Albie here. Ever had high winds rip your sails to pieces?
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That day, I remember the winds picking up to incredible speeds and my sails were just not a match to the intense velocity and speed that ensued. You can see from the picture what a mess the winds made of my sails that day.
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So probably most of you will not be able to say such a thing (lol)! I’m guessing that’s a good thing but there’s some real important things to learn from this experience. The first is that having a second set of sails and an engine is a really good idea (I’m glad I did!). Also, life is an uncertain place and things you don’t expect to happen CAN happen. I mean, I didn’t go out sailing that day thinking to myself, “hmm, I wonder if my sails are going to get shredded today!” You know what I mean!
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A few years ago, I remember driving through Pasadena on a pretty low traffic road. I crossed the green light, not thinking anything about it when suddenly another car ran the red light and zoomed in front of my car ending up in a horrific accident. The other car went flying across the street hitting an electric box and spinning back to the middle of the street. I’m just thankful that my air bags came out and saved my life. So you get my point.
Anyway, I just think its a good idea to extra careful and pay more attention to things that we assume will be normal – because sometimes they’re not. It’s the same way with working online. Often we see what looks to be a great deal and an opportunity to make a lot of money quickly. I promise you, this is not usually the case. Here’s a rule of thumb for you: If it doesn’t involve real work and learning real skills to succeed, then it’s probably a scam. If it’s all “done for you”, then watch out. If you fall for these programs you will probably get a similar feeling to mine the day I got all my sails shredded.
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Having a solid foundation in marketing is really important if you want to work successfully online without trouble. Honestly there are five critical skills you have to begin learning to succeed here and its my passion to help you to learn them.
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So if you’re looking to find a safe place to begin succeeding, then we want you on our team. If that’s the case, then please do one or two things:
email me back by simply replying back to this message. Put in the subject title: “Share with me more” and I will do exactly that.
Talk soon.
Albie Derbyshire
1-877-521-5505
cell: 626-379-5692
EliAlbie67@gmail.com
REQUIRED EARNINGS DISCLOSURE: We cannot guarantee that you will be able to generate any income amount as this is based on work ethic, persistence and possibly your skill set.
I lovesailing,hiking, personal motivation, business and sharing what I love with others! Feel free to check out all my exciting adventures at my websites below!
Being out on the ocean last night brought back memories of a night sail a few years ago.
This is what I wrote then:
“The waves behind the boat first lifted the stern and then begin lifting the keel.
When the waves moved under the bow, the whole boat began to rock and slide down through the waves!
It was so fun and exhilarating.”
Wow! That’s exactly how I felt last night out at sea.
Here’s more of the story:
“Being on the water suddenly brings a peace over my mind.
There’s something about it! The beauty of the wind on the water and the ripples over its face, perform an amazing miracle in your heart and take you away from the day to day stress that builds up.
Suddenly all that matters now is solving little problems like where you will turn the boat next!
I turned and tacked to the left (port side) and the sails luffed as it lost wind. As the boat changed direction, the wind caught the sails in the ‘wrong direction’ and they back-winded. The wind, being in the sails the wrong way, put pressure on the sails and the boat completed the turn. Simultaneously, when the pressure reached its highest point in the sails, I let go of the ropes that held the sail and pulled the opposite ones in. Now with the sails pulled in on the right direction the boat took off. The timing of all this is was a graceful thing to watch and participate in.
Tacking out of the first inlet, I came to the larger body of water – the main channel. Here the sun was just over the horizon but it was still strong and bright at least half an hour before sunset. I put my sunglasses on as the rays of the sun were often in my face as I came up into the wind and tacked again.
By sunset I had made it to the last stretch of the harbor and a sweet double masted boat with a gaff rig sail (like a boat from the early 1900’s) greeted me.
I took three pictures of it as it passed by in the orange afterglow.
I was getting thirsty so I remembered my Dr Pepper and thought how nice that would go with my chicken sandwich. But when I got the Dr Pepper out, it was warm, so I put it in the cockpit for the wind to chill it.
The wind was starting to chill me too so I put on my windbreaker, but later went for my scarf and gloves also. Even though October in Southern California is still warm, you wouldn’t know it being out on the water!
The afterglow faded with amazing deep reds and maroons, so that the sky was almost crimson.
Out at sea, the sky was so clear and clean, you can see the lights on the mountains some twenty to thirty miles away!
The wind was blowing from the south east that evening. It made sailing easier as I didn’t have to tack much and could just head right out to sea.
After a time of cutting through the swells and enjoying the motion of being lifted by the waves, I turned back towards home.
After tacking around, I notice that the waves were behind me and the wind – which usually was also behind me – was coming from the beach instead. This was really great news because I could now bring my sails in real tight on a close reach and balance the boat really easily.
This meant that I could sit on the bow pulpit without having to worry about steering and watch the boat surf the waves all by itself.
So I put on my life jacket and maneuvered on hands and knees over the moving cabin top to the bow rail and sat down.
I held on tight to the grip rope. The waves behind the boat first lift the stern and then begin lifting the keel.
When the wave moved under the bow, the whole boat began to rock and slide down through the waves! It was so fun and exhilarating.
Suddenly I then noticed that the deck was flooded with bright white moonlight!
I looked up into the dark sky and saw a full moon shining down on me. Often the night was very dark at sea and the stars and few lights on shore were all you can see. To have the moonlight, the wind and waves all in my favor was beautiful.
When I came back in the harbor, I sailed home with the wind on my back and also noticed I had a cold Dr Pepper now to enjoy!
See the full story from my blog “Sail Surfing in the Moonlight” from Oct 16 2011 here
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I lovesailing,hiking, personal motivation, business and sharing what I love with others! Feel free to check out all my exciting adventures at my websites below!
