Ron single-handed Black Sheep up to San Francisco from Redwood City that day, as he always does for the races (and then sails her back the next day), and arrived around the same time I did, 5pm. Tara showed up a little while later. When we discovered that the other two crew were not going to be able to make it, off we went to start the race a little after 6pm.
We were late getting started. Black Sheep is really different than any boat I've sailed in a long time. Ron had told me it's like a big dinghy, but I hadn't realized what that meant until I stepped aboard. (It's been about 10 years since I've sailed dinghies.) It's very sensitive/responsive. Any change in weight, sail trim, or helm makes a big difference. And we sat on the floor of the cockpit the whole time to stay lower than the boom, which almost hits the floor on the aft end while you're sailing. I always get some bumps and bruises when I sail, but I had way more that night than usual.
Black Sheep's rigging is also very different. For example, the main halyard exits the mast on the floor of the cabin, so you have to go below to raise and lower the main. That took us a while. Ron kept handing off the helm to me and going forward to help Tara.
The other rigging difference is the jib sheets. They're cross-rigged, so you can always trim the jib from the high side. I often do trim the jib from the high side, but grabbing the port-side sheet to trim the jib on a port tack (sail on the starboard side) requires a brain shift from me that I couldn't always pull off. Tara was having the same trouble.
Anyway, after much ado, we started the race about 20 minutes late. Oh, and did I mention that we didn't know the course, because we weren't near the race committee boat at the start? So we just followed the other boats we thought were in our race. The breeze was light, but we rounded the first mark without too much trouble. Then the wind died. Seriously, we were going backwards at one point.
After drifting on the flood for half an hour or so, we were a mile or so south of where we should have been and started to consider starting the engine. Most of the boats in our class had been way ahead of us when the wind died, so they were drifting south about a mile east of us. We were actually ahead of the pack at that point, just because we hadn't drifted as far as the others.
But we waited another half hour or so, kept drifting further south, and finally Ron decided to start the engine. We motored back in past McCovey Cove, where the White Sox were playing the Giants and the crowd was roaring, into South Beach Harbor.
The apres sailing food and drinks were good, although many people were done eating by the time we got there. We weren't as late as the rest of the boats in our class, though, who all eventually motored in a while after we did. All in all, it was a fun time! Thanks, Ron, for another new sailing experience!
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