Dancing with Hurricane Erin

Adam Loory may have retired from sailmaking and racing, but it remains hard to dispense with the performance approach on a passage. In this report, he shares his idea of fun sailing:

On August 23, we danced with Hurricane Erin and had a great passage skirting her northern edge. We originally planned to hide in the Bras d’Or Lakes until the storm passed, but all the forecasts started showing her further south, giving us 20-30 knots of northeasterly winds to blow us to the west.

With Halifax being 150 miles away, and upwind at that in the prevailing southwesterly winds, having a downwind run towards Halifax was too good a chance to pass up. If we waited until Erin passed, we would have had wind on our nose all the way to Halifax; therefore, I made the decision to sail the storm.

Keven, my only crew member, was not totally on board with my plan. – Full report