06-05-2017, 06:01 PM
Last weekend, I attended the Lake Pepin messabout in Lake City Mn. I have been going to this event since before I had a sailboat to attend with. The first time I went down was to take a ride on a weekender to see if I really wanted to build one. Bill Paxton graciously took me and another guy out for a spin on Surprise, his open weekender. He let me take the helm for a bit even though I had no clue what to do and after that there was no doubt that a weekender was in my future. Fast forward 8 years and this time Bill has no boat but comes to the messabout none the less. I knew that Bill had sold Surprise last fall and was hoping to pay my debt to him with Duckie.
I had only sailed Duckie once before the messabout mostly to make sure I didn't have any problems once I got there. That is the story of my first sail of 2017. I arrived as one of the first two people to get on the water Friday afternoon and had a great sail in decent wind from the southwest with Duckie showing me what she was ready for. Not too many people showed up this year, and some of them showed up pretty late Friday, so I ducked back into the lagoon behind the campground to spend the night on the boat. The lagoon is pretty much for shoal draft boats and is protected from all sides by trees with only a narrow zigzag entry. It is one of my favorite spots to sleep on the boat. In the morning I had a leisurely breakfast and then motored over to the beach where the rest of the boats were tied up.
I met a fella who owned a Pocketship but had not brought it because it was not completely rigged in time. I offered to let him sail Duckie in order to get a feel for how she compared to his boat. The forecast was for building winds so I swapped out the lapper for the stock jib before we took off which turned out to be a wise choice. By the time we got away from the beach, the wind had turned lively and from a direction that would let us broad reach as far as we wanted to go. We roared up and down the lake a couple times in pretty good fashion, not losing out to any boat that was doing the same course. I had sailed a Pocketship before and now he had sailed a weekender, so we were able to compare notes. We came to the conclusion that there wasn't all that much difference between the two which made sense because of all the similarities between them.
After lunch, I got my chance to let Bill sail my boat. What a delight that was. During lunch the wind built up to "sporting" so before we left the beach I tucked in a reef which also was a good idea. Bill is a very experienced sailor especially in a weekender. This was the first time I was able to completely let go of my responsibility for the boat and just enjoy the ride. We sailed the same course as the first sail that day because, well, that was the most fun. We didn't do anything special to enhance performance, but Bill was really impressed with how Duckie handled. His thought was that the sails I bought from the Stevensons were very much better than the sails he had made locally. I have to agree because other than the absent cabin there wasn't any difference between the two. Eventually he notice that we were going at a pretty good clip, so I asked him if he would like me to GPS us. When I did, we found that were going a pretty steady 6mph, and maybe a bit higher. I was taken aback by this because we had two full grown men in the cockpit, a reefed sail, and were dragging the motor in the water at the time. Long story short, Bill couldn't stop grinning even after we tied up. I felt like I had repaid the debt I owed him for that ride so long ago, and that felt pretty good.
The next morning, we all sailed across the lake to Stockholm Wi. for breakfast. Three of the boats got going together with me rowing trying to catch up. I wasn't going to row all the way to Wisconsin, so eventually I gave up without gaining much ground on the rest. There was no wind to speak of and the only way to tell if we were moving was to watch if there was any water movement behind the boat. It was going to be a long slow bob for that mile and a half across the lake. After a while I got bored and started playing around with the boat. I remembered to sit on the lee side of the boat in light air to get the sail to hang in a semblance of proper shape. This had the additional benefit of getting me in the shade of the main sail. I also snuggled up to the cabin which got the stern up and then lifted the motor out of the water just for laughs. Pretty soon I noticed that I was in the middle of the other three boats. I just figured they had veered off course. But a little while later they were quite a bit behind me when I finally looked around. Seriously, this was not a race, but there was a prize to be had and I took it. I got the best place to tie up at the Stockholm beach. Last year we had a good bit of trouble trying to sail off that lee shore and I wanted the best shot at it so getting the spot I did put me at ease.
