Sailing on Alex's Boat with No Wind

Sandi and I were going to go kayaking in Monterey on Saturday for a change of pace. Then we decided to see if Norbert wanted to sail (sailing addicts that we are!). He did, so we reserved a Merit and planned to go to Coyote Point. Then Friday night, I got email from Alex asking a bunch of people if anyone wanted to sail on his boat Saturday afternoon. I did, so I asked if Sandi and Norbert could come along, and we shifted our plans to the bigger boat, bigger group of people, and the potential to fly the spinnaker and learn new things.

Alex's crew was Monica, Michael, Alex Eiser (referred to as Eiser to keep the Alexes straight), Norbert, Sandi, and me. After removing all the covers, washing down the foredeck, and raising and furling the jib, we finally got underway around 1pm. Alex motored out of Bair Island Marina just before low tide and managed to go aground in the narrow channel just outside the marina. I was glad it wasn't me at the helm (that time, at least—read on)! It took a while to get unstuck, but we did and then continued motoring out to the bay.

When we got out in the middle of the bay, it was dead low tide, and there was no wind at all. I'm not saying it was only 5 knots or something. Literally, the wind meter said "0" and then "---"! We sat there drifting with no sails up for quite a while... ate lunch... some had a beer or a glass of wine.

We finally noticed a little wind up toward the San Mateo Bridge, so we motored up that way, put up the sails, I took the helm, and we actually got to "beat upwind" and under the bridge in about 2-3 knots. As usual, there was a little more wind north of the bridge... maybe about 4 knots. So we turned around, headed downwind, and raised the spinnaker, but we were barely able to keep it flying. If I fell off even a little bit, the spinnaker started to collapse.

Shortly after we got south of the bridge, with me focusing intently on keeping the spinnaker flying, I took my eyes off the depth meter for a second, and we went aground... again. This time it wasn't so bad. Alex motored us off in a few minutes, and then I took back the helm and focused on getting us into deeper water. I guess I'm not used to a boat with such a big draft. I know I've sailed Merit 25s in that part of the bay before... maybe not at dead low tide, though.

Anyway, after a while, Norbert took over the helm, and I took over the main. We sailed back to the channel, gybing the spinnaker 5-6 times. Alex commented that we'd gybed it more times that day than he'd done in all the time he's owned the boat.

Just as we were really getting the hang of it, Alex asked Monica to trim the spinnaker. She was pulling on the sheet but getting nowhere, so I offered to grind for her. I started grinding when suddenly I heard a snap, and the spinnaker went flying (not in a good way). We knew that the aft block through which the spinnaker sheet was threaded was twisted around and unable to pivot with the angle of the sheet. What we didn't realize was that the metal edge of the block was fraying the sheet and, eventually, it cut it all the way through. Ugh... the second snafu of the day that I felt I had caused. Alex was nice about it, though, and we were able to pull in the spinnaker before it hit the water... and no one was hurt, so that was good.

After that, we were basically back to the channel, so we unfurled the jib and sailed as far as we could and then just motored the rest of the way in. All in all, it was a really nice day... warm, sunny, and relaxing. Thanks for a fun afternoon, Alex!

For more pictures from that day, check out my Picasa web album!