Excellent afternoon sail on storm's edge - MTL, MO

May 1st, Mark Twain Lake
Robert F. Spalding Access ( +39° 33' 4.30", -91° 40' 7.86")

Originally, I planned on going to sail up to some islands on Truman Lake; however, my son talked me into another trip to Mark Twain Lake so that he could spend the day with a friend of his. Her parents picked him up at the access ramp we were using.

It stormed something fierce Friday but all weather reports (even on Saturday Morning) said that Missouri was to be partly sunny and 79 degrees all Saturday until the evening. We stopped in Moberly to pick up Subways. This picture doesn't show how hard it was raining! :)

We used the Spalding recreational access this time. Nice facility. Here is Galactica Rigged and ready to swim. We were waiting a bit for a band of storms to blow past and for my son's friend to pick him up. I forgot the power cable for my iphone and the weather satellite feeds ran my battery down so we switched to my wife's camera on her phone. Sorry about the quality.


Here is a view looking from the vberth out a port at the rigged mast while waiting for the storm to blow by.

With the way that the winds were while rigging, we put the mainsail on with 1 reef (our sail only has 1 reef) but it was the first time Reefing Galactica. Here is Galactica ghosting back into the no wake zone as I'm picking Angie up after she parked the truck and trailer.

The winds were perfect for no reef and running with the Genny too; however, we were sailing the edge of a storm that wasn't supposed to be there.
My last satellite feed showed the lower half of the lake in heavy storms. So we left the reef in and sailed without the Genny. It was a very peaceful afternoon which we spent most of it beating to windward and the main channel.

Here is Admiral Angie checking the wind vane and tail-tells and doing a great job watching the set of her sail. We need to work on communication because she asked which way to go, I kept saying to tack...dang nautical terms. I took over, tacked and she asked why I just didn't say 'turn that way'...sigh.

We were not the only ones on the lake. A few tubers were out, some runabouts, another sailboat and a LOT of fishing boats. We lost all wind while out in the middle of the main channel about 5:30pm or so. We lowered the sail and set up the mast raising rig then motored leisurely over to Blackjack Marina. I decided to take advantage of the still water and lack of summer crowd to practice navigating around the marina...plus, the other sailboats call me.
I wanted to see what's slipped there. There is a Sailing club at the lake. It was nice seeing some boats in person which I normally look at in pictures. We met Tom and Jim from the club and had an interesting conversation with them while drifting around their massive sailboats. Galactica felt small near them! We'll be joing the club. Membership is cheap and the fun/learning/fellowship will be worth it! We also met Commodore Sandy. http://wiki.mtlsa.net/wiki/Main_Page

It was getting late, their suppers were cooking and we needed to beat the storms back to the ramp. I didn't want to be de-rigging in a thunderstorm--which I ended up doing anyway. :) We opened Galactica up and rocketed back to the ramp on the other side of the lake. There were 8 or 9 fishing boats at the ramp. We ghosted around the pool while waiting for them to load in the rain. We had the ramp to ourselves after that. I drove the boat onto the trailer this time instead of walking it on. first time for that with this boat. Worked great but I think I need to add another roller onto the tailer.

At 2:30am, I was changing tires in the rain...

Less than 20 miles from home, we had an EXPLOSIVE blowout on the trailer. Glad I was only going between 55 and 60 mph in the rain. The boat/trailer lurched left as an 18 wheeler was coming up to pass on the hill. I pulled over and the tire was gone. The rim flattened and the fender blown apart. NO DAMAGE TO THE BOAT!!!!!!