November 16, 2008

Went for a sail this weekend, leaving this slip at 1130, with Debra and John Constantine, Catlin and her friend Josie, Lynne and me around the bay. The winds were light so we motored out all the way to Angle Island before we found amy wind. We them raised the sails and sail up to the gate and back down to Ayala Cove where we picked up a mooring for lunch. After lunch we were able to sail back to the estuary on 10 knt NE winds. We motored back down the estuary and got back to the slip at 1850.

November 7-9, 2008

This weekend I went on another CPM as the Navigator this weekend. We had a wild time beginning Saturday afternoon. But I am getting ahead of myself. The weekend started on Friday afternoon when we were getting the boat ready for the weekend sail ahead. Our crew was to be Alain Espin, skipper, me as Navigator, Jim Collum as Jr. Nav, and Mickey O'Brien and Mark Dietrich as crew. I got to the boat, Unleashed, a 2006 41 ft Hunter, early to familiarize myself with the radar and get my charts and log set up. At about 1630 the skipper shows up and tells us that he has a family emergency and will not be able to go. So our instructor, Kay-John Kavanaugh had to assume the dual role of instructor and skipper.

We do a very fast check out and get the boat ready to head out. As the navigator I provide the course and tell the helmsman how to get us to our two destinations, first the the estuary to run the mile and calibrate the log and then on to Ayala Cove to moor for the night. In addition, as soon as we get out of the harbor and into deep water we conduct a compass deviation run to determine whether out ships compass has any significant positional errors.

So we get through all the preliminaries and I am at the helm when we get to Ayala Cove and we pick up a mooring for the night. So far so good. Since we are on a mooring we can sleep easy Friday night.

The next morning the skipper is in a hurry to get underway and only takes one of the crew up topsides to detach from the mooring. Bad idea because it is trickier than you would think, especially for someone who has not done it before and a line ends up in the water and is soon thereafter securely wrapped around the prop. Bummer. Well I volunteer to jump overboard into the frigid SF harbor waters to free the line from the prop. I am able to get into the water, but is is so cold that when I try to go under water, I loose my breath immediately and can not stay under long enough to get to the prop. Fortunately, one of the other crew members is a former fisherman from Maine and more use to cold water. He is able to free the line from the prop.

We get underway and are only about 20 minute behind schedule and get out of the gate at about 0845. Unfortunately there is no wind so we have to motor all the way up to Drakes Bay, a distance of about 20 miles. When we get there we anchor for lunch and the other tag boat, skippered by Deb Fehr, that is in our little flotilla rafts up to us for practice. Everything goes well and we are soon eating lunch.

After lunch we de-raft and we take Unleashed out for some crew overboard (COB, MOB or PIW) drills. We each get a shot at both a quick stop and quick turn technique and then head back to harbor. As Navigator I am at the helm and since the fog has socked us in, I am instruct

ed to bring the boat into the harbor by radar alone. Not a problem as far as navigation is concerned, but as we approach chimney rock I see a line of black clouds coming in from the North. I point them out to the instructor and note that I think we are in for a bit of nasty weather. I have never motored through a squall line before so I think it will be interesting. Well a few minutes later the winds pick up to a steady 25 gusting to 35 and we are surrounded by white caps and blowing seas. Then the rains start pounding us and for a short while we are hit by stinging sharp sleet. I stay at the helm and as we motor into Drakes Bay Kay-John and Mark go up to ready the anchor. As we get to where we want to anchor the winds are still blowing at about 25 knots with a fair amount of rain. Fortunately the anchor bites at first try and we are soon securely at anchor. But the boat is shifting from side to side on the anchor rode so we have to set an anchor watch for the night. Every hour one of us has to go up to the front of the boat and inspect the anchor line and let out 5 inches of line to keep the line from chafing in one spot. The wind is howling all night long. I, for one, (and the instructor) do not get much sleep that night.

To make matters worse, we need to get an early start the next day in order to get back to the gate before the ebb tide gets too strong. For those of you that are not sailors, when the waters of SF bay dump into the ocean, all of the silt and sand in the fast moving water gets deposited on a shoal (ie sand bar) about 2-4 miles wide just outside SF gate. The water is about 6 fathoms deep (24 feet), which is pretty shallow for ocean waters. So when large ocean swells come up to this shallow water the waves get pushed higher and become much steeper. On Sunday we had 12 foot swells in the ocean, which we knew would be much larger on the shoal. That makes for a rougher ride if one comes in at slack tide, but if you come in on an ebb, the water rushing out of the gate hits up against the incoming swells and makes the waves even higher and steeper, to the point that they can begin breaking on the shoal. There is a narrow channel of deeper water near the shore, but if the waves are big and the winds are strong, it makes for a scary return coming in through this narrow channel near the waves breaking on the rocky shore. For all of these reasons we decide to get an early start and raise anchor at 6 am so that we have a chance at getting back to the Gate at slack tide.

The sail down from Drakes was great. The swells were about 12 feet every 13 seconds, nice high but well spread out swells. The wind was 15-25 from our stern quarter. So the sail back was pretty comfortable. But we did not get back to the Gate at slack tide, which was at 0945. When we got to the Bonita Channel it was already 1100 and the tide was nearing full ebb. As I looked through the binoculars I could see that the waves were breaking in over the shoal. Then as I panned the shore I saw huge breakers pounding the rocks. As I swept the lens across the Bonita Channel I even saw breakers in the channel. Well this was going to be an exciting ride in! We battened down the hatches, started the engine and slammed down the throttle. We wanted to get though the rough spot as quickly as possible. Long story short, we motor sailed in with no problem at all and before long we were comfortably motor sailing thought the Golden Gate.

We headed over to Ayala Cove to moor again to eat lunch and get our debriefing from Kay John. I guess we all did a good job because he passed everyone on the trip. So my next CPM, in March will be as a skipper. Looking forward to it.