Clouds | Clear Sky |
Temperature | ~74 |
Wind | 5-10 knots |
Wind Guests | 15-20 knots |
This was my maiden voyage on my Hobie Island Tandem and it was quite the day to be on the water. It was a bit windy for my maiden voyage but it helped learned the skills of sailing the kayak quickly.
It was obvious from the moment I put the kayak in the water that the wind wanted to push the vessel around. Thankfully, the foot-peddles worked very well pushing against the wind and helped me get into the open lake area away from the shore. The foot paddles helped me coast at about 3mph with the sail furled up. Since it was a bit windy, I started only letting out about half the sail to catch the wind. This approach kept my speed down and help myself stay in control. Since I figured it would best to learn how to sail into the wind first, I attempted my tacking maneuvers going into the wind and seeing how the boat handles.
It was a process to understand when to let the sail loose to catch the wind and when to tighten it up. I could really feel the kayak catch the wind at certain angles and you felt the vessel accelerate with a little tilt once the wind was blowing right into the sail. I continued the tack maneuvers going back forth while moving slowly further into the center of the lake area near the J Strom Thurmond Dam. You can clearly see my maneuvering on the tracking in the picture below. Once I felt like i could handle the tacking into the wind, I decided to turn around and try sailing with the wind coming at my back. The straight line back to the dock clearly shows this moment on the tracking map. It felt weird sailing with the wind to my back since I was moving with the water and wind, it almost felt like i was not moving at all. When I was tacking into the wind and had a good gust of wind, I would hit almost 10 mph.
In the video below, you can see how quickly I was moving on the water. This was while I was practicing my tacking maneuvering in front of the dam. Anytime I felt I was moving too quickly, I would turn the boat directly into the wind which would stop my instantly.
The next 2 photos are from sailing with the wind coming from my back and you can see how different the sail looks compared to when tacking while sailing into the wind.
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