June 22, 2008

After a late start due to a late night the night before at Sandra and Doron's Red Door Studio (3am to be precise), I loaded up the visiting relatives and we made our way down to the Boat. Doron and Sandra met us at the boat, but when Sandra realized that Lynne had stayed home to prepare dinner for a dinner party with Helmut Relinger and Catherine McCarthy, she decided to take a pass on sailing.  I think the late night the night before may have played a part in her decision. We finally go out on the water at about 1230.  I wanted to get out to the Bay so that we could show our guests the City and Alcatraz, so we motored up to the Bay.  We stopped off at Jack London Square for some fuel - 12.4 gallons for $74.  I am glad I do not have a gas guzzler.  We sailed south towards Candlestick until we were about mid way between Alameda and San Francisco and then did two tacks to position ourselves for a direct shot under the Bay Bridge to Alcatraz.  The wind was blowing at 13-20 knts until we got to the Bay Bridge.  Then we hit a patch of no wind (a wind shadow from either the bridge or the City, or both, and had to motor a bit.  As we approached Pier 23 we noticed that a boat about 1/2 mile ahead of us went from sitting straight up to heeling over about 35 degrees as it got into the slot.  Doron and I immediately reefed the sail before we got into the heavy winds.  But as we approached the slot we noticed the chop was piling up and the boats ahead of us were now banging around.  We decided that our guests from out of town would not like to bash through the waves to get to Alcatraz so we instead put the boat on a broad reach for the end of Treasure Island.  The wind was now at 20-25 knts, but Wildcat handled it just fine.  Our guests did not even know that we were in weather that many other boaters try to avoid.  All went well until we had to jibe at the end of Treasure Island to turn back to Alameda.  Because the wind was so strong we decided to do a chicken jibe, but after we executed the turn and I tried to trim the sails, Doron, who was at the helm, told me that he had no helm control.  Fortunately, the rudder was stalled.  But it is an interesting phenomena with a Nonsuch, in high winds when you tack the boat you can stall the rudder and it is almost like you are hove to.  I say almost, because we were still making way about 2-3 knts, but simply could not fall off the wind.  We could have let the sail out all the way or turned up into irons, but since we were a bit close to shore I just turned on the engine to get the rudder out of the stall.  We headed back to home on a typical run down the estuary and got back to the slip about 1800.  As we went by Pete and Bethany's boat, Naniamo, we noticed that they were working on her.  So after putting Wildcat to bed, we headed over to Naniamo to see what Pete and Bethany were up to.  They had just come back in from a short sail and were giving her a good wash.  I checked out Pete's new solar panels.  He says that they fully power all the electrical while under way during the day and keep his batteries fully charged during the week when he is not using the boat.  He is thinking about doing the Ba Ha Ha Ha in 2009 and is getting his boat ready for cruising.  I am quite jealous about the additions to his boat and his plans as well.