sailing log: Father’s Day 2021

two years in a row means it is tradition, right? for our 1st sail of the year was Father’s Day, I took all 4 boys down to Ford Lake near Belleville, Michigan. it was a lot of just drifting along, but still a great time with the boys.

my 2nd son chose to fish from the shoreline, but the other 3 boys all joined me out on the water – my oldest son on the Minifish and me on the Sunfish with the 2 youngest sons.

it was a hot and humid day, and sadly very little wind. plenty of jet-ski traffic around us as well.

the lighter winds allowed my youngest son to explore on the Sunfish.

he even pretended to be a pirate and jumped over to board the Minifish and sail with his older brother for a while.

3rd son took the tiller and mainsheet for a while.

all told, a great time. just hope for better winds the next time.

is it spring?

warm (45°F) and sunny February day in Michigan has me thinking sailing thoughts…. even though we just had ~18” of accumulated snow and a 3-week period when daily high temps didn’t even get above freezing.

I was scrolling through some old photos and found some great Sunfish sailing memories. these are from vacationing at Camp Arcadia on Lake Michigan, probably 2009 or so.

a common theme to the photos: I like taking people (adults and kids) for rides on my Sunfish so they can experience the thrill of it, even on some of the calmer wind days.

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!

on a plane

I quickly snapped this photo when I was sailing the Sunfish a few weeks ago during our vacation. winds were nice, probably in the high teens and gusting over twenty mph. I had the lake all to myself and was flying across the water. 

  

mr blue skies

  
spending a few days at a small lake in Indiana, and have sailed a bit both days so far, despite some heavy storms this morning. light and shifty winds, but still fun. 

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.