It was a light air day today. That meant a lot of motoring. We also got to fly the drifter for a while after the wind picked up to about six knots. The drifter is a sail made out of a lightweight nylon designed for a day like today. It's like a spinnaker in terms of the material used, but it's not designed exclusively for downwind use like the spinnaker is. It does work well downwind though, which is how we used it today. Except for the color, it's a carbon copy of one I have on Quijote. Both were made by Carol Hasse at Port Townsend Sails. It's a great sail to have on a light wind kind of day.
After rounding the corner at Cabo San Lucas and sailing up the coast toward San Diego, we expect to be sailing against the wind most of the time. It will be interesting to see how well the drifter does in those conditions. My experience on Quijote has been that it does best reaching at larger angles to the wind, but doesn't do as well as the genoa at tacking into the wind. That's why some people call it a reacher. In any case, at some point when the wind is light enough, the drifter might out perform the genoa, even upwind. Maybe we'll find out.
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