Exhilirating beam reach
01 August 2008 | at anchor...
SW 16-20 knots. I woke up already at 6 and foiund the wifi to be more stable. Uploaded pictures and sent a few e-mails. We left Ruhno around 10AM.
CaptainClumsy had quite a performance when we motored out of the harbour. R�de Orm is a full-keeled heavy displacement vessel. This has quite a few advangtges, but at least one disadvantage. Her turniing radius is about the same as a small tanker. This feature makes manoevering in tight quarters, erh...interesting to say the least.
I misjudged her ability to turn around the head of the jetty considering the wind direction, and ended up in close contact with the bottom right at the breakwater. Since the wind pushed the boat onto the shoaal, it wasn�t possible to get out even in reverse gear. However, a swedish couple in a Bruce Roberts 53, noticed our predicament and helped us with a long line. They could get us out of trouble with their huge genua winch, and soon enough we were underway.
Thank you - 'Joyride' hope to be able to give you a hand if needed sometime.
The original plan was to go 45 degrees to the tiny island of Kihnu (Kin�) but this gave us an unnerving oint of sail, with flogging headsail in the choppy seas that build tremendously fast on these shallow waters. Mostly between 10-30 meters deep.
We decided to head north instead, to the next largest of the Estonian islands; Hiiumaa or Dag� in Swedish, and then north across the Bay of Finland to the archipelago around Hanko (Hang�).
The wind veered soon enough to West, and increased rapidly. The mizzen came down, then a reef too. we were still making 6,5 knots most of the time and this was actually superb sailing. I e as soon as we got used to teh seas. In 25-30 knots of wind, they grew rapidly and started t break. Not higher than 1,5 meters but short and VERY steep. This was, as a new experince even for me with many years of sailing in the Baltic Sea. R�de Orm rode the waves very nice as always, soft in her mottion even under these quite extreme circumstances.
When the wind decreased in the evening we anchored in 6 m depth in the shelter of a tiny island a couple of South of Muhu, with it's busy road ferries between the mainland (Virtsu port) and Muhu (Kuivastu port)