Amazing late fall sailing

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November can be hit or miss in Minnesota. While we go as often as we can until the water freezes, often it is in winter sailing gear. Not so this year, where all four Shackleton Cup weekends were delightful, and 3 of them were warm enough to wear shorts.

One of the warm ones featured an all-girl BlueJ crew. We had a blast, and ate and drank like kings. And queens. Here we are rolling a Santana 2023R under spinnaker in 15 knots.


And it was not just the weekends, the next week Wednesday looked great so Dan and I took off a day of work and went sailing. My iPhone thought that was so cool that it made a movie out of the adventure.


The last Shackleton was cooler (34F) and VERY foggy at the start. Only three boats ventured over to Maynards for the event. We had to use our compass and nav apps to get our of Wayzata Bay and into the open lake, where the visibility improved.


On the way back we drag-raced an S2 7.9 on a tight reach back to Wayzata Bay. We were in a hurry and were thinking about motoring, but the breeze picked up to 13 knots and we sailed faster than we could ever hope to motor. 



 Arriving at the dock at 3PM, we've got big work to do. Only two hours of daylight to get the boat out of the water!


Warm and dry.


BlueJ safe and asleep for her 4 month nap, dreaming of 2017!!!




Comments

  1. AnonymousDecember 15, 2017 at 7:10 PM

    Clay -cool site - wish there were other 260's in the states. All the cool boats of this type and size seem to be built in Europe. if you were in the market for a similar boat in the US in the 15 to 30 k range for racing and a few weekends aboard what would you be looking at ??? ( say there are no 260's in the states )

    ReplyDelete
  2. clayDecember 19, 2017 at 11:30 AM

    Thanks! Agree its sad no other 260s in the USA. Its such an advanced boat that even 20 years on its basically state of the art. Thats the hard part, finding a boat like it will be much new and cost much more. I've had offer for $30K+ for her and have said no, for that exact reason. Beneteau's whole 'Spirt line of Firsts by Finot was amazing. First 210, 260, 300.

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