(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.
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