Sailing with Judy

The stars have finally aligned for Judy to come to the boat and go sailing. The weather was forecast to be sunny and warm with light and variable winds. What more could we ask for?

 We got to the boat yesterday evening after an enjoyable dinner with daughter Suzanne in Davis. This morning, I had a bit of work to do. The longitudinal bulkheads in the starboard cockpit locker were made of rotting pegboard and I had to replace them or run the risk of a bunch of tools and other junk falling into the engine compartment when the boat heels. I had made up a replacement while I was at home in Placerville last weekend.

While I was doing this, Judy took advantage of being away from home, the beautiful weather and the absence of other responsibilities. She was (gasp) reading a book in the daytime! Normally, her work ethic will not allow her to take time to read until she is in bed in the evening.

It took about an hour to install the new panels. Then it was time to put everything away and prepare to sail!

As we headed out the channel toward the bay, the wind was from dead ahead - of course. That meant we motored until we were well clear of the Spinnaker Restaurant. That it gave Judy a chance to learn to steer the boat under the easiest conditions. No problem - she's a natural! It was great to have her steer while I put up sails. It saved me racing back and forth between the wheel and the sails.

When we picked up some wind, I shut off the motor and we were under sail - a completely new experience for Judy. I am happy to say that she was practically jumping with delight!

We were on the wind making about 5 knots and pointed right at Alcatraz at first but as we got farther out into the bay, the wind direction shifted until we were running almost dead down wind to stay pointed at Alcatraz. Judy was steering off and on as I played with sails so she got to see how sail trim affects the steering. Laelia is a joy to sail when we are on the wind but not so much when the wind goes abaft the beam (i.e., it is coming from someplace between straight from the side and directly behind the boat.)

I had picked sailing toward Alcatraz again because we set sail just after high tide. That meant that the currents would be flowing out the Golden Gate and it might be hard to get back if we went out under the bridge and the wind dropped. It turned out to be a good decision. As we got close to Alcatraz, the wind dropped until we were doing 1.5 to 2 knots. The outgoing tide kept us from making enough progress to round Alcatraz. After about half an hour of dealing with shifty winds and getting nowhere, we gave up and headed back toward Sausalito. As soon as we did that, the wind picked up again and we were moving along at a comfortable 5.5 knots - for a while. Then the wind dropped again and our speed gradually fell off until we decided to crank up the engine and start motoring again.

We hadn't been motoring long before I looked astern and noticed that there was a line across our wake behind us. On our side of the line, the water was fairly smooth. On the other side, it was very choppy. The choppy water quickly overtook us and began pushing the boat toward the Marin shoreline. We had witnessed the birth of a rip current caused by the outgoing tide. It made me grateful we weren't engineless like the sailors of old. We might well have been pushed onto the rocks at Pt Cavallo.

We were back into the slip at 4:30 - just in time for a very pleasant happy hour. We drank wine and enjoyed a snack as the sun set behind the hills to the west.

Judy says she really enjoyed the sail and is looking forward to more. Now if I can just persuade her to sail to Tahiti with me...