1st Sail of the Season - 2009

We made it out for our first shakedown sail on Sunday. It was a beautiful sunny day. Winds were 8-9 kts and the water was flat. We wanted to get out to try out our new genoa sail. It was made by Quantum Sails here in Toronto and is performance cruising sail. Racing fibre on one side and tafeta on the other. Everything went well. All the rigging looked to be in the right spots and all our electronics performed well. There wasn't a whole lot of wind, but it was enough to move us along 7 1/2 kts on a beam reach. We caught up with our friends on Cassis who left the dock shortly after us. We sailed for about 2 hours towards the Oakville border then turned around and headed back.

2009 Launch

We launched Victura Saturday morning at 8:30am. Conditions were ideal; Just a hint of wind, sunny and mild. The launch went without a hitch. The harbour crew at PCYC moved Victura over to the travel lift at 830 and lowered Victura into the water. Victura's engine started on the first crank and we proceeded over to our slip without incident. My booking for stepping the mast was for 2:30pm, so there was plenty of time to help Paul Orava (Salty Hacker) and Peter Howells (Cassis) get their boats launched and into their slips. As the day wore on, the wind picked up and by noon there were brisk winds and storm clouds overhead. By 2:30pm the wind was blowing a good 15kts and rain was threatening. The rain however held off and our mast step went without incident. We headed back to our slip facing a brisk wind from the west. With some much appreciated help from our neighbours, we got Victura back and tied up without incident. As the day wore on, it was a mix of rain, strong wind and showers. In between showers, we tuned the lower rig and helped Paul get Salty Hacker over to the mast crane, mast stepped and back to his slip.
Sunday was a much better day, sunny and with clear skies. I climbed the mast around 11am with my TopClimber and tuned the rig at the first spreaders. As the day wore on, the strong wind returned making it a real struggle to get the main sail on. We finally finished around 4pm. All that remains now is putting my new genoa up and doing some fine tuning. All in all a successful launch.