We had an interesting sail yesterday, despite calm water and light winds. Amazing how every sail is different, even over the same, well-worn route!

(See the full photo gallery.)

To begin with, it was Port Fest in Redwood City, so the parking lot was full of cars and many people were walking around among the various displays. There was even a bouncy house!

Steve M. and I found parking right in front of the sailing school. I got there first, so I checked in the office to confirm which boat we would be on. Steve had reserved M-12, but Arjun had asked for M-12, so they bounced us to M-10. That’s fine, they’re all the same.

Except they’re not. When I got down to the slip, I remembered that M-10 is the last Merit in the fleet with a hanked-on jib and bolt-rope main. OK, no problem, I learned how to do that. So while I waited for Steve, I started setting up the boat.

Step one is always to start the motor, because it sometimes doesn’t.  Step two is to take the pigtail off, because otherwise we forget.  (The pigtail was already off this time, for some reason.)  Then I started in on the jib.

In the cabin, I found two sail bags, both marked “Main.”  I picked one arbitrarily and found it contained a jib with hanks.  I didn’t check the other sail bag.  I took the sail on deck and hooked the hanks on the forestay, taking care not to make the mistake I had last time (more than a year ago?) of hooking some hanks upside down, which doesn’t work at all.

As usual, two halyards emerge from the front of the mast, for jib and spinnaker.  Naturally, I hooked up the wrong one first, but didn’t realize until I had raised the jib nearly to the masthead and saw the halyward wrapped around the forestay at the top.  So I took the jib down, stowed the spinnaker halyard, and hooked up the jib halyard.  It should have been obvious, since the jib halyward exits the mast below the forestay.  I guess I need more practice to get it right the first time.

I went below to find jib sheets.  There were four lines hanging up: Two matching green lines that looked too thin and too long, and two mismatched lines that looked like they might work, but one was thicker than necessary.  Some of the boats with jib furlers have mismatched jib sheets, but it’s inconvenient when a jib sheet is too thick, as it binds in the fairleads.

So I took the matching lines on deck, tied them to the jib clew, and led them aft through the jib cars and fairleads.  And, yep, they were far too long.  So I stowed those and rigged the mismatched lines, which were about the right length.  I raised the jib and left it up, as the winds were light, and I thought Steve should inspect my work, since he was the skipper for the day.

I got the rest of the boat set up and had just settled in to eat my sandwich when Steve arrived with the checklist and started checking out the boat.  Just as I finished eating, I noticed the correct jib sheets neatly coiled and hanging from the stern pulpit.  So I removed the mismatched lines and stowed them, then rigged the third set of sheets for the day.

Steve took the boat out of the slip and into the harbor.  We found we were headed upwind, so I went forward and fed the mainsail bolt rope into the guide and then into the slot in the mast and raised the sail.  It went up easily, with Steve back at the tiller taking in the slack on the halyard.

Once it was up, UGH, it looked awful, and it never got any better.  The mainsail tack is attached several inches above the boom, leaving a large gap at the foot.  We tightened the luff with the cunningham, but that pulls from well up the luff, so there was still a lot of slack in the foot, leaving much of the sail drooping and floppy.  It never got any better.  I’ll try to remember to ask Bob or Rich about that.  Maybe they can tell me we were doing something wrong.

I raised the jib, and it looked happy, but when we let it out a bit, it draped over the bow pulpit, as always happens with the furling jibs.  I stared at that for quite awhile, until an idea occurred to me later.

The wind was very light in the creek.  We tried several times to sail, but in the end we motored out as far as the powerlines before we were able to start tacking down the channel.

At the end of the channel, Steve turned and sailed over to the red barrel.  It was on that beam reach, as I looked at the jib draped over the pulpit, that I remembered there was a good twelve inches of halyard left at the top of the jib.  So why leave the jib down in the pulpit, and the peak well below the masthead?  So I went forward, dropped the jib just enough to take the tack off the hook, looped a dockline through the tack and down to the hook, and raised the jib up even with the top of the pulpit.  That let the jib fly free, and we left it there through the rest of the sail!

From the red barrel, Steve tacked and sailed over to Marker 12, then handed the tiller off to me.  I hove to for a few minutes, just for fun.  It’s interesting to do that close (but not to close!) to a marker, to make it easier to judge drift.

