Sunny Sunday Sail and... OUCH!

Norbert and I went sailing the last two Sundays. On the 9th, in M4, we ventured down south of the Dumbarton Bridge and railroad bridge for a 3S (sunny Sunday sail). It was my second time there and Norbert's first. The railroad bridge didn't creek at all like it did on my first visit. The wind was light, and it was all pretty quiet.

You can see in the picture above that we had a little trouble raising the main all the way, so Norbert rigged a sort-of semi-reef/cunningham-like thing. It wasn't pretty but it helped.

We had about 8-10 knots of wind with a flood all the way down to the bridge and an ebb all the way back. Even with the light wind, we were moving pretty fast. It was a pretty deep low tide, so we turned around just south of the railroad bridge and headed back.

The only other boat around was one we didn't recognize with two guys on it, and they kept getting stuck in the mud! We were really making fun of them, because they kept going way outside the channel markers, getting stuck, getting unstuck, and then doing it again! (Well, ok... I was making fun of them. Norbert's too nice.)

All in all, that day was relatively uneventful, but it was nice to get out and just sail around for a while.

On the 16th, we were scheduled for our final spinnaker class. We all showed up at the docks, but the wind was about 20 knots gusting to 35, so Leslie cancelled the class. Norbert and I wanted to sail anyway. Leslie and KO just wanted to motor over to the new marina being built and motor back. Since we'd already been there, Norbert and I got a separate Merit (M1) and went out by ourselves.

While we were still at the docks getting the boat ready, the boom snuck up behind me and hit me hard on the back of my head. OUCH! That really hurt! I sat down for a few minutes to see if I was going to pass out or anything, but I was fine. In fact, after the initial clunk, it didn't swell and didn't really hurt until the next day. I did get a lump, and it still hurts 3 days later!

We finally got out there, and the wind was fierce! We reefed the main as we were raising it and didn't unfurl the jib at all. After months of no wind or light winds until 10 knots, I just wasn't used to it. All the way down the channel, the wind was blowing us like crazy. We passed Leslie and KO, who had taken off before us, because they were just motoring, and they said they'd gotten stuck. They were headed back to the docks.

Leslie shot this picture of us as our boats passed in the channel.


Unfortunately, it was another extremely low tide, and we actually went aground as well... and we weren't even outside the channel markers! (All that teasing of the other guys the week before came back to bite me! Karma...) We were stuck but good, and the main sail kept pushing us further up on the mud. I wanted to lower the main, but everytime I started, the wind tried to push us deeper. It took about 20 minutes of motoring to get unstuck. Ugh... not fun.

After that, we decided to sail out the end of the channel and see what the bay was like and then probably just return. It was actually quite nice out there... warmer than in the channel with fewer gusts but still lots of wind and much bigger swells. It was like the south bay in mid-summer! I got comfortable with it after a while, and Norbert had a blast navigating the big swells. A few hundred yards past marker 3, we turned around and sailed back in.

Sailing Alongside the Tall Ships

On Saturday, I finally got out for a full day of real sailing! I haven't really sailed all winter just for fun, and it was a perfect day for it... sunny, high 50s (which I admit was a bit chilly), and 10-22 knots of wind at different times of the day.

I had organized this sail to go out and look at the two tall ships that are in San Francisco for the next few weeks. I'd read that the tall ships would be staging a battle sail from 2-5pm on the weekends. So it was a good excuse (not that I need one!) to charter a 35' Beneteau, Talisman, from Modern Sailing in Sausalito. I invited a bunch of friends, and five people signed up to crew. This was my first charter since I got checked out at MSA after my bareboat certification, and it felt really good.

We all rode up together in Kerry's van and had some interesting conversations and lots of laughs. After a quick provisioning stop at Molly Stone's, we got to the docks and started loading our gear onto the boat.

By around 11am, we were off to an auspicious start. I had some trouble getting out of the really tight slip, but Kerry came to my rescue. Once we got the bow pointed in the right direction, all went very well. We motored out of Sausalito harbor, set the sails as soon as we got a little wind, turned off the engine, and we were sailing!

The first thing we did was head out under the Golden Gate Bridge (just because). It was really rocking and rolling out there. At one point, the rudder completely stalled on me, and we were just getting tossed around in the 8-foot swells. Jean took over and handily brought us back under the bridge to calmer waters.

Next, at Sandi's suggestion, we went over to Tiburon to look at Gitana 13, the French boat that sailed from New York to San Francisco around Cape Horn in 43 days, breaking all records. Gitana had just arrived the day before and was sitting out in front of the Corinthian Yacht Club for all to see. What a gorgeous boat!

Next we headed south to take a look at the tower the tanker had hit on the Bay Bridge a couple of months ago. Sandi and I had seen the damage right after the accident and wanted to see if it had been repaired yet. But by the time we got near the bridge, we noticed that the tall ships were already lining up for their battle, so we headed south to get close to them.

Once the two ships lined up, they shot off their canons, yelled at each other, and had a lovely time. We all had some great photo ops! When the battle was over, we headed back up to check out the bridge, and it looked like the damage had all been repaired. At that point, it was about 4pm, and we knew it would take a couple of hours to get back to Sausalito, so we headed for the cityscape and then north straight across the slot into Sausalito.

The wind was blowing hard all day, and we had to reef both the main and the jib and drop the traveller just to keep the boat steady. It was a chilly but fantastic day, and we all felt like we'd gotten a much-needed sailing fix after a long winter of going without.

After buttoning up the boat, we drove down the road to the Spinnaker restaurant and had some wine and a great meal to top off a great day. Thanks to Kerry for driving and helping me back out of the slip, to Jean for rescuing me from the stalled rudder outside the gate, to Norbert for getting us up close and personal with the tall ships without getting in their way, to Sandi for always being such a willing, able, and fun crew member, and to Alice for being such a good sport about losing her cell phone to the bay. Look for more pictures in my Picasa web album.