Out the gate - and back

I've been off the boat for the last five days enjoying Judy's company in Placerville and an evening with old friends from my Silicon Valley days in the early 80's. By this morning I was eager to get out for a sail. The weather god(s) cooperated and I had a bright, sunny day with an unusual feature - WIND!

It started off like most of my other outings. I motored out the channel and started hoisting sails about the time I passed the Spinnaker waterfront restaurant. There was very little wind but with the help of my new tell-tales, I was able to keep Laelia moving for a while - then I drifted. I had to start the engine and motor for about 1/2 mile to keep from being pushed onto the rocks at Pt Cavello. Just after I started the engine, a seal popped up about 10 feet from the boat and just stared at me as if to ask why I was invading his territory. I bade him/her a good day and left the area.

As I was motoring, I noticed foam streaks in the water - signs of rip currents. As I motored across the streaks, Laelia would slew as much as 15 or 20 degrees when her bow was in one current and her stern was in the other.

As soon as I cleared the point, the wind started to pick up. In short order it was blowing 15 - 20 knots from the ocean into the bay. This area close to the Golden Gate Bridge is known as The Slot. On sunny days like today, the usual scenario is that about noon or a little past, the land mass starts to heat up, the air over land starts to rise and it sucks air in off the Pacific. The Slot makes a nice little venturi and accelerates the flow making for some exciting sailing. That's the way it worked today. I had the full jib, main and mizzen up when I hit the slot and in no time the boat was moving at 6 knots - my all-time high speed in this boat.

The boat was a bit over powered and heeling more than I was ready for. I hadn't put things away below decks well enough to deal with this kind of sailing. I turned down wind for long enough to roll up the jib about 1/3 of the way and then turned back toward the bridge. Laelia kept trying to turn into the wind and I had to work to keep her on course. Since she is usually quite well balance when she is on the wind, that meant she was out of trim. I dropped the mizzen and she was balanced. The mizzen hadn't been giving much help. When Laelia is close hauled (going up wind as much as possible) the mizzen is back winded by the air coming off the main and supplies little, if any, drive.

Perfect! The boat was moving about 5 knots and heeling about 10 degrees and well balanced - quite comfortable sailing. In short order, I was under the bridge. Shortly after passing under the bridge, I tacked. There was a tug coming up the deep water channel with a big barge in tow and I didn't want to be involved.

As I neared the south shore, I got the view you see to the right. Under the rightmost portion of the span you can see San Francisco. Just to the left is Alcatraz.

Just past the bridge, there was a distinct change in conditions. I could feel and see a 2 - 3 foot swell rolling in off the Pacific. This mixes with the local currents and the topography of the bottom to produce a stretch of water along the south shore known as the Potato Patch. It is aptly named. The water is lumpy and bumpy.

The last time I passed through this patch of water in 1982, I was helping my friend, George, move his boat down the coast to Santa Cruz. I made the mistake of going below to try to do some calculations for a sun sight that I had taken to keep myself in practice doing celestial navigation. I was immediately, violently seasick. That was only the beginning. I was seasick for the rest of the trip. We took two hour shifts steering the boat during the night. Every half hour or so, I would have to lean over the rail and try to empty my already empty stomach. Not fun!

I am happy to report that this was not the case today. I managed several more tacks before turning back toward home. I took this picture just before turning back.

I look forward to the day when I get to this point and keep on going!

Going back, I was going downwind. That meant that the boat speed was subtracted from the apparent wind and the day now felt warm and balmy. Going downwind, Laelia is not a lot of fun to steer. She wants to veer left and right as she rolls. With the swell rolling in, she was doing a lot of rolling and veering. Possibly, you can see a bit of the swell running in this picture. The Marin headland (north shore of the Golden Gate) is to the left.

As I passed under the bridge, I turned a bit to port to head toward Sausalito. Now the wind seemed to be in a place that would let me run wing and wing. It turned out to be a frustrating exercise. As the boat rolled, the jib would collapse and dump the wind. After the boat rolled a few times and the wind was just right, the jib would fill with a loud BANG and the whole boat would shake. I was afraid this would break something or split some seams in the jib so I gave up on that idea and gybed. If I had Laelia fully outfitted and we were on the open ocean, I would use a pole with one end attached to the main mast and the other to the corner of the jib. This would keep the jib from collapsing. I would also have a line running from the end of the main boom to the bow (front) of the boat to hold the main well out to the side and to make sure that it didn't swing across the boat in one of the rolls - an accidental gybe - and break some of the equipment.

Gybing is a delicate maneuver. Today the wind was coming from behind the boat and the main was on the port side of the boat. I wanted to turn far enough to port to get the main to come across the boat to the starboard side. If I just turn the boat until the main comes across by itself, it will swing across suddenly, fill with wind and slam against its sheets (ropes). With the amount of wind there was today, that would probably break something. I spent about five minutes pulling the main in with one or two hands and steering the boat with the other hand. Laelia was doing her trick of veering with each passing swell so it was a juggling act until I could get the main pulled in almost to the centerline of the boat. Then I could turn and let the main come across without damage since it could only swing a very short distance before getting to the end of its rope.

I had a very pleasant sail past Pt Cavello and the Sausalito waterfront and started dropping sails after I passed the Spinaker Restaurant.

Getting into the slip was more interesting than usual today. There was a significant cross wind blowing from left to right as I entered the slip. It doesn't take much wind to push the boat around so I was at bit nervous about the whole maneuver. I managed to get in without any damage. I wouldn't call it graceful but it worked.

It was another good sail with more lessons learned. I need to add reef points to the main so I can reef (pull it part way down) and not have a bunch of sail flapping in the breeze. I really, really need a wind vane to steer the boat while I manage sails. It would have been extremely difficult - if at all possible - to deploy the pole to hold the jib out when I was running down wind without something to steer the boat for me. I need to have the pole set up so it is easier to get it into position. These are all things that are not too hard to remedy - given time and money.

It was tantalizing to be outside The Gate and looking south past Land's End. Another tack or two and I would have been in the clear and able to run south. The day will come!