So …. my wife and I were happily cruising along Lake Koocanusa, with a full ballast, doing about 3 knots somewhere between a close haul and a beam reach. Full main and jib out in slight chop with a relaxing 5’ish degree lean when we suddenly go over to a full 25 degrees. I steered away from the wind and we went over another 5 degrees until the wind was astern and we came back up. There were no tell tale wind cues that I could see, no white caps and no ugly advancing ripple line. Any advice on how to avoid this in the future?? Should I have steered into the wind or quickly released the boom to allow it to swing out thereby “dumping wind”? I usually don’t pack enough underwear for many events like this and TBH…it doesn’t make me love sailing. It was kind of like the famous line from Jurassic Park: “Oh, yeah. Oooh, ahhh, that’s how it always starts. Then later there’s running and screaming.”
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