Pumpkin Fest Sail to Half Moon Bay

Wendy and I sailed down to Half Moon Bay with Club Nautique this weekend. We met up with the Bear Boat crew in Sausalito on Thursday. We hadn't met the others and were relieved to find that the skipper (Steve) and the other crew (Jim and Mike) were the fun and mostly sane people they seemed like in their emails.

On our previous outing out of the gate, we've both had rough rides in the past. Today though, the weather was fine, clear and warm. We left the dock around 8am on Friday, ran the mile and met the club's flotilla of 14 boats going out of the Gate. Within about an hour, the wind died and we gave up the race, motoring the rest of the way to Pillar Point. For about half an hour on the way, we were surrounded by ten or more porpoises -- seems they're attracted to the sounds of The Police. Another boat we spoke to later said they also saw a sunfish floating around on the surface.

We got some CoNav practice on the way down and back. I sat the course two years ago but got deported before I finished and never got around to taking the test. Someday...

At Half Moon Bay, we checked out the yatch club and a then couple of the local bars. At the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company, a mom and son balloon twisting team were doing the rounds and provided entertainment for a couple of hours while we sat around the firepit. This was entertaining not because anyone was particularly interested in balloon twisting but because of the curious mom-and-son-in-trade partnership. Mom was busy teaching the higher level points of balloon twisting (minimize balloon usage, visit as many punters as possible, find a hook and don't waste time if they're not going to shell out cash) . Later in the night the appearance of a older man in a checkered suit whom we all took to be some kind of balloon twister's pimp only added to the interest. As with flower sellers, some people don't take kindly to being harassed away from their beers or made to look cheap in front of their partners. We weren't sure whether the guy in the suit was just the father of the family, or whether his appearance meant that someone had refused to pay for their giant balloon beer mug and were about to receive an education on the advanced applications of high-speed balloon inflating pumps.

Next, we made our way to the Old Princeton Landing. This is more of locals bar and chock full of crazy characters. Jim convinced one of the locals tried to smoke a tampon. Later when he stood up next to me I came face to face with his penis poking out of a slit in his jeans that looked like it was there to, well I don't know, attract the ladies?

Friday night was a late night. We got up too late on Saturday to get to the Pumpkin festival, and in any case, I had other plans. Saturday was my dad's birthday. He died last year. I collected some flowers, made a posy, and Steve let us take the boat out for a short while so that I could drop them in the sea. So long dad. Happy birthday.

On Saturday afternoon the club arranged a cocktail contest. Jim cooked up BearBoat's entry: a hot mix of spiced rum, Goldschläger and hard cider. Delicious. We named it the "Pan Galatic Schlager Baster." And, later, "Pretty on the Inside" after we realized that the drunks were having problems casting their votes for our first name. Shockingly we failed to place in the cocktail contest. I suspect that some people took offense at Wendy's and my OCSC caps. Some Club Nautique scapegrace swiped them off our heads never to be seen again. I guess that's what we get.

Despite this perversion in the judging, our "Mike the Knife" managed to snag first place in the pumpkin carving for the second year running.

During the judging at the yacht club, I found a litter of feral kittens living in the rocks. Cute, cute, cute. I suspect they won't last through winter though unless someone takes them in.

On Sunday morning, we ate breakfast and then made our way back to San Francisco. No winds again so we motored the whole distance. We heard mayday reports from the Coast Guard of a capsized sailboat outside of Horseshoe Cove - interesting especially because that's where one of the Coast Guard stations is. Maybe they slept in.

When we got through the gate we saw another sailboat playing chicken with an oil tanker. It sailed in its path, tacked, fouled the jib and hung out in the shipping channel while we watched on and the tanker weighed around them, honking the whole way. Stupid.

Awesome weekend. Thanks guys.

Travelled: 60nm
Days aboard: 4
Night hours underway: 0
Items Lost: cell phone, car keys, hats, dignity

Sail: Dude Sail (No. 2)

Wendy and I changed the oil the weekend before last. We only managed to pump out about 8 quarts rather than the 11-12 listed in the manual. Seems like a lot to leave in there. Is that normal? Jonathan (the P/O) recommended changing while its still warm, but I think next time we might do it first thing in the morning to see if we get more out. Also getting gobs of black soot blown out of the exhaust if I rake the throttle. I may replace the exhaust hose to the transom soon -- looks like this dates back to 1982 (although looks in good shape, and I don't get any fumes).

Also, hopefully will start on sprucing up the exterior varnish next weekend. Had originally planned on stripping some of it back, but I think there's not much to lose by experimenting with lightly sanding it down and and adding a couple of coats first to see how it looks.

