Learning to Sail a Hobiecat

On Sunday Tom, Gil and I ventured out onto the waters of Lake Washington to sail a "Hobie cat" sailboat. It was my second time on the boat and Gil's first. Tom has a membership at Sail Sand Point and we tagged along. The Hobie Cat is a Catamaran Sailboat with two pontoons and a flat deck. The vessel we sailed has a 16 foot sail and room for 2 or 3 people. The first two trips out were fun and we became comfortable tacking in 18 mph winds. On the second voyage we noticed a small 2-man race sailboat turtled (flipped over) in the middle of the lake. We sailed over and the found a guy and his girlfriend in their early 20s with no wetsuits. They were clinging to the top of the boat in cold water and high winds. I jumped into the water to help right the sailboat(wearing a 3/4 wetsuit) while tom/gil picked up the girl to bring her back to the shore. With high-winds and choppy water it took the guy (Cameron) and I two trys to flip the sailboat over and get in without it rolling over again. The boat was pretty full of water and Cameron was cold and not an experienced sailor so I limped the boat back upwind to the dock. I wasn't too cold but the former occupants of the sailboat were happy to be out of the wind and in the sun.

Mission complete, tom and I decided to go out for one more sail on the Hobie while Gil enjoyed the sun. This was the best run yet! We got the pontoon right out of the water and were truly "flying" the boat. Here's a video of a hobiecat flying and flipping over. Tom and I didn't crash (somehow) and managed to get back to shore without any problems.

Cam, Amanda and I plan on taking some sailing courses through sand-point to learn the proper techniques of sailing. If anyone's interested let me know!

update: more cool vids
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JtQjIsvdvo
http://youtube.com/watch?v=js-Z1m7zqvk