Then I jibed to get moving again, then headed up to sail toward the San Mateo Bridge.  Even with the light winds, it was soon apparent that we’d have no trouble sailing under the bridge before turning around and running back to the harbor before dark, so we kept on, with flat water and little heel.

I stayed on a port tack for quite awhile, to ensure we would make the center span of the bridge after just one tack. Approaching the causeway east of the high span, we tacked, and I was able to point well above the center span. I took a few fun photos as we approached the high span.

We sailed under the second span east of the high span, then bore away to the high span and bore away more to sail back under the bridge.  After jibing to a very deep broad reach, we were pointing right at the east end of the Dumbarton bridge, several miles away, the landmark given us on our beginning course to stay safely out of the shallow water until the channel markers were in sight.

Steve took the spinnaker pole forward and put the jib out on the windward side.  Then he brought up our speed on the GPS and fiddled with the jib sheet until our speed maxed out at about 3.5 knots.

We sailed comfortably for close to an hour, gradually turning north as the wind changed, until we were pointed at the south end of Coyote Hills.  Our track hardly changed at all, despite a gradual change of 10 degrees or so in heading.  Soon, we could see we were tracking almost straight back to the red barrel, and we gradually picked out one after another of the channel markers.

When Marker 3 and Marker 5 lined up, we jibed and sailed straight toward the mouth of the channel on a beam reach.  Steve took down the pole and stowed it below.  We sailed back up the creek facing a bright, hot sun, noticing the tide was much lower than when we left.

In the harbor, I turned downwind to luff the jib, and Steve went forward to gather it in.  He did a nice job of securing the jib in the pulpit by wrapping one of the jib sheets around it, then in a slip knot around the pulpit.  I got the engine started with some difficulty.  Twice we turned upwind to drop the mainsail, but had to turn around when the engine died to set up for another try.

Eventually, I got the hang of keeping the engine going, and we motored slowly upwind while Steve dropped the mainsail.  Without the mast slides to hold the sail forward, it’s hard for one person to flake the main, but Steve did OK.  At least it didn’t go in the water!

We motored back to the dock.  I turned around and backed up the narrow fairway to the slip.  I remembered the time I tried to motor into that slip forward, with a U turn at the end, but ran aground at low tide just off the slip, so I figured backing in was a better bet.

We took the jib off the forestay and laid it out on the dock to fold it.  I could remember only part of that lesson, so I’m sure we didn’t get it folded exactly right, but at least we kept all the hanks on top for the next crew.  We re-flaked the mainsail and put everything away.

It’s always fun to break out of the routine a bit.  Many of us prefer the convenience of the jib furler and the mast slides, but I prefer some little challenges.

Steve, thanks for renting the boat!

Last Saturday, I left Santa Cruz early and drove up Highway 1 to join Mark Thurber around 9:30 am at Club Nautique in Sausalito. Mark had invited fellow Bare Boat Charter student Anton McGready and six other friends for a day sail on a Beneteau 40 named Bear Boat. (See the full photo gallery.)

While Mark and Anton went through the checklist (extensive since Bear Boat is equipped for offshore sailing) I climbed around the boat trying to get familiar with the equipment. It’s not a complex boat to sail, but there were still some surprises in store. I didn’t try to get familiar with the electrical system or the heads.

Soon, we cast off, and Mark motored us out while Anton and I cleaned up docklines and fenders. Reaching more open water, we raised the mainsail and rolled out the jib. Some of the non-sailors took turns at the wheel as we sailed across the bay to near Crissy Field and then tacked under the Golden Gate Bridge.

The boat is equipped with top-of-the-line, two-speed, self-tailing winches, including a pair of winches on each cockpit gunwhale, either for the jib sheets or maybe for a spinnaker, too. But we quickly found the forward jib winches were not easy at all to use. We switched to using the aft winches, and found them difficult, too. It was only later in the day we realized part of the problem with the aft winches is they’re tailed aft, toward the helm position, as if for single handing, so they can’t be operated easily from the cockpit. There’s probably some logic for that set-up, but I never did figure out how to use the winches effectively.

Also, all of the lines on the boat require a huge amount of effort. You pretty much can’t do anything without resorting to winches, and even with the winch, the loads can be so high that the winch isn’t enough. For example, if you don’t get the jib in right away on a tack, or if you need to head up, there’s simply no way to get the jib all the way in. The main sheet and main halyard also have very high loads. The reefing outhauls are more manageable, but they use such thin line that the winch can’t get a good grip, and they’re hard on the hands.

