2.4 Sailing in Miami

Jen here,

Today was a busy and productive day for sure.  The 470 trailer arrived in Miami last night after a record five days on the road from Victoria. I must admit to feeling a bit ashamed of my drive back last year with my sister Meg; between storms, blown tires, unloading boats, and a tiny six cylinder truck, that particular tow took us 10 1/2 days!  Royal Victoria Yacht Club was very generous this year and allowed us to haul the boats down with the club truck.  It's large diesel engine proved to be much more capable of the tow than my little Mazda B3000.  For those of you from the yacht club, the truck ran beautifully, is nice and clean, and has been taken in for its oil change :)

So, this morning Erin, Tyler, and Geoff came down to the sailing centre in lieu of a well deserved morning off and we unloaded the boats.  Ours is rigged and ready for tuning, and I managed to get out for a sail in the 2.4 this afternoon as well.

For those of you who are not familiar with the 2.4, it's a single handed Paralympic boat...and it's awesome.  You sit inside the boat and control everything, all the sails, steering, sail trim, and somehow you're supposed to fit tactics and strategy in there too! As someone who is used to having a crew, I found myself a bit overwhelmed with all of this multitasking. I'd be sailing along with the jib undertrimmed and thinking "hmph, some dolt needs to trim the jib! We're footing like crazy!" then I would promptly realize that this dolt was in fact me as there was no "we" but rather just "me."  It was a gorgeous day out on Biscayne Bay, a nice 10-12 knots and warm.  Meg Pascoe from the British sailing team was out with fellow Canadian Brenda Hopkins and I and Meg acted as our coach/cheerleader/2.4 guru.  She laughed when it became obvious that I come from a boat which allows for hiking and trapezing...I was obviously a bit stressed out during the puffs as the rail dug into the water and I was trapped inside the cockpit.  All in all a great day and lots of fun transferring 470 skills into another boat.

Cheers,
Jen