Things that go boom...

[khiemtran]

This week, I tried out mounting the GoPro on the end of the Quba's boom...



I was lucky enough to have the mouth of the Georges River mostly to myself last night, apart from one Moth pilot (Moths being those amazing one-man foiling sail boats), a flight of pelicans and a bunch of crested terns diving for fish.



It was very cool to be able to sail alongside the terns as they swooped and plunged into the water. They were faster than me, of course, but it almost felt like I was flying with them. Unfortunately, the GoPro didn't capture any of them, and my handheld camera had some water on the lens, so this was the best I could get of my little pals...



Here I am coming home with the wind behind me, in what's known as a "run". You can see I'm watching the "leech" which is the trailing edge of the sail. When it starts to curl, it's a sign that the leech is pointing too close to the wind and the sail is starting to depower. As the wind starts to blow on the other side of the leech, it will start powering up the sail in the other direction, pushing it across to the other side in an accidental "gybe". If you don't get your head out of the way, you'll soon understand why they call it a "boom". Besides watching the leech, you can also feel for the pressure in the sail via the mainsheet, which I'm holding in my right hand. As long as I can feel it pulling, I know I'm not about to gybe.

Comments

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Great GoPro shots! You have found the perfect location for the camera -- except for photographing the birds, of course.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Yes, the end of the boom seems to work really well! The GoPro really changes the game a bit because you can just leave it continuously running and then pick out the moments that you would have missed because you didn't have the camera ready. I'm hoping this way I might finally get a photo of the fish jumping out of the water that we often see when we're kayaking - they're just about impossible to capture otherwise...