We reefed the sails at one point. We assumed the mainsail reefing lines carried through the luff and leech cringles, as on the Beneteau 42 I sailed earlier in the week. That was dumb, because we could clearly see the luff had reefing rings, but still we didn’t send anyone forward to hook them on. It was half an hour before Anton pointed out the luff was loose. I went forward and unsnapped the sail cover from the mast, at which point I could see the reefing hook. So we eased the halyard, hooked the ring, and raised the main again. That made the luff happier, but it turned out later we still hadn’t sorted out the details of reefing. Anyway, I just don’t see why they lead the reefing outhauls to the cockpit, but still make you send someone forward to reef.

We sailed under the bridge, then turned around and sailed on a broad reach, tacking and jibing a few times, over to Angel Island, where we dropped the sails and motored into Ayala Cove to pick up a mooring. There were lots of boats moored already, but still several spaces open. Mark motored us past the mooring while Anton tried Mark’s new “Happy Hooker” mooring gizmo to pass the stern line through the ring on the mooring ball. (That gizmo is impossible to figure out. I still can’t quite work out how it works.) It took several tries. I’ve never learned to pick up a mooring, so each time, when Anton passed the stern line to me, I stumbled around while Mark and Anton tried to tell me what I should be doing. On the last attempt, with the deck already slick from water and slime picked up by the line on previous attempts, I slipped trying to move from the shrouds back to the stern and fell hard, landing on one of those damn jib sheet winches. I managed to get a foot on the toe rail and stay on the boat, and I held on to the mooring line, so I was able to get up and go back to try to cleat it off once the boat stopped.

A big part of why I slipped is that the gunwhale is sloped outboard, so that it presents a level windward seat when the boat is heeled. That’s right, the boat is designed to favor sitting on the windward rail over moving safely around. OK, good to know, but it didn’t exactly endear me to the design.

The line I was holding was 150 feet of floating nylon line Mark had just bought, but he only bought one, so Anton had a shorter dockline up at the bow, trying to hook it on to another ball. I had to let the stern line go the first couple of times, because the bow line either wasn’t quite long enough or Anton couldn’t get it rigged in time. This time, I was able to hold onto the line and stop the boat, never a good idea. I got the line around the cleat and started springing the boat a foot at a time back toward the stern mooring to tighten everything up. It was a minute or two before I realized Mark had the engine in neutral. With a little reverse, we were quickly able to get the lines taught and hanging above the water.

Once everything settled down, we brought everyone’s picnic supplies up to the cockpit and had a relaxing lunch, watching several other boats moor even more inexpertly than we had.

After lunch, we motored out of the cove and up Racoon Strait to well off Angel Island, then raised the sails and sailed in increasing wind to near the San Francisco piers, where a huge cruise ship was docked. Before we got there, we had the main double reefed and the jib halfway furled. We turned around, and I took the wheel. I found I couldn’t point very close to the wind without luffing the jib. It was very frustrating. Then something on the boom started singing loudly. It had happened earlier, some sort of resonance we couldn’t identify, until Mark remembered he had heard it before, when the topping lift was too tight. We looked, and it was true: The topping lift was very tight, holding the boom higher than the leech of the sail wanted it.

After a minute, I realized the topping lift was tight because the reefing outhaul was a bit loose. With some effort, Anton was able to tighten the reefing outhaul enough to bring the cringle down tight on top of a messy pile of sail that the lazy jacks had piled up in a heap on top of the boom. So, still not as tight as needed, but enough to ease the topping lift and allow the mainsheet to pull the leech down another six inches. That made a huge difference, as I was able to keep the jib and main filled while pointing a bit higher, as the wind climbed over 30 knots.

Still, the boat was heeling too much, so we furled the jib. But under just the main, and with the wind down to only 20-25 knots in the lee of Alcatraz, we slowed to a crawl. So we unfurled just a scrap of jib, and that was enough to bring us back up to six or seven knots through the water.

So, double-reefed main and a scrap of jib, and the boat was happy and moving in 20-30 knots of wind. I guess the designers felt the rest of the sails were needed for light winds, but there’s way too much sail area for San Francisco Bay.

As we closed in on Sausalito, Anton took the wheel to motor in while Mark and I readied docklines and fenders. Anton turned smoothly into the slip, and Mark and I stepped off to secure the docklines.

