Somer and I went out for an early morning sail in hopes of breaking in Sea Peace. I have yet to catch any fish from the boat. We got on the water around 8am and sailed out past V-land. Right as we were about to make our first tack, Somer’s face lit up in excitement. “Fish On!” She was cranking the little bugger in really fast and it started skipping across the surface. I did my best to slow the boat down. She got the small papio right up next to the boat and as I was about to grab the leader, he slid off the hook. SOooo Close…. That was the first exciting part of our sail.
We trolled for another 15 minutes and decided to sail on over to Sunset Beach. Somer came prepared with her surfboard; a small swell was coming in. It was all downwind so smooth sailing. I dropped her off right at Sunset Point. The waves looked about waist-chest high. I cruised past Val’s reef, which is an inside wave that breaks on really north swells. Surprisingly, it looked pretty good today. I beached the boat and pulled the plugs to let some of the water out. It was a bit tricky timing the waves. There was a waist high shore break that doesn’t play nice with my boat.
After a safe landing, I got back on the water feeling a bit lighter. I cruised by Kammie Land and did a few passes by Sunset. I got going at a good clip and zoomed right by everyone just squirting the boundary between the channel and the reef. I caught one wave in the boat and was hauling ass. It is one of my favorite adrenaline pumping activities. To ride a wave in a sailboat is incredible. While steering the boat, an internal instinct kicks in, and minor adjustments are made concerning direction, the amount of wind in the sail, and finding the correct balancing point. It’s way more intense than just riding a wave on a surfboard. (If the waves are under chest high…)
I passed by Kammie land a few more times and decided to spice things up by sailing standing up. So much fun! It’s a combination of surfing, sailing, and boating all in one. You can practice cross stepping up to the bow or if things get gusty you have to lean out on the rail like you’re doing a backside bottom turn. I had good balance going out away from sunset, so I tacked around and headed downwind. As soon as I stood up the boat started to flip and I jumped down into the water to keep it upright. I hopped back on and tried again with the same result. On the third try the boat flipped over. Oops! I got in position and jumped on the dagger board, swinging the boat upright and then it caught some wind and flipped back over in the other direction. Finally I got it upright and stable.
I saw my water bottle floating and after two drive by attempts, I hauled it into the boat. “Ok,” I thought to myself, “time to head back to shore and regroup.” Things did not go as smoothly beaching the boat this time around. I forgot to look behind me and when I did there was no turning back. A waist high wave was about to crash on us right as we hit the sand. I scooted to the back trying to keep the bow up as the wave slammed us. It smashed the rudder to the side and cracked the handle piece. “Shit!” I pulled it up, lowered the sail, and took a couple deep breaths.
The great thing about these boats is how easily they are to fix. After some further investigation, I realized I could use the drain plugs as a flat head screwdriver to remove the broken rudder piece held in by a screw and slide the remaining end into the old spot. Easy enough, I was back out on the water. I cruised by the lineup at Sunset again and as I headed toward shore I noticed out of the corner of my eye Somer riding the same wave I was on with the boat. I picked her up and we tacked our way back to V-land, both stoked about the session that just went down. From fishing at the crack of dawn to flipping boats and catching some playful waves, we just had a full on summer style North Shore Morning.
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