All-Girl Crew on Bella Donna

I met my new friend, Pat, when I was "pledging" for the Sequoia Yacht Club. They don't actually call it pledging. That's my word. I was doing my first reading, and Pat was doing her second... and she got voted in that night. A bunch of us new female members (and almost members) had drinks and dinner together that night and started talking about upcoming club events.

One of the events in January is a cruise-out to Jack London Square with dinner and music at Yoshi's that evening. Pat invited Sandi and me to join her on her boat, Bella Donna, a 42' Catalina, for that cruise-out. Sandi's not sure she can make it, because she might be bringing her own boat that she just bought up from LA, but I gladly accepted! [leaving space here for a picture of Bella Donna]

Since Pat and I had never sailed before and she's in the process of filling in the skills she hasn't learned before, we thought it would be a good idea for us to sail together. So on Saturday, Pat, Sandi, and I headed out of West Point Harbor on Bella Donna, for a little practice.

First, Pat practiced back-and-fills and docking. Then we motored out the channel, had lunch on the way, and hoisted the main and unfurled the jib as we entered the bay. There was no wind to speak of. We floated around for a while and did a couple of tacks and gybes, but there wasn't much opportunity to practice.

Captain Ron was out single-handing Hazel Rose. He'd had some engine trouble and wanted to check out some things out there. So we got a few good pics of him sailing his home. There were almost no other boats out there that day in the light wind.

After a short time, we motored back to the marina, where Pat asked me to practice putting Bella Donna in her slip. I went in bow first just fine, but when she asked me to back her in, I did it, but it wasn't very pretty. Gotta get some more practice at that!

After putting everything away and cleaning her off, we headed over to SYC for some beverages and snacks. We ended up meeting up with some other friends there and had a delightful dinner together before heading home for the evening.

This was Pat's first all-girl sail, so it was very special all the way around. Thanks, Pat! It was a lot of fun, and I look forward to our cruise-out weekend with another all-girl crew!

Lisa's First "Big Boat" Charter

About a week ago, Lisa (who I'd met at beer can races last summer, sailed with once in the north bay, and took my cat class with) said she was going to charter a boat from MSA the day after Christmas and asked if I and a few others would like to join her. Finally, someone else was doing the organizing! I said absolutely!

Off we went—Lisa, Dave, and I—with no idea if it would be bitter cold, rainy, windy, no wind, or what. We knew there would be a strong ebb pretty much the whole time we'd be out, so we knew we couldn't go out the gate unless we had a pretty strong wind from the west... and that certainly didn't happen!

Lisa had chartered Zara, a 31' Beneteau, because she knew that was one of the few boats in MSA's charter fleet that I hadn't sailed and wanted me to have a new boat experience. This boat felt really small to both of us after being on the cat for the whole weekend two weeks before. The cockpit was fine for three of us, but any more than four people would have been crowded. What we liked least about Zara was that the boom is right at eye level for the person at the helm. Very disconcerting... not to mention that we were all bumping into it all day—even me at only 5'3"!

It turned out to be cold and sunny with not much wind at all. We basically motored around, stopping now and then in hopes of catching some wind. We tried the eastern side of Angel Island, because the wind web sites I watch were predicting more wind out that way, but it was not to be.

We probably sailed about 20 minutes the whole day, but the sun was out all day, and we were out on the water, so I was happy just drifting around. We stopped at the Spinnaker restaurant before heading home and had a wonderful dinner, as usual.


Not too many pictures... just a relaxing day and a great opportunity for Lisa to experience her first "big boat" charter in the north bay.

Multi-hull Cruising Catamaran Class

A couple of months ago, I started thinking about the withdrawal symptoms I'd felt last winter when there wasn't enough wind to sail for weeks on end. This year, I wanted to find a way to sail through the winter (so to speak). I'd heard that catamarans (the big cruising kind) were much faster in light wind than monohulls and thought it might be a good idea to get some training, so I could add the cat as another option for chartering in the winter. I also thought it would be fun to take a bunch of friends in such a big, spacious boat up the delta for a weekend or two in the summer.

So I looked into multihull cruising catamaran classes at the various sailing schools in the bay area and decided on MSA. I liked the instructors I'd met there so far, and they had the most reasonable chartering rates of all of the clubs, particularly since I'm already a member.

There were 5 of us in the class, Stan Lander was the instructor, and we were on a Seawind 1000 (33' long by 24' wide cruising catamaran) called Bluewater.

I knew one other person in the class from beer can racing in RWC... Lisa. Lisa had just completed her bareboat certification at MSA and knew one other guy from that class who was also taking this class... and they'd had Stan as their instructor for that class, too. Of the 5 of us students, 4 already had bareboat certification (a requirement to get certified at the end of this class). The fifth student was chartering a cat in the Caribbean in March and just wanted to get familiar with it. He didn't care about certification.

It was the worst weather of the season so far... really cold (I mean it... in the 40s during the day!) and raining all weekend. We actually had a few hours without rain on Saturday, but it was overcast all day, so it was bitter cold. And it poured all day Sunday.

Even with the bad weather, the class was excellent, and Stan was a great teacher! We practiced new techniques for tacking and gybing, and learned how to do back-and-fills and docking with twin engines. That was really cool!

We spent most of Sunday morning taking the written test at the "kitchen table" on Bluewater with Stan motoring us up to Paradise Cove. There we practiced anchoring with a bridle and then practiced crew overboard drills on the way back. Poof! In two days, I had yet another ASA certification and another option for chartering in the winter... or so I thought!

The other students and I got along great and decided that we wanted each other to be there the first time we take out our other sailing friends on our new toy. So we made a plan to charter Bluewater in January and all go sailing together... and take a few friends along to teach them the ropes.

I got on MSA's online reservation web site the next day and discovered that Bluewater was booked until March! Long story short... it turns out that Bluewater's owner took her over to the east bay for some maintenance and racing over the winter and wouldn't be bringing her back until the spring. Bummer! If I'd known that, I would have taken the course at another school where I could charter the cat right away or would have waited until the spring. Anyway, a couple of us complained, and MSA said they'd try to get us a couple of days on Bluewater over the winter. Failing that, they're going to give us a free refresher course in the spring when she returns to the fleet.

The best laid plans... so there probably won't be any cat sailing this winter. :(

And, no, I didn't take any pictures. It was too cold, too wet, and I was way too busy most of the time!