The fact the J/99 could be raced and crusied was an attractive part of the design brief to me, but the big sell was the ability to do either shorthanded. I had a great deal of fun singlehanding Dragonfly (our prior boat, a Columbia 26 Mk II) out on Lake Union and racing her in the Sloop Tavern Yacht Club singlehand Triple Crown series. I loved the freedom and solitude singlehanding provides, and didn’t want to lose this ability when moving up to a new boat.
Let’s be honest, though, singlehanding a 50-year-old 26′ boat and singlehanding One Life are two different things. So, it took me a while to work myself up to taking her out alone. And besides, Kris and I are having a great deal of fun doublehanding her.
Nevertheless, on a day with calm breezes forecasted — more for my worries getting her off and on the dock in one piece than being able to handle her while sailing — out I went.
As the video shows, it was a really calm day. Flat water, and I don’t think the breeze off Shilshole ever hit 10 knots. But it was a perfect day all around — even when I got buzzed by a container ship out of the traffic lane and had to deal with its aftermath (see the end of the video).
I wasn’t paying too much attention to performance on a day like this, but I posted the Garmin data in the video anyway. While I’m continually frustrated by the design/coding flaw in G-Metrix data not showing tenths for boat speeds and wind, it is interesting to watch the data. On this light wind day, I was impressed with One Life’s ability to keep moving.
The video is probably way to long, and mostly only interesting to me, but that’s what you get on a boat blog sometimes!
I didn’t record the docking portions, but they went largely OK. I say “largely” because One Life and I had a bit of a tug of war when we got back to the dock. She apparently wanted to keep sailing! Once we got that little argument resolved, all was smooth.
Can’t wait to take her out singlehanded again!