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Light air family fun on the Viper

A few weeks ago, we took the Viper 640 out on a light air day with my 6-yr old daughter and her 63-yr old grandmother…  Three generations of the family out for a relaxed day-sail on the lake.

And who would’ve thunk, in light air, the Viper made a fantastic, laid back day-sailer! My daughter drove the boat out of the yacht club cove and all the way across the lake.  The look of absolute concentration on her face was quite a sight.

Then she insisted that we needed to fly the kite, so up it went, and she of course trimmed… I think she liked trimming the spinnaker even more than driving the boat.  When the breeze finally picked up a bit, we started heating things up under the spinnaker to pick up the pace.  My favorite moment of the day was listening to my daughter call out the speed numbers off the Velocitek GPS as we went faster and faster.  When we hit 10 knots, you’d think she had just won her first regatta!  I think she’s caught the speed bug.  Good times! 

Bottom line, in light air, I was surprised as just how laid back the boat is, and how light the loads are on all the controls.  The little one had no trouble driving the boat, nor trimming the big spinnaker, which she did all by herself until the breeze went up above 10 knots.  At that point she needed help trimming in, but only when we heated up the angle to speed the boat up.  She also really enjoyed sitting on the open transom dragging her feet through the water and making big rooster tails, getting towed behind the boat hanging on to a line, and of course sitting at the bow slicing through powerboat wakes.

When we bought the boat, I was worried she’d miss the old keelboat we used to have, where she could spend time in the cabin.  Fortunately, she doesn’t seem to miss the cabin, and on the Viper it’s been much easier for her to parcitipate in actually sailing the boat, which she really enjoys.