Originally Posted by
Check Essential
Had a great vacation down there. I highly recommend it.
Got a story to tell though.
Apparently I need some sailing lessons from Timbo.
Scared the living *** out of the wife (and me) out on the water.
Out playing around on the resort's Hobie Cat. Pretty well liquored up of course. Probably not the wisest choice but having a great time. Complacency setting in. Coming straight toward shore with the wind directly behind us. Going pretty fast when we got caught from behind by a good size wave. Lifted the rear end right out of the water and nose-dived it in a big way. Had the thing pretty much vertical and at least 1/2 underwater before it righted itself. Hanging on for dear life.
Incredibly lucky it didn't flip end over end right on top of us.
Wife was NOT happy with me the rest of that day.
Too funny!
Coming into shore with the wind directly behind you, surfing down waves, is about the hardest thing to do...without crashing! It's ruined many a good mast and better men have destroyed $20,000 racing cats doing it!
You were very lucky it didn't go over (Pitch Pole is what we call it) because the mast certainly would have snapped when it hit bottom as the boat would have rolled in the waves. I don't know if they would have made you pay for it, but it's not cheap, and then there's the wife to deal with!
Watch what happens about 2:47
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNhcy4WAvyM
That's exactly why my wife won't sail with me! She's seen me in action on the lake out back, with the kids.
The Hobie Wave in the picture is a good rental boat, it's pretty indestructble...usually!
I was up at AU all weekend at one of my kid's graduation.
Hey, Jungle Bus, want to know what you have to look forward to when you get to Mainline?
I -had- a BMW R100S, and I -had- J24, and I -had- a 1946 Cub too! All those toys are gone now, thanks to marriage, buying a house, having 4 kids, 42% pay cut in bankruptcy, and now 3 kids in college...with one more to go! My Guard buddies named my twins, "No Boat" and "No Motorcycle"!
But I do live right up the street from Phil Lockwood, so I get to fly his Air Cam once in a while, it is a hoot! It's got two engines but it will take off, from the water, with two people on board, on one engine. He made a video of him doing a single engine takeoff, with his daughter in the back, right off the lake out back of my house. Here is Phil talking about the Air Cam on floats:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=...ture=endscreen
He originally designed the airplane for a photo-shoot of the Amazon for National Geographic, about 20 years ago, and he wanted two engines for safety, as there's not a whole lot of 'help' available in the Amazon Jungle!
But it will take off, on floats, with only one engine running! (it's got two Rotax 914's, about 110hp each)