In the morning, after swinging a good bit during the night, we put up our anchor riding sail to try and assess its efficacy. Our anchor riding sail is raised along the backstay and pulled to one side. The principle is that you are sailing your stern downwind to keep your bow from swinging. We raised it and watched our swing arc with landmarks on the shore. With the sail up, our arc narrowed significantly.
The problem with our current sail is that sometimes, the boat pushes the sail through the wind, causing it to flap around. This happens less in a steady stronger wind but we have mostly gusty winds. Also, in the daytime, it blocks the afternoon sun on our solar panels when we are facing east.
It is windy, but from the East which makes going to the beach possible. In the morning, on the net, we heard about a sailmaker in George Town. We decided to call him about possibly making a fin delta sail. We contacted Cade by phone and he said he would get back to us on Whatsapp.
We spoke about what we wanted and sent him the link to the plans. After a while, he messaged back asking if he could come to the boat around 2:30. This delayed our beach trip a bit but we were excited to hear what he may have to say. The visit also set a serious and needed boat cleaning into motion.
Cade arrived in his skiff shortly after 2:30. He is a young man who has been in the Bahamas for 7 years. He works at Minn’s water sports and does sail, and canvas work for them. He is married to a Bahamian woman and they have a young son, 7 weeks old.
He was very nice and organized and had printed the plans we had sent. He was honest about the cost of materials, the duty, and had researched how much these sails used to cost. He would get back with an estimate on timing and cost. We were encouraged.
We headed to the beach where Dawson was finishing his afternoon walk. We walked with him a bit and then he got ready to go back to the boat. We saw some rays cruising in the shallows off the beach.
We wanted a longer walk so we headed across the island to the ocean side. It was quite windy and rough with the east winds but beautiful.
