Detached Shroud in Over 20 Knots of Wind

Six of us met up at San Carlos airport and all rode up to Sausalito together in Kerry's van, meeting one more crew member at MSA. We checked out Freyja (a 32' Erickson) pretty quickly and got underway by around 11:30am.

The day started out as a 3S day (as Norbert would say)—sunny Saturday sail. The sun was shining, it was in the low 60s, and we had a nice 8-10 knot breeze. It was just about high tide, so there were virtually no swells.

We motored out of the marina, past the Spinnaker restaurant where we'd be having dinner that night, and set sails in the wind shadow of Marin Headlands. We turned northeast into Raccoon Strait and headed for Ayala Cove on the northwest side of Angel Island. Kerry had never picked up a mooring ball and wanted to try it. I'd done it a couple of times a day in the BVIs but hadn't done it since then, so I was happy to get some practice and teach him what I knew about it. We knew that there were some public mooring balls at Ayala Cove off Angel Island, so we headed there first.

Jean was at the helm on the way into the cove, and I was on the bow with Kerry. Dave stood mid-ship to relay messages, if necessary.

It turned out the mooring balls weren't balls at all, and they had no pick-up line. (Not that kind of pick-up line!) I'm used to mooring balls with about 6-8 feet of line attached with a loop on the end, often with a smaller floatation device on the loop end of the pickup line. That way, you can grab the pick-up line with a boat hook, bring it on board, hook it onto a cleat on the bow, thread your mooring line through it, and then drop it back in the water. These mooring buoys were big rubber tires, each with a sort of metal ring on top. There's no way to pick up any part of it, so you have to lean over the side of the boat (belly to deck) and run the line through the metal ring and back up the other side of the bow. Thanks to Dave for leaning over the rail and running the line through. It was a rather awkward maneuver, to say the least.

Anyway, once we were tied up, we all relaxed and ate lunch in the warm sunshine. After lunch, Kerry wanted to see what it was like to be at the helm while someone else tied up to a mooring buoy, and Norbert wanted to try doing the bow work. So we released the first mooring buoy and motored over to pick up another one. The second time was easy, because we knew what we had to do. We released it right after tying up, and off we went to explore the bay.

We headed back down through Racoon Strait toward the slot, where the wind blows in the Gate. And the wind was certainly blowing - probably about 18-20 knots when we started across. We headed toward the cityscape with no particular plan in mind. When we were about half way across, Norbert was at the wheel and getting a lot of weather helm. We'd dropped the traveler all the way down, eased the main so it was almost resting on the shrouds, and had the boom vang as tight as it could be. There was no backstay adjustment or we'd have tightened that up, too. The wind had probably increased to about 22 knots by this time, so we decided to reef and decided, for whatever reason, to furl the jib first.

Almost as soon as we started furling the jib, one of the port-side shrouds suddenly disconnected from the ring on the deck and got tangled up in the jib sheet (the black line in the picture on the right). We were on a starboard tack, so there was no pressure on the port-side shroud, but it must have been loose and just gave way. Kerry to the rescue! Out on the rail that was almost in the water, he untangled the shroud from the jib sheet, and we were able to continue furling the jib. When the jib was about half furled, John couldn't get the furling line to budge any further. Dave to the rescue! He went up to the bow and jumped the furling line to give John some leverage. Finally, when the jib was fully furled, Kerry, Jean, and Dave took down the main (quickly... no time to flake it nicely).

Meanwhile, Norbert was at the helm, flying toward a concrete wall on shore. He knew he couldn't tack until the sails were both down, because the stress of a port tack with one of the port-side shrouds gone might be too much stress on the mast. Norbert to the rescue! He did a spectacular job of keeping the boat from hitting anything without really being able to maneuver. While the crew was taking down the main, Norbert started the engine... and veered away from the shore as soon as that sail was down. Phew! My friends and I do have ourselves some sailing adventures out there!

Once we were most of the way across the slot and the wind started to subside, we decided to go over to Sam's in Tiburon and see if there was any space on the guest dock. We all needed a drink after that adventure! Sadly, there wasn't enough space on the dock, so we turned around and headed back to Sausalito. We considered stopping at the San Francisco Yacht Club, but decided there wasn't enough time. I wanted to get back to the marina before the MSA office closed, which I thought was around 5pm. So we headed back.

The ride back was uneventful, but the MSA office was already closed when we got there and everyone had gone home. Arrggg... should have stopped at the yacht club. Oh well... We buttoned up the boat and headed over to the Spinnaker for our drinks. The dinner that followed was delicious, as usual. All in all, it was another great day of sailing on the bay!

Please check out my Picasa web album for more pictures of the day. Many thanks to Bobbi for taking most of the pictures! And here are Dave's pics... too many to include here. Thanks, Dave!