I can't believe I didn't take any pictures of Allen learning to sail. He got great shots of me, and I totally stiffed him. We had a couple of good runs when the wind held for 20 or 30 seconds. The it was back to sitting on the airboxes, wondering if we'd need to break out the sweeps again.

One important learning point was getting used to my new rudder and leeboard. I really took a lot of effort to make these control surfaces match a professional design. They are well shaped foils with finely sanded surfaces, and they are somewhat smaller than the control surfaces of my previous boats.

Because they are smaller, they have less affect on the boat at very low speeds - like the no-wind conditions we had this day. My boat kept slipping sideways as we ghosted along - she wouldn't respond to the rudder at all.

Then, when we did get a sustained gust (really no other way to describe it) the boat would respond wonderfully. I didn't have my GPS, but I would expect we had to be moving at near 2mph to get any real control over the boat.

I need to sail her in some real wind - or at least steady wind - to gain some experience with the control surfaces. Right now, I am not completely satisfied with the performance.