A very enjoyable day, even if I did come away with several bruises, sore muscles, and an even stronger belief that these larger cruising boats are not at all to my liking. I mean, OK, we carried nine people in relative comfort and had enough room in the cockpit for everyone to have lunch. But I think I’d rather have a boat that doesn’t overpower its own equipment, much less me.

I hear a junk rig is far easier to manage …

Yesterday I sailed out of Sausalito for the first time. Amy invited me to join the Modern Sailing club cruise on a Beneteau 42, a much larger and more luxurious boat than I’m used to. There were six people, including the skipper provided by Modern Sailing, and it cost $50 a head. I doubt they make any money on these cruises, but it’s how they keep people active in the club.

This Saturday, I’m scheduled to join a different group on a Beneteau 40 from Club Nautique in Sausalito. Nine people at $60 a head, so that probably more accurately reflects what the boats cost.

Yesterday I took the short bus to the train to San Francisco, where Amy picked me up for the 45-minute drive to Sausalito. Same on the way back. There are two ferries from San Francisco to Sausalito, but they don’t run until 11 am, because most commuters go the other way in the morning. There’s a bus from San Francisco, but Amy says they don’t stick to their schedule well. I may have to drive up there Saturday.

My favorite photo from yesterday is, as usual, a cute little wooden ketch with main, mizzen, jib, and staysail all set:

I haven’t been up to S.F. since they opened the new Oakland bridge, and the demolition of the old bridge has an apocalyptic feel. Yerba Buena Island on the right, Alcatraz on the left, Treasure Island in front of the bridge:

We sailed on the flood, that is, the current was flowing into the bay, the same direction as the wind, so the water was quite calm. This is as rough as it got, and note the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge:

It’s often extremely rough outside the Golden Gate, but not on this day. This is looking back toward the bay from our farthest point, between Point Lobos and Point Bonita, beyond which the sailboat’s insurance is no good:

There’s a lot of traffic to dodge, like this ship after we sailed back into the bay:

It’s cool to live here, where most people must pay a lot to visit on vacation. One of the most beautiful spots on earth:

Amy and the skipper:

Sails, and radar:

View Sausalito/Angel Island in a larger map

Lloyd and Sylvia invited Jason, Steve M, Angel (1 week in the Bay Area), and Emily (5 days in the Bay Area, first time one a sailboat!) on a Jeanneau 32 to give the newcomers a little tour of San Francisco Bay. Winds were 12-16 knots and waves were generally light except for a small bit right before the channel between Alcatraz and Angel Island. The fog burned off by early afternoon and it ended up being a beautiful day. The boat sailed well, although we lost the pin on the shackle for the topping lift only to have Lloyd find it near the rail on the port side beam when we docked at Angel Island! This of course allowed Lloyd to perform his MacGyver impersonation and grab the flying topping lift with the boat hook so he could tie it down under way, but also the satisfaction of whipping out his trusty sailing knife to slice through the line with one swift movement so as to replace the shackle and its associated pin. The Jeanneau had some nice features including lazy jacks and single line reefs. This is a smooth, easy to sail boat. Unfortunately it lacked a traveler, so despite the easy to adjust main sheet, we probably ended up heeling a bit more at times than we would have otherwise liked.

Jason, Steve M, Angel, and Emily had never been to Angel Island (as the long time Bay Area residents sheepishly admitted), so we docked at Ayala Cove and after Jason voraciously consumed a carnitas taco whilst the group tapped their feet to the dulcet tunes of a local live bluegrass band, Lloyd, Sylvia, Jason, Angel and Emily climbed the hill to check out the Chinese Immigration Detention Center. Steve M was so enthralled with the music he decided to stay in the area within listening distance. The trip back was a pretty straightforward close haul and after a little docking practice, Jason managed ignore all of that and bounce his way into the slip (with a little help from Lloyd shouldering a piling).

All in all a wonderful sailing tour, and many thanks again to Lloyd and Sylvia for setting up another blowout sail! Let’s hope Angel and Emily get bitten by the sailing bug, but if not, it was certainly a worthy introduction to San Francisco Bay.

If the map looks a little funny, it’s because it includes my bike back to the Caltrain station after the Spinnaker “Beer Can” race on Wednesday, June 4. I was worried I’d miss the 8:20 pm train and have to wait an hour for the next one, so I saved 60 seconds by leaving the tracker running! I made the train by three minutes, by the way.

