43. Sailing With A Spinnaker
Stored below on Keola, we found a bucket labeled “spinnaker.” A spinnaker is a tricky sail to handle, and takes three crew, so we got a friend from the sailing club to show us how, and an agile guy from school to help during the first (and only) spinnaker run.
We thought it would be nice to have a picture of our boat with the big colorful spinnaker up in front. Betty found another guy at the club with a high-speed racing outboard to take her out as the “photo-boat.” Outside the lagoon I planned to “run” down the coast toward Pearl Harbor, but the wind was straight offshore.
After dodging a fleet of sailboats racing, we got the spinnaker up with only a few minor hangups, and suddenly we were “flying”! The spinnaker was an unexpected combination of green, yellow and aqua stripes — pretty!
Betty in the power boat buzzed around us like a bumblebee ready to pounce on a flower bouncing wildly in the ocean waves, and snapping pictures like mad whenever she happened to be connected with the boat seat.
I noticed the waves were getting bigger — too big for the racing hull of our photo-boat. The power boat guy was waving to quit and go home. So we “cut” the session and slipped the spinnaker down like experts. Coming about, I was astonished to see how far we had come in what seemed a few minutes! Our friend estimated we were 2-3 miles from shore. It took us two hours to sail back against the stiff wind!
Our only spinnaker run was an exhilarating experience on a beautiful day! Betty got this beautiful picture from the power boat for lasting memory of a wonderful experience.