Century Club: Rebekah Bromwell

Spent all day working on J's and learned about an amazing cleaning product called FSR (got 2 full waterlines looking much less grungy quite quickly) and then learned how to remove damaged bow fenders, re-epoxy and set a new one. Got them done and curing on #s 3 and 13. 
 

Was pretty tired for member sail and didn't really want to skipper so I just hopped on Akimbo w/Tom, James, and Marianne. Had a great time. Wind was just great, not too much, we furled in a bit of the jib a couple of times but always ended up bringing it back out. Tacked out past the fort for a bit and got closely overtaken by a trimaran, then turned around and jibed back to DSC. Dropped sails right at dominoes.

What an amazing weekend. It was an overwhelming firehose of information but I did manage to retain a bunch of new tricks and understanding of how things work that I had no clue about previously. Also, I feel like I need to re-do the hands on portion again after over had some time to process the first go round. Lol. I'm annoyed at myself for not getting more pictures, especially of some neat stuff the jury rig and leak wraps/plugs and things like that, but maybe next time. The pool/life raft thing was ... hard. I absolutely did not understand how hard maneuvering inside that thing is. I also had a hard time with how heavy my wet foulies were, the pressure from my inflated pfd (definitely let off some air once it goes off to make it tolerable, and tighten the crotch strap) and I guess just all the sensations and exertion and other people on top of me and especially the one guy who came in the raft and wasn't breathing right and got me more panicky, it was just really hard. I think I would do better on another try now that I know what to expect and will spend some time working my my mental preparedness and physical fitness. I was so excited to do the pool/raft thing and ended up not enjoying that part, but I also think it was an amazing experience and am so glad I had that opportunity to learn and understand wtf it is really like, and to have the perspective of at least being able to imagine now how horrible to could be NOT in a perfectly calm warm pool. I will work on this. 
 

Also, the fire module terrified me and I want to get all batteries out of my house and off the boats. :-( 
 

Comms was amazing and I understand epirbs and plbs much better, and I think I finally get what my DSC radio does on vhf now. (Lol) 

Damage mitigation was probably my favorite because we got to work in teams to come up with creative solutions to problems like a jury rig, leaks, etc. And I got to actually test a bunch of different pumps. And I learned that even though some pumps will run with the leads reversed on a battery you could burn it out that way. (RED NEGATIVE!)

Wind (WNW)was gusting to 11-12 a lot, and the headers were tricky to deal with. Jibed down a little past anchorage and decided it was switching up too much to try POBs and tacked back to DSC, then spent half an hour worrying about getting the main to come down quickly(the jib was a challenge) so did a bunch of drive bys and practice sheeting out and slowly turning up to see how much time I would have to drop it. Eventually I went for it and was fine. Panicked at the last second though b/c was picking up speed (not that much, should have either turned back up earlier or just stepped off and hold on tight) so did another turn but couldn't get all the way around and had to turn back, was too close, it was awkward but slow enough and landed on the fender. Sadly not as elegant as I would like. Not too bad though. 

Took SD out for a short, heavily reefed (jib only) little adventure out to the fort and back and forth a bit, then home. Just an hour or so but lots of fun shaking the cleaner up and then pumping it out. Beautiful sporty day, 60ish, mid teens pegged w/Alberts digital anemometer but definitely a few gustier bits.