I knew I had made the wrong decision within about a half an hour. BANG...SPLASH... the wave sweeps over the boat and now there is no part of me that is dry. The boat is healed over so much I have one foot on the cockpit wall to be able to stand. I have to much sail on her. In the harbor I had made a decision that could make this a miserable day. I had chosen to keep more sail on her as opposed to shortening sail, called “reefing”, in hopes to gain speed and arrive at our destination sooner. One of the things I like most about sailing is making the boat work at maximum efficiency. This is a hard thing to do, and I had passed maximum efficiency and had gone beyond. Now I was cold and wet and not having fun. How a sailboat operates and rides can be broken up into three categories. Too much sail, not enough sail, and just right. This determines how the boat will ride and how fast or slow you go. But most importantly it determines wither it is a calm, comfortable, safe ride, or a wet, bumpy, white knuckled, unsafe ride. The balance between sail, wind and waves is like asking a beautiful women to dance for the first time. It is a delicate thing to do, can be hard to achieve, and if you do not learn how she likes to dance, you won't be easy to dance with her again.
So, will you be classifying conditions of the 'ride' or classifying various amounts of sail--i realize the second leads to the first, but the direction you're taking is not quite clear at the end of this graf.
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