We sailed the bottom of the curve slowly broad reaching southwesterly to clear some land. The WP easily did all the steering in the 6 t 7 knot Northerly winds so all I did was tap a few degrees at a time, northward - toward home.

In those conditions out on the water, it's easy to just sail the boat and not pay much attention to a straight line course. Slowly clicking up new tangents along the arc to a beam reach, boat speed crept up out of the 3 to 4 knot range and breaking through the 5's. Recovering an inch of sheet would glue a fluttering telltale back onto the dacron.

I don't remember much traffic, and under sail, the water is buoy-less for us.

The wind increased across the boat as we clicked onto a close reach. I'd later find on NOAA data, it stayed an even 6 to 7 dead North throughout our sail. Yet we must have had a lift along the shore as our arc carved nearly due North in the lee of our outer harbor. In the flat water, we hit a burst of 7.1 on a heading of 000. We could have sailed into the docks at the head of the harbor, but of course, we didn't. So many things can spoil a good sail, even a straight line.