J Jamboree 2013 Lake Winnipesaukee Day 1

So when I arrived the boat was already in the water and the mast was already erected (it travels laying down on top of the boat, see photo).

This is a competitors boat being put in behind us.

We had to rig up the boat which means a lot of attaching wires and ropes and measuring the tension on things and the balancing everything out.  And to make matters more complicated, there are tables of tension levels for each part based on the level of wind you expect.  So you can re-tune the boat based on the forecast.  We probably returned the boat four times over the weekend, at least one of those times was while underway.

The weather forecast had been for very light air and possible rain showers.  The first race was scheduled for 230 so we decided to get out there early and get some practice in.  After we got out to the open water and had all the sails up, we came into the open part of the lake where you can see a few miles and we spotted rain already coming down on a near part of the lake, that was so hard and intense that it looked like a white curtain had been unrolled across that park of the lake rendering everything, including whole islands, invisible.

We put on our foul weather gear on and although we were only a 5 minute motor back to port, the sails were already up, we didn't see lightning or hear thunder, and we needed some practice, so we stayed out.  We got rained on ferociously for about fifteen minutes with five minutes of sprinkle before and after.  It rained so hard that the mainsail had a waterfall coming off the bottom from all the water sliding down it. It was wild.

Once the rain cleared, the winds picked up a lot, as 10 other J-80 sailboats appeared (with dry sails and dry crews) and the races were on.  We had three races in total and our boat had mediocre results.  We were getting smoother and learning to work with each other as a crew and although we were cold and wet we were having fun!

The rest of the team:

Dave, Henry, Russ

We are staying in Weirs Beach, which because of the time of the year (not hot and the leaves are still green), is dead.