First Sail!!!

[bobholiday]

I'm so happy!! My old Centaur sails better than I would ever have expected. I'm still on the original, near 30 year old now sails, and I was fully expecting performance to be atrocious. In fact, I was expecting to have problems that would require ££ to be spent.

But to my surprise, the sails went on no problem, and worked brilliantly first try.

I set off from my mooring at Weir Quay on the Tamar, went down past Cargreen, and started making short tacks in high water in the large expanse of water above the Tamar bridges.

After a little while I got adventurous, and decided to have a go at sailing under the bridges - this went without a hitch, so I carried on - and arrived at Drake island. Confidence was even higher by this point, so I sailed through the narrows, out around the West end of the breakwater, back in around the East end, back across the Sound, back through the narrows, back up the Tamar, and back under the bridges... where the wind died on me. So I motored the last mile or so back to the mooring.

Fantastic!!!! Can't believe how well everything went on my maiden sail.

Here's some photos...

[DaveA]

Aw come on, that's cheating, fancy having a furling genoa
Well I would actually
Looking very nice and the weather looks to be holding too, but you do have another advantage over me, that bridge is way over your mast but I'm going to have to drop mine to get under the ones around here. Is yours easy to drop ?

[bobholiday]

Absolutely no idea at all I'm afraid. Not been an issue so far though, fortunately. I imagine it would be a very difficult job without a crane!