5/31 First Solo - Glider!

I forgot to tell you: I soloed in the glider! I felt ready and confident and it was a great flight - definitely my best glider flight at Byron. The elusive wave made an appearance at Byron, and it was easy to find lift. I flew into the wind over the wind farm near Bethany Reservoir, slowed the glider down to nearly stalling speed, and just parked it there in the upgoing wave, watching the altimeter tick up gradually. The tow-plane had released me at 3700 feet, and I climbed to nearly 5000 feet, then gradually descended to 2300 feet while scouting out for another source of lift, which then took me back up to 4700 feet. After an hour it was time to relinquish the airplane to the eager students on the ground. My approach didn't have the full finesse I would have liked, but nonetheless made a nice touchdown and came to a rest right on the centerline at the first turnout. Huzzah

Now that Google Docs has pivot tables (awesome!) it's trivial to tally up my hours sorted by aircraft. I've flown three gliders:

D5629 (ASK 21): 21 flights, 5.8 hours (all in 2012).
N3981C (Grob 103): 27 flights, 5.0 hours.
N103FB (Grob 103): 7 flights, 2.3 hours.

6/13 Sailing!

So I joined the sailing club! Vickie and I went down on Saturday morning, and within minutes we were donning lifejackets and helping to rig a boat. It was an outlandishly beautiful day, the fog burning off to reveal stunning blue skies, and the sailing club's marina is a vibrant and fun spot to hang out even if you're not sailing.

One major division in the taxonomy of boats is between dinghies and keel-boats. The latter have a heavy lead weight in the keel that's basically guaranteed to right the boat no matter how far it leans over. The dinghies just have a "centerboard" to keep them sailing straight, and have no such guarantee against capsizing. The sailors themselves act as counterweights by "hiking" outward when the boat is "heeling". (So much nautical terminology - I love it!) This club mainly sails dinghies, which I assume is also conducive to learning better sailing discipline, since the boats are so unstable.

The club has its own series of "ranks," as it were (or "ratings"), the first of which is "Junior Skipper," whereupon one is expected to volunteer to teach new student sailors. Our skipper, a "junior skipper" in the club, was William, an enthusiastic instructor whom I liked at once. We took out a Venture, one of the clubs larger dinghies, which he - a keelboat man - preferred due to its slightly better stability (over the club's smaller boats, Bahias).

The wind was blowing around 15 knots, and the sailboat got going pretty fast. William gradually got us three neophyte crewmembers up to speed, first handing off the jib (the sail in front of the boat), then the tiller, and eventually the mainsail. After two hours I had the tiller and the mainsail while hiking out with the boat heeled over and making a rather thrilling headway through the waves, across the bay between the Emeryville and Berkeley marinas.

On what was to be our last tack, somehow we capsized! To be honest I don't exactly remember what happened, but I think William and the other student were at the controls, and that student was having some trouble with over correcting and controls reversal, so I think he had just accidentally steered us too suddenly too far downwind, and the boat went over. (We were, evidently, over-canvassed and should have reefed the mailsail.) We had some trouble righting the boat and within minutes the club's skiff was there to help out.

Anyway, a super fun first lesson, and nice to go for a swim in the bay, even if inadvertently.