Simple Lesson to Avoid a Storm:
This is a little story of the importance of your VHF and how we could have avoided a big gale:
One weekend my good friend and I checked the regular TV forecast and it said there would be a little rain. So we thought “well, that’s not all that bad.”
So we didn’t put off our sailing trip to Catalina. We sailed over on that Friday night. In the morning we saw a hundred dolphin. The sun was shining an all was at peace.
We arrived at Two Harbors on Catalina later that morning and got ourselves all situated there. Later we took a stroll and stopped by the Harbor Master to see what the weather was going to be like the following day. We were shocked to see that a gale was on its way with 40 knots of wind!
The following day was sunny and bright and nothing seemed amiss. The wind was blowing the tops of the palm trees but that was the extent of any weather. We both decided to go back home. I thought that maybe we would experience 5 foot waves at the most.
Well, we experienced 5 foot waves just leaving the harbor. Then the seas rose to ten feet. After we had crossed out of the shadow of the island, the wind really kicked into gear and the waves got to twenty feet high and stayed this way for the remaining 9 hours home.
White water was everywhere…
It was extremely dangerous and we thought the sails would tear or that the rudder would break.
Often the wind exceeded 40 mph and we went back to get a report the following day and there were reports of gusts up to 70 mph.
All this to tell you to listen to the NOAA weather report before you go sailing. This would have told us about the gale coming and we would have saved ourselves a ton of trouble!
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I lovesailing,hiking, personal motivation, business and sharing what I love with others! Feel free to check out all my exciting adventures at my websites below!
Lesson One:
Today I want to share with you the first thing you need to know before going out on the water:
Four things to do before you buy your boat:
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Now I want to start by letting you know that I’m not an expert in buying boats.
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However, I’ve been sailing for twenty years and been in a mixture of 35 small craft advisories and gales and crazy things that the sea has put my way. So my advice is follows:
Have someone who knows what they’re doing check these four things:
1) the condition of the rigging.
2) Check the Keel bolts.
3 check your through hull fittings.
4) check the boat engine.
Lets examine Number One.The rigging.
Is it old and are there sharp broken strands? Is it looking rusted? Is the rigging too tight, just right or loose? These are things you’re going to need to know! I’ll give you an example why.
The starboard upper and lower shroud rigging that holds up its side of the mast.
You see, if the rigging is too lose, it makes the mast weak and if you get sailing on choppy water, it makes the mast swing about too much and puts more wear on the rigging than it should. In worst case senerio you could lose the mast.
I also had my rigging literally snap on me because it was too tight. Its almost impossible to break the rigging with your bare hands so you know some incredible force must be on it to snap through all those metal strands!
I’ve also lost my mast because of old rigging that had broken strands. One year, my rigging broke near the top of the mast because of the strain of heavy gusts of winds that suddenly came up one evening. The rigging snapped like a gunshot and the mast fell in the water before I could even blink. That was a difficult time I can tell you! lol!
looking back, I could see where the strands were weak and old. I should have been paying more attention – but I simply didn’t know and learned the hard way.
I’ve also lost my mast to the cross trees being at the wrong angle. This was the worst and hardest lesson I learned as I lost the mast out in a gale at sea and had to be rescued!
Now you can get a pretty good idea if the cross trees are right. Its pretty common sense really. You can also tell if they look secure.
Second Replaced Mast in background
My cross trees came lose at sea and they slipped down at a bad angle. I had seen that happen before and that was really my warning signal. It was a bad idea to be out in bad weather like that with cross trees that could possibly slip.
Basically the strain of the mast at sea in big waves, put way to much pressure on the cross trees and the mast blew out again – like a gunshot! It shook me to the core!
I was out at sea that time and lost use of my sails. My outboard engine had been carried away recently by a large sea in a previous storm. So now I had no way of getting back. The funny thing is that I had thought my engine had been chained securely! Lol! It would have been a good idea to not just suppose that the chain running around it was holding it properly – but that I was sure!
But now I’m getting off the topic. Haha! This really is a different story!
Number Twois to check the Keel Bolts.
If you know what you’re doing, you can take a hammer and hit the bolts and can hear if they sound solid. If there is a different “hollow” sound then, its possible that this particular bolt has rusted through down below and is not holding the keel properly!
Number Three is to check the Through Hull Fittings.
This is where the toilet hose runs through and out the boat and where a hose runs water from the engine to outside the boat for cooling. I don’t know a lot about this. However, these hoses can be turned on or off with a valve. It is possible to have the valves open when they should be closed and vice versus. Also the valves can get sealed by old age and refuse to budge. So check this too.
Number Four is to check the reliability of the engine.
I’m not a mechanic and don’t have a lot of expertise in this area. But if the engine can run for half an hour without getting hot than that’s a good sign. Also for outboard engines, you should notice that a healthy stream of water is “peeing” out the back into the ocean. Having someone check the oil, the spark plugs, carburetor and putting new gasoline in the engine is a good idea. Of course many inboard engines run on diesel so ask an authority about this.
Hope this helps you find a good reliable boat!
PS: There are some other things I look for too, if your looking to go out further to sea.
Boats that are ‘Blue Water” rated are more safe in storms and in the open ocean. I’m not an expert here but things I look for are cockpits with lazarette’s that cannot leak water through to the cabin would be a good sign. Fast emptying cockpit drain holes would be another. And my final test would be how the boat performs in small craft advisory weather and storms. Of course this should be accompanied with experienced sailor/s, great care and proper security measures (Unlike some of my own crazy ventures). If you like this article. please subscribe to hear more hair raising stories!
