago on a cool fall day, my wife, another couple and I headed out into the lake for a sail. We ended up running downwind along the shore line. At each and every cove, we sailed into the cove as far as we dared go. We sailed the full length of the lake no more than a couple hundred feet off the shore. At the far north end of the lake there is a small island. On that little island was a large flock of white pelicans. We headed for the pelicans and carefully watched the depth sounder. As we approached the pelicans they started to prepare for flight. It was so cool to watch them. One by one they started to get into a twitter. They were carefully watching us and doing a bit of a dance, ready to leap. And then we bumped the bottom and immediately tacked away.

Ever since that day, I have really made it a point to fully explore our lake.