Today I went sailing with my Brother-In-law George on the Barn Cat, his cat boat. We started out around 9:40 AM and were in the water around 10:15. Then we had to motor down the St. Sebastian River until we got under the railroad bridge and the US Highway 1 bridge. Once we were on the other side of the bridges George got the mast and sail up. Once this was done we turned the motor off and tacked up the Indian River Lagoon heading north. We sailed back and forth across the Inter Costal Water Way always getting a little bit further north with each tack. Around 2:15 after sailing north all day it was time to head back south. The wind had changed from due north to more easterly so we had a straight sail on a broad reach (If you want to know what a broad reach is look here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Points_of_sail) all the way back to the US Hwy 1 bridge. This took about 40 minutes, 2 hours to go north, 40 minutes to go south, which point of sail do you think is more efficient? Then it was time to start the motor and take down the sail and mast. Once we were back at the dock George got the Barn Cat back onto the trailer and we were on our way home. Back at Whispering Palms RV Park we rinsed out the motor and also got the salt off of the hull and deck and then parked the trailer back into it’s storage spot.
