Further Thoughts on the Walker Bay

I went for another sail in my Walker Bay. This time I had very light winds.

To be honest, I spent a lot of time drifting. The weather service said winds were 3mph with gusts of 11.

A 3mph wind is not enough to really move the Walker Bay but I almost always had enough wind to turn it.

During a gusty period I was able to move up on the seat a couple of times. I liked the feeling. The boat felt more stable that way. There was so little wind, though, that the boat was leaning towards me making me feel like I was on the wrong side of the sail (I wasn't).

Previously I complained that a side wind will push the boat sideways. That happened several times. I discovered that I could regain control by loosening the sail a bit and turning downwind long enough to get some motion then turning back to my original direction.

This may sound intuitive to more experienced sailors but most of my experience has been with my Whitehall and it is harder to turn, especially in light breezes.

Speaking of my Whitehall, the Walker Bay gave me new appreciation for how well the Whitehall is designed. The Walker Bay has a traditional block and tackle. My Whitehall has a more complicated one where part of it is at the end of the boom. This gives a lot more mechanical advantage than the one on the Walker bay with is self-contained on the middle of the boom. It's actually more work to trim the sails on the Walker Bay than on the Whitehall even though the Whitehall has a larger sail.