Old age or weather conditions

Sailing yesterday seemed really hard work. It was windy, but not excessively so - max gust of 27 knots with the average about 20 or so. The thing is it felt a lot windier with really heavy sheet loads. Now, it could be that I'm just getting weak in my old age, but someone at the club suggested it was due to the weight of moisture in the air - it was raining very heavily the whole day. It sounds reasonable that this could create heavier sheet loads but is it correct?

They were pretty heavy gusts coming down, it's often like that ahead of a front. Got to our lake first thing, nothing, by the time the buoys were out and the five sounded it was a reasonable breeze maybe two, then as the race progressed it got puffier and puffier exactly as the forecast had predicted, ended up having me in irons up the last beat and today I can hardly walk, but it was a moral victory I managed to hold on to a 2nd place all the way around until onshore when a nasty corrected time gust sent me from 2nd to last..

As to your original assertion we often have this discussion on the windsurfing forum about wind density and sail sizes, given we can all hold up a bigger sail in a given windspeed in say Egypt than the cold water vapour laden air we get here when a front approaches.

Air at 5 Deg C is about 3% - 4% denser than air at 20 Deg C

Which isn't that much.   Equivalent to going from 10 knots to 10.4 knots.

It's probably the frequency and size of the gusts that is felt much more.   I think the load on the sail generally increases by the square of the wind speed, so, going from 20 knots average to a 27 knot gust will be really be felt.  Welcome to Winter sailing!

Sunday am at Burghfield given forecast there was a reasonable turnout but the wind was getting progressively stronger.  But very manageable really.  It got a bit tougher towards the end as the front got closer with high levels of turbulent air down at the surface - so very rapid speed and direction changes.  Dare I say it on this forum 'Blaze conditions' (but please do substitute for your favorate class if it likes a bit of breeze !).

Afternoon was a bit different ..... Very few starters in any class so the RO sensibly looking to save a few minutes started what remained of all classes together (well there was only one asymetric, one OK, no lasers and a handful of Blazes left).  One in our midst has been doing the frostbite with his 'Fire' sail on Sunday afternoons and I'm joining in occasionally with one myself to learn more about how to get the best out of it.   That was fortunate this time.  Wind was by now lets say 'interesting' and 'out-to-get-you' plus much stronger in the gusts and prepared to take no prisoners if you made a slight mistake. 

Fantastic fun ... Blaze-Fire reminds me of board racing in challenging conditons when you have the right gear - near constant planing both up and down wind !  Even so it was tough - A Blaze alongside even broke a lower in one severe gust.  On another leg a near total dump of the kicker was required to be sure of keeping some token amount of control on a reach and get 'below' one of BSC's islands with certainty  .. the other Fire ended up poking around in the bottom of the lake with his mast tip.  Don't know the actual peak gust speeds but low 30's seemed realistic - but it was the speed of wind change that was the real challenge.  Anyway the RO could see the way it was going and after less than 40 minutes finished the race ... with nobody complaining.  

It always feels windier in winter imo - I don't think it is much to do with the relative density of the air though.  The air however often seems more turbulent and winter clothing + lethagy just does make it seem toughter.

And yes ... I hobbled away afterwards on Sunday as well.

Mike L