Please! No rock and roll!

I am still waiting to get the masts back in the boat. The main has been rewired and is ready to be reinstalled but the mizzen has disappeared off to the rigger's shop. Possibly it will be back today.

The time since the last post has been spent in doing the last minute things that have to be done before I can head offshore as well as a few projects that I had intended to postpone until San Diego. Since I have no hard deadline for departure, I am planning to revert to the original plan.

When the masts are back in the boat, I will move over to Richardson Bay (Sausalito) where I can anchor out and verify that all my live-aboard systems work. I can also do day sail forays into The Slot (the Golden Gate) where I can usually count on finding some wind in the afternoons. That will let me do more checkouts on the rigging and the wind vane.

When things look really good, I can head out onto the open ocean and around the corner to Pilar Point Marina in Half Moon Bay. From there, I can do more day sail trips to do final shakedown on the open ocean with the kind of wind and waves I can expect for the trip to San Diego.

When the boat is ready and there is a suitable weather window, I can shove off for San Diego. Since I plan to spend Christmas with family in Placerville, that puts departure off until January - maybe around the Wolf Moon - the full moon of Jan 16th.

So - what does this have to do with the title of this post?

Nothing.

However, for those of you who have limited sailing experience...

One problem with being offshore for more than 24 hours is that it is necessary to sleep. Sleep is best accomplished in a bed. But sailboats are not stable platforms like the average landlubber's bedroom. When the boat rocks, the sleeper rolls. So how does one manage to sleep under these conditions?

The solution is a device known as a lee cloth (or lee board). A bunk is normally situated against the hull of the boat. The hull keeps the occupant from rolling out of the bunk in that direction. On the other side, some kind of restraint is required. In the old days, it was a board running the full length of the bunk. These days, it is usually a net or a cloth. Mine is made up of sections cut out of an old sail. See the pictures to the right.

Most of the time, the boat will be sailing in such a direction that it will roll to one side and back toward the upright position and will stop short of upright because of the wind pressure on the sails. When the boat is headed straight down wind, this is not the case. The sails are out to the side so they do not dampen the rolling as the boat approaches the upright position. This is when the intrepid sailor finds out what things are not well secured on the boat. Typically, there is a lot of banging and crashing as things shift from one side to the other of the storage areas each time the boat rolls past upright.

It is also the least comfortable point of sail for sleeping. The sleeper will roll from one side to the other of the bunk as the boat rolls. Ideally, the bunk is quite narrow so the lee cloth holds the sleeper firmly against the other side of the bunk leaving no room for rolling from side to side.

And that, my friend, is how not to rock when the boat rolls.