There were quite a few yachts out, deck saloon / motor sailor, older wooden yacht, plus other MABs and a couple of ribs (Jenny Wren and an all orange one) heading to Jura and what looked like quite an extensive bell tent camp site. About half way to Ghia, the seas were getting quite rough and Sruth just ploughed onwards, but gusts were hitting F9 (apparent) and some of the crew did not want to press on. Which is always fine. We tried to tacked round, and stalled head to wind, and failed to tacked. Picked up speed, tacked again and this time we tacked but the loss of headway was significant.
Borne off onto a broad reach and Sruth picked her skirts up and charged northwards at 9kts water speed (occasionally 11kts ground speed). Exhilarating sailing. Sailed up the sound of Shuna and anchored in the north bay for more curry, beer and whisky. The knox anchor performed well, dropped under sail and then let the wind dig it in. I did not use the engine to test holding, nor did I rig a snubber and I held the chain on the windlass, secured with the dog latch. A very gusty night. Next morning into Craobh, tidy up and home.
The roller reefing genoa was now tightly wound around the foil and when rolled away the last 3 turns were stripped from teh furling drum, with still about 6" of clew un furled. Easy to fix but it's the first time I have seen that. Boat remained bone dry down below but many of the new finger latches were not sufficient to hold the cupboards closed. All the old ones worked well.
A couple of videos.
IMG_1908 by Rival Sailor, on Flickr
Untitled by Rival Sailor, on Flickr