July 4 Weekend Washout
06 July 2021
Mike Stern
Lily, Dan and Serena were all home this weekend. The plan was for Dan, Serena and I to spend Saturday together as a late Father's Day. But the weather wasn't cooperating. Starting on Friday, it rained. Sometimes a drizzle, sometimes a downpour. But almost always rain. Instead of spending the day on the boat as we planned, we went to a movie (F9) and had lunch at a diner. Not too shabby.
Dan and Serena went back on Sunday, but Lily decided to stay another day as the weather looked like it was going to break for Monday. It wasn't great, but at least it wasn't raining. Mostly cloudy skies and bit cool (a welcome break from the stifling heat and humidity of the week). Lily really wanted to go sailing, so off to the boat we went for a quick sail before her 3:30 train back to the city.
We had the dock guys come out to help us off as Patti's leg has been bothering her. The breeze didn't seem to be much at the dock, but as we went out into the river, it picked up a little. I had shaken the reef out of the main, and we raised sail in the harbor. The wind had picked up quite a bit and was blowing probably 12 knots by then, so we sailed a bit with just the full main. We were going really slowly, so we rolled out about half the genny. The heeling wasn't too much, maybe 10 degrees and Patti didn't look too uncomfortable. But when we got into the Sound, the waves picked up considerably. They were about three feet or more, and even though the boat was handling them easily, the motion was clearly making Patti unhappy and maybe even scared. So we quickly bagged the sailing, doused the sails and headed back.
We decided to head back to the dock instead of anchoring. It turned out fine; we had lunch and relaxed and Lily made her train with ease.
It was really nice to have all three here.