Sunday we took Orca, our “new” 35-year old Westerly sailboat out for “sea” trials. I put quotation marks around “sea” because we took her inland to a lake.
Before leaving the dock, we spent a day hanking on the sails, figuring out how to rig the roller furling jib and trying to find the right battens for the mainsail. Then I had to stow my computer and generally make the interior seaworthy. Not that we were expecting heavy weather. The winds were forecast to peak at 9 knots. But it is good practice clearing for action.
We started by heading up the Johan Friso canal. It is part of a vast system of canals in Holland that totals around 6,000 km.
Up the Johan Friso canal
There are a lot of boats here. I have never seen so many boats. It seems not only does everyone in Netherlands have a boat but, everyone in Germany has a boat in here too.
The day started out calm so we motored. That was fine because we have to learn how the boat performs under power. We headed east up the canal, across De Morra and De Orden. A little breeze can up when we got to De Fluezzen and we raised sail. By the time we reach Hegemer Mar, the wind was 5 to 10 knots and there was enough room to start trying all the different points of sail.
On Hegemer Mar
Heger Mar is a fair sized lake, maybe a couple of miles by three miles but with an average depth only 7 feet. On a nice summer Sunday afternoon, there may be 200 boats on it. You can see everything from sailing dinghies to 80 foot sailing barges.
We found problems with the jib sheets and the mainsail traveler and a few other minor items. Most have been fixed now and tomorrow we will go out and test your repairs. We only touched bottom once so it was a good day.
On the way back we watched a Dutch family out for a Sunday sail.
Sunday sail