After breakfast, we once again had to sail off of a lee shore into a building wind. This time it went okay and we all went our separate ways. I sailed around until the wind started getting squirrelly, then headed for the landing. After it was all done I learned from Bill that the weekend of the messabout is the single most active weather weekend of the entire year on Lake Pepin. Thinking back, yeah that seems right. Still, it seems that the sailing is always awesome in spite of the storms. I for one will be coming back every year until I simply can't anymore. If you are in the Midwest and have a weekender, you are missing out if you don't try it out.
Al
I had only sailed Duckie once before the messabout mostly to make sure I didn't have any problems once I got there. That is the story of my first sail of 2017. I arrived as one of the first two people to get on the water Friday afternoon and had a great sail in decent wind from the southwest with Duckie showing me what she was ready for. Not too many people showed up this year, and some of them showed up pretty late Friday, so I ducked back into the lagoon behind the campground to spend the night on the boat. The lagoon is pretty much for shoal draft boats and is protected from all sides by trees with only a narrow zigzag entry. It is one of my favorite spots to sleep on the boat. In the morning I had a leisurely breakfast and then motored over to the beach where the rest of the boats were tied up.
I met a fella who owned a Pocketship but had not brought it because it was not completely rigged in time. I offered to let him sail Duckie in order to get a feel for how she compared to his boat. The forecast was for building winds so I swapped out the lapper for the stock jib before we took off which turned out to be a wise choice. By the time we got away from the beach, the wind had turned lively and from a direction that would let us broad reach as far as we wanted to go. We roared up and down the lake a couple times in pretty good fashion, not losing out to any boat that was doing the same course. I had sailed a Pocketship before and now he had sailed a weekender, so we were able to compare notes. We came to the conclusion that there wasn't all that much difference between the two which made sense because of all the similarities between them.
After lunch, I got my chance to let Bill sail my boat. What a delight that was. During lunch the wind built up to "sporting" so before we left the beach I tucked in a reef which also was a good idea. Bill is a very experienced sailor especially in a weekender. This was the first time I was able to completely let go of my responsibility for the boat and just enjoy the ride. We sailed the same course as the first sail that day because, well, that was the most fun. We didn't do anything special to enhance performance, but Bill was really impressed with how Duckie handled. His thought was that the sails I bought from the Stevensons were very much better than the sails he had made locally. I have to agree because other than the absent cabin there wasn't any difference between the two. Eventually he notice that we were going at a pretty good clip, so I asked him if he would like me to GPS us. When I did, we found that were going a pretty steady 6mph, and maybe a bit higher. I was taken aback by this because we had two full grown men in the cockpit, a reefed sail, and were dragging the motor in the water at the time. Long story short, Bill couldn't stop grinning even after we tied up. I felt like I had repaid the debt I owed him for that ride so long ago, and that felt pretty good.
The next morning, we all sailed across the lake to Stockholm Wi. for breakfast. Three of the boats got going together with me rowing trying to catch up. I wasn't going to row all the way to Wisconsin, so eventually I gave up without gaining much ground on the rest. There was no wind to speak of and the only way to tell if we were moving was to watch if there was any water movement behind the boat. It was going to be a long slow bob for that mile and a half across the lake. After a while I got bored and started playing around with the boat. I remembered to sit on the lee side of the boat in light air to get the sail to hang in a semblance of proper shape. This had the additional benefit of getting me in the shade of the main sail. I also snuggled up to the cabin which got the stern up and then lifted the motor out of the water just for laughs. Pretty soon I noticed that I was in the middle of the other three boats. I just figured they had veered off course. But a little while later they were quite a bit behind me when I finally looked around. Seriously, this was not a race, but there was a prize to be had and I took it. I got the best place to tie up at the Stockholm beach. Last year we had a good bit of trouble trying to sail off that lee shore and I wanted the best shot at it so getting the spot I did put me at ease.
After breakfast, we once again had to sail off of a lee shore into a building wind. This time it went okay and we all went our separate ways. I sailed around until the wind started getting squirrelly, then headed for the landing. After it was all done I learned from Bill that the weekend of the messabout is the single most active weather weekend of the entire year on Lake Pepin. Thinking back, yeah that seems right. Still, it seems that the sailing is always awesome in spite of the storms. I for one will be coming back every year until I simply can't anymore. If you are in the Midwest and have a weekender, you are missing out if you don't try it out.
Al