catch the trade winds

sunfish alpa skip sailing [video]

here is a great video of a Sunfish clone in Italy called the Alpa Skip flying across the water:

 

the video was posted in the comments on my “photos” page, and I thought it was too good to leave there and should be published as a post.

here’s a little more information from his comments:

Alpa was an iconic shipyard in Italian yachting history. Under the leadership of Danilo Cattadori, [Alpa] has build beautiful yachts but also great dinghies such as Alpa 550, Alpa S. They build also a Sunfish clone named Alpa Skip that was robust but lighter than sunfish. It is a very good boat, so good that even if the Sunfish class is quite strong in Italy, Alpa Skip is today still more common. Alpa Skip is the typical 80′ and 90′ sailing school or family boat. Cheaper than Sunfish. Easier than Laser. Actually “Skip” is still produced by Paiardi shipyard (www.paiardi.com) that holds Alpa’s moulds.  Information are not so common, but you can refer to Alpa Historical Club: https://www.alpahistorical.org/alpa-skip.html

I know there are multiple Sunfish clones but I’ve never heard of this one.

duck duck sunfish

a GoPro video screenshot from Sunfish sailing in the rain the other day.

et ego in Arcadia: Sunfish sailing

it was a traditional family vacation at Camp Arcadia, filled with good food, plenty of relaxing & some book reading, and wonderful time spent with family and friends (some old and some new). a lot of time spent down on the beach, playing in the sun and sand, doing some swimming, jumping waves on the wavey days and playing with kayaks and stand-up paddleboards on the calmer days.

there ended up being 2 good sailing days (for me anyway, my oldest son sailed on a 3rd day, but it was pretty light winds and he mainly just drifted around in circles for a while).

day 1: Sunday afternoon

after walking to the local Lutheran church in the little town of Arcadia, we headed back to Camp and ate the buffet lunch.  the weather seemed promising and Sunday afternoon’s schedule at Camp was fairly light, so most of us headed down to the beach, and T2 and I both got the boats ready for sailing (with some help dragging them up and over the small sand dunes and beach grass).  after setting up T2 with the Minifish, he was off and sailing.

I rigged the sail and misc parts on the Sunfish and my 3rd son, Luke, joined me for the 1st sail. he begged to take the mainsheet and tiller as soon as he could!  north bluffs are off in the distance behind him.

after a while of sailing with Luke, I headed back into shore – dropping off Luke and picking up his cousin, Sam.

later on, I gave a ride on the Sunfish to my sister-in-law, but didn’t get any pictures.

afterwards, I got to solo sail on the Sunfish for a while, so I’d chase T2 on the Minifish for a while, or just spend some time tacking and working on getting as much speed going as I could.  the winds were pretty excellent, with wind speeds in the low teens, maybe 12-15 miles per hour, with gusts into the high teens.  not strong enough to tip me over, but good enough to catch a good puff and get the Sunfish up on a plane, every once in a while perfectly timed to catch the crest of a wave and “surf” the Sunfish for a short while.

in my excitement to get down to the water and out sailing, I forgot to bring my GoPro camera, but did have my iPhone in a dry bag – so I was able to snap the pictures above and a few real quick videos, but that’s all.  I did turn on my Runkeeper app on the phone to track my route for one of the times out that afternoon.

the next couple days were dead flat calm water – perfect for playing with other water toys (kayaks, SUP’s, etc.) but not good for Sunfish sailing.  Wednesday is “day out of camp” day – we went on a canoe trip… and that is a whole different story for another day.

day 2: Thursday evening sail

so the wind finally picked up some on Thursday and the waves were perfect for playing in the water, so the usual afternoon crowds at the beach were even larger.  due to the lack of beach area (Lake Michigan is up approximately 4 feet!), I didn’t want to try to launch and return to the beach with that many kids swimming and jumping in the waves. fearing that the week of vacation was coming to an end with no more sailing, I decided to go for an evening sail, when far fewer people would be swimming and lounging at the beach.  as luck would have it, this time I remembered the GoPro, but left my iPhone up in our room.  here’s a screen cap: me on the Sunfish and T2 way off in the distance on the Minifish.

it was a beautiful evening for sailing – the sun was slowly setting amidst the clouds out on the horizon and T2 and I had all of Lake Michigan to ourselves – not another boat in sight.  my sister-in-law snapped this amazing photo of us and the sunset from her vantage point up on the Camp patio.

Friday ended up being a decent day for wind, but straight out of the west pushing big waves up onto the beach.  on an empty beach, launching could be done setting off immediately on a 45-degree angle to the wind, but with again so many kids playing in the big waves that day, we didn’t try to sail.

still 2 great days on the water was better than none, and it was a blast!

drifting in a Minifish

I was skimming through some of my GoPro videos from our vacation last summer at Camp Arcadia on Lake Michigan, and I took a quick screenshot of T2 drifting along in the Minifish on a very calm day out on Lake Michigan.

it was an awesome day – sailing with my boys, but with them sailing solo in the Minifish while I was alone or with one of them in the Sunfish.  after a bit, the boys switched places, and Noah got his turn drifting along in the Minifish.

not the greatest amount of wind, but still a beautiful day to mess about on the Great Lakes.

an evening mountain bike ride [video]

and now for something completely different…

earlier this spring I bought a new mountain bike, and have been trying to add that in to my life’s rotation.  the bike trails are very easy to get to from our house, and the loop around the nearby lake is a short 4-mile route. I usually ride one or two loops – nothing crazy.  most of the route is on paved bike trails or large shoulders along the road, but there is a part that you can detour off into a gravel drive that winds through the woods, with several small footpaths that wander even further into, and along, the woods.

a few nights ago, I rode a loop around the lake with my 13-yr old son, and when we stopped at home, he went back inside, I grabbed my GoPro camera and took off for another loop.  it was getting into the lower light of evening, and the video I captured on the trails in the woods was pretty wild.  enjoy.