May & June Sailing

In this post... Lake Spokane sail, Lake Pend Oreille Trip, & Desert Regatta,

Lake Spokane

On June 11th we had our sailing activity on Lake Spokane. Overall the winds were light with a few periods of winds up to about 9 knots. It rained when we got to the boat launch but just for a short time; the rest of the day was beautiful. It was a fun day for all. Here is a video I took during this event of Dave Farmer screaming along with his spinnaker set...



Lake Pend Oreille sailing trip

I sailed the full length of Lake Pend Oreille on June 9^th, which I knew would be quite an undertaking. I was hoping for good wind the whole length of the lake and unfortunately that did not happen. I started at 9:22 AM and ended my sail at exactly 10:22 AM, a whopping 13 hours on my little 14’ Weta trimaran sailboat. This was the first major sail on this boat as previously I had only sailed it two times on the man made lake of Radiant Lake, which is a mere 20 acres in size in Rathdrum Idaho.

A little about the boat: The Weta has 3 sails in its arsenal, a main, jib, and spinnaker (this spinnaker is really considered a reaching spinnaker or gennaker sail) which gives it different gears for different wind strengths and angles. When I left the dock in Bayview I had about 5 knots of wind heading directly from the east, so it took about an hour to get into the main body of the lake.

Once out in the main body of the lake the wind died twice leaving me stranded for an hour and 20 minutes total. The wind filled in eventually averaging from 7 to 12 knots of breeze all the way to the Islands off of Hobie Idaho and a few miles west heading toward Sandpoint. On one reach with my spinnaker up, I was sailing at about 14 knots and surfing the 3 foot waves. I stayed on this one reach for about 8 miles. It was the best part of the whole trip, making the parts of the trip in which there was NO WIND totally worth it!

The vistas along this lake are stunning with the Green Monarchs to the east and the snow capped mountains to the South. After making the turn toward Sandpoint the winds turned light then died. It took me 5 hours to go from just past the Islands to Sandpoint. It really tried my patience as that evening my wife was returning from Utah and I was suppose to pick her up at midnight. So I was worried it would take me until morning to get to Sandpoint. After the sun went down and about a mile from Sandpoint the wind picked up to about 9 knots allowing me to finally sail to the boat launch at the Sandpoint beach city park. I was a bit concerned about hitting a log or something while flying along at night. Luckily I hit nothing but did pass a pylon that was just sticking a foot or so out of the water. I sailed into the dock and dropped my sails, finishing another great adventure. So I can now say I have sailed the full length of Lake Pend Oreille not on some big cruiser or high speed powerboat but on my little trimaran, and who knows I might just try it again.

Here some video from this adventure on Lake Pend Oreille...



May 2011 Deseret Regatta

Also miracle or miracles I finally got the Deseret Regatta video finished and have posted it here with a picture from this event. For race results and report go to http://www.cbsc.info/desert_regatta_2011.html . As always the Columbia Basin Sailing Assoc. put on a perfect event. I hope many of you will put this event on your calendar for next year.

Report an Articles by Miles Moore info@funtosail.com