The trip so far had been without any mishaps, even the break in Frankfort for weather wasn't really needed but since I'd been making good time I felt I could relax a bit. Things were going to change in a hurry today:
Since the weather forecast for Thursday predicted east winds, which would make the Strait of Mackinac a real pain, I thought to press on and possibly make it to there today. I left Northport really early, ignoring a small craft advisory. The wind was blowing rather fiercely. I unfurled Ginny's jib (my converted and repaired J105 jib that Ginny from the club gifted to me last year) and it promply flogged itself to bits before I could even trim it. Well, I had my doubts if it would last long, and it got me through the first 6 days, but now it was curtains for that sail.
I refurled the jib but elected not to attempt to raise another jib just yet, as the wind was really picking up, and the hated swell from aft was making my life rather miserable. I raised a tiny bit of mainsail just for the extra free drive it would provide in addition to the engine, but kept the main in its cradle.
Even so I was running before the wind at a nice clip.
Looking back I noticed the dinghy doing its usual race with the Caprice, but also that it was filled with some water. I had bailed the dinghy before departure in Northport of the copious rainwater from the day before, but the following seas were sometimes depositing nice buckets of new water in the dinghy. I feared that it might fully swamp itself and went on reverse course to shield the dinghy from the waves as I attempted to bail it. As both dinghy and Caprice were doing a crazy dance by that time, the waves had become rather inconveniently large, this was a difficult undertaking. I had to be careful not to get my fingers between the boats when they bounced on and against each other. As I attempted to keep the dinghy close to the stern, the Caprice several times jumped on it and attempted to sink it outright, even hitting it with the rudder (the rudder on the Caprice is far under the overhang and hard to get hit by, really.
As I had to go really slow to prevent the dinghy line to snap, the rolling turned even worse, and I eventually had to feed my breakfast to the fishes. I managed to bail the dinghy enough to continue, and decided to give it some more line, expecting that this would let it run free and be less likely to be pulled up in front and flooded in the stern. Unfortunately that was just the wrong way to deal with it - the dinghy ran off in all kinds of directions while the Caprice was yawing all over, and quickly got totally swamped, and even turned turtle!
I was by now really worried about losing the dinghy. I had no way to right it, and conditions were nasty enough for me to be careful not to attempt acrobatics on the foredeck. The dinghy acted as a drogue, slowing progress, and I was worried to either break it or rip its line. The cleat on which it was attached was groaning in torture.
After trying a few things to flip it, I decided to move slowly into shelter behind a nearby anchorage. Nearby that is, if you can go at a decent speed. I was going only at 2 knots however.
Curiously, after continuing like this a mile the dinghy righted itself. It was totally swamped, of course, but didn't put such a break on our speed any more. It still seemed to take forever before I reached that anchorage. I started the oven, took off my drenched clothiing and hung it on a clothesline in the cabin, and promptly took a nap on the bunk.
The weather was finally starting to turn nicer. I cleaned up the mess below, then had a little lunch, and tackled bailing the dinghy. Countless buckets later, and I could use it to row around the anchorage for a few shots.
The weather now turned actually pretty nice, but I decided to stay put here for the night. The thousands of flies liked my sail:
Yes, those dots are not dirt!
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