Once More Toward Alcatraz

Monday

I got up and hustled around this morning but somehow it was after 11 before I was backing out of the slip. My usual fan club was waiting to see me off.

These guys hang out here on the breakwater between the slips and Richardson Bay. I can tell when the wind is blowing from them toward my slip without ever sticking my head out the hatch. The smell is distinctly fishy!

The day looked like it would be a repeat of other days – not a whole lot of wind. It was out of the north so I had the wind at my back.

I got the sails up and for the first 15 – 20 minutes, I was able to run dead downwind with the main out to the port side of the boat and the jib to starboard. (That’s wing and wing in sailor talk.)

When I got out a little farther into the bay, I changed course to try, once again, to sail around Alcatraz. That was the end of wing and wing. Now the main is out to starboard along with the jib.

The wind picked up a bit and it was from a direction that allowed me to hoist the mizzen (the little sail toward the back of the boat. You can just barely see it at the top of the picture.) That added about a knot to my speed and I was up to 3.5 knots immediately. Over the next two hours, the wind picked up enough to see 4.5 knots on the speedometer (known to sailors as a knot meter or a log.)

 

I thought I would surely make it around Alcatraz. I got this close. That's the Oakland Bay Bridge and the SF city skyline in the background.

Then the wind dropped off. I could keep the boat moving at 1.5 to 2.0 knots but that wasn’t good enough. The tide was going out and after a while I was losing ground. I finally gave up and turned around.

The sail back was a lot more fun. I was trying to go where the wind was coming from. Since sailboats can’t go straight into the wind, I had to zig-zag (tack) always pointing the boat as close to the wind as it would go. This boat seems to be able to get within about 45 degrees. Once again, the wind picked up for about a half hour and the boat was moving at about 4.5 knots. As I got close to Sausalito, the wind died again. That was OK with me since I would have to motor up the channel to my marina anyhow. The channel is sufficiently narrow that tacking a boat this size would be a lot of work. It would mean tacking about every 3 – 5 minutes – a lot of work.

Tonight it is supposed to rain and the wind is supposed to blow. I’m hoping it will still be blowing tomorrow morning. I am feeling comfortable enough with the boat to want to try sailing with more wind than I have been seeing.

Maybe I can make it to Alcatraz.