Mark Thurber had planned to skipper a race boat that night, but he had to cancel at the last minute, so I signed up for one of the class boats, skippered by Spinnaker Instructor Larry. The other crewman was Tony.

Larry coached us, while Larry and I traded off between sheets and tiller. Unfortunately, the informality of the race left even Larry without any idea of the course, so we were just following the back the whole time. We had started second, but somehow fell behind even before we got to the end of the channel.

The course turned out to be just to buoy “S” and back. That’s the white buoy that’s nearly invisible from more than a few boat lengths, so we wouldn’t have found it easily, even if we knew the course. In any case, we were just trying to gain experience.

I set the whisker pole and jibe preventer on the way back, but we didn’t actually need them. I had some trouble getting the pole out. Haven’t practiced for awhile.

Tony sailed into the slip with Larry’s guidance. I left them to wash down the boat so I could run for my train!

On Sunday, June 1, Steve M., Jason, and I took a nice long sail over smooth water, due to moderate winds with a flooding current.

We tacked quite a lot to the end of the channel, then sailed to the red barrel, then a few tacks up to the San Mateo Bridge. Sailing under the main span, we headed east past two bridge piers, then turned down to go back under the bridge.

From there, we sailed with only one jibe back into the channel and to the slip, arriving back around 5:30 p.m.

On Wednesday, May 28, Mark Thurber invited me to join his boat for the weekly Wednesday evening “beer can” race at Spinnaker. I handled the jib sheets while another of Mark’s friends handled the main sheet, and two more mostly sat on the rail, ducking under the boom with each tack.

But we could have done the whole race with only two tacks! The wind was strong and out of just the right direction to sail all the way to the red barrel without a tack, then up to the nearly invisible buoy “S” on one reach, then a tack to head back to the channel and to the dock without another tack.

But we weren’t sure where “S” was, so we ended up making about four extra tacks to get around it.

Mark sailed into the slip. Very nice.

Saturday, May 17, I had an unusual sail with Jason and Steve M., one at a time! Jason met me a little after noon, and we had plenty of wind to sail out to the red barrel and back. We left the main up and docked to meet Steven M. Then Jason had to go, and Steve and I sailed out to the middle of the bay and back. We got back and put away the boat around 5:30 p.m.

Fun day!

Steve W. was introduced to frequent racer Mark by Spinnaker instructor Dave after our spinnaker course a few weeks ago. Mark invited Steve to join his crew on a Merit, Spinnaker’s M-8, for the Wednesday Beer Can Race last evening.

It was one of those amazing evenings that make you wonder how you can ever live anywhere other than the Bay Area. For two days, the weather on shore has been almost unbearably hot, so Steve’s bike ride from the train station was a little uncomfortable. But on the water, the temperature was perfect for shirtsleeves, with plenty of wind and not too much swell.

With Mark at the tiller, Steve on the jib sheets, and three more crew, we were the third to start the race. The course was out to the little white ball and back, and we completed the race with only one tack, around that ball. It appeared all of the racers finished in the same order they started.

Mark sailed us smoothly into the slip under just the main with the engine stowed. The rest of the crew retired to the club for refreshments, but Steve had to pedal furiously back to the station to make the next train.

Thanks, Mark!

View Sunday May 4th Track in a larger map

Winds were relatively stable today at about 12-15 knots. Steve Moreci and Jason Teller fought a flood current on M-8 all the way out to the bridge. What was interesting was that Jason noticed the waves appeared rougher the farther East they went. Combining this observation with the fact that historically any waves slowed the boat down, he decided to tack every time he noticed increased wave activity heading East. If you take a look at the track (and if you could see the depths…) it’s pretty obvious that wave activity increased as the deep part of the channel became very shallow. So the new hypothesis is that it’s faster to sail inside the deep part of the channel…or at least much smoother.

After they turned around at the bridge they had a really nice set of deep reaches back to the channel. Steve took the power line leg today and came face to face with the cargo ship CSL Tecumseh at the narrowest part of the channel, with leeway carrying them nearer the downwind side. At a very tight close haul they narrowly cleared the bow of the cargo ship and got a really good look at it. Enjoy the video (being the responsible crewman Jason did not feel it appropriate to be filming as they crossed her bow and only started the video once they were safely clear).