Took a sewing class at the Tech Shop in Menlo Park yesterday morning. They've got an industrial sewing machine that I used to stitch in reinforcing webbing straps onto the boat's LifeSling bag where the Velcro was pulling away from the bag. Also planning to make some new canvas covers. The ones I have are getting pretty ratty and the canvas guy I know wanted $500 for a new sun cover for my dodger. (Its just 4 panels of canvas stitched together!) Have ordered fabric samples from Sailrite -- seems to be very difficult to find marine canvas suppliers locally. Given the cost of getting canvas made or the cost of renting time of the TechShop's machines, it might be worth investing in a sewing machine.

The Dudes turned out for a full on Dude Sail today. Also Erin, Arjun and Wendy. Its the last day of the Festival of Sail and I wanted to get out to see the cannon fight. The wind was honking pretty hard. We stopped at Paradise Cove for lunch. Even though we found a fairly sheltered spot, we slowly dragged anchor for a 100 feet or more until we left. Was warm there, but pretty cold and overcast in the central bay. I'd estimate that we were getting 25-30kts between East of Angel Island to the city. We sailed just on the main in the afternoon and had to motor sail against the current (6kts at the gate) to make it up the city front. I've been finding that my boat sails much worse without the jib and points much worse than I'd expect.

We missed the cannon fight. We heard on the VHF that that the Californian
had lost their bowsprit and so the they gave up the fight early and headed
back to port. We motored around inside a lot of the city marinas and
piers and checked out all the ships: a replica of The Nina (Christopher Columbus's favorite), The Eagle, California, Lynx and a bunch of others. Included in those was the Bounty. Wendy and I saw the Bounty at St. Petersburg Pier in Florida earlier this year. Rumor has it that The Bounty, which starred in "Mutiny on the Bounty" with Marlon Brando was also used in the high budget porno "Pirates." Also got a good look at the bowsprit of the California. Looks like the wood failed in a spectacular way, cracking down the length of it.

Throughout the day at hour intervals, the Coast Guard was reporting a 1950's 35ft Chris Craft carrying two men that went missing from Channel Marina (?) in Richmond. It disappeared between Richmond and Tiburon in the prior 24 hours. Its hard to imagine what might have happened to them. The central bay is generally so busy that disappearing without a trace seems hard to pull off -- even a boat were to get hit in the busy shipping channels between Richmond and Tiburon. Whatever happened to them, I suspect happened somewhere else.

Sail: Overnight at Richardson Bay

We had plans to do an overnight at Angel Island this weekend. We got there late in the day and the mooring were had filled up. It would have been possible to fit in except that some of the boats were tied up crosswise on the mooring field leaving the only free space requiring us to tie a third line onto a mooring already having two other boats attached. We passed by and sailed up to Richardson Bay and dropped the anchor. Got out the part lights and grilled steaks.

The wind picked up during the night. I still haven't got a GPS. Between the rocking and not having an alarm for dragging anchor, neither of us got much sleep.

In the morning, we motored to Horizon's in Sausalito who have recently reopened the docks. Docking was a little interesting -- we we're still waking up when we arrived and both of us forgot to put the fenders out.
The food was pretty good. But at fifteen bucks a plate and only four options for breakfast, Sam's might have been a better choice.

Wendy got into a bit of an altercation with another boat on the way back home. On a broad reach on a starboard tack we met another boat on a port tack, making us the stand-on vessel, and the the other boat the give-way vessel. The guy at the helm clearly saw us. He closed until we were a little more than than a boat length apart.

Wendy called "Starboard." He called "by the lee." Hmmm... That's a new one. Not sure what he means, or what difference it makes. It doesn't since he'd sailed so close to us we had had to turn down and were be the lee now too.
Still closing.

I called, "you're on port tack. We're on starboard. You have to give way." He shouted back, "are you going to make me gybe?"
Not sure what to think about this. By this time, he'd so close to us that the only option was for one of us to gybe to avoid running into each other.

I shrugged at him. Clearly it was his responsibility. With a groan and rolling eyes, eventually he gybed out of our way.

While, its true Wendy could have headed up early and sailed behind him to prevent him having to gybe, the other boat had the same option and, but also the responsibility to get out of the way. If we'd both of headed up, we'd have run closer to each other faster - it the the stand-on vessel's responsibility is to avoid this situation by keeping their heading.

Douchebag.

We changed the engine oil when we got back.
The engine manual says it takes a little under three gallons of oil. Since there's no sump valve, the oil has to be pumped out. I bought a pump that attaches to an electric drill to do this. We managed to get about 2 gallons out. Not sure where the rest of the oil has gotten to. Its possible its some of it was still coated around the engine, but it seems unlikely. Its possible it was just low on oil, but this also seems unlikely and would suggest that a gallon of oil can be added between the low mark and the full mark on the dipstick.

Next time, I might try changing the oil first thing to see if I get more of it out.

Sail: Sam's

• Meghan, Wendy, Eric.


• Anchored for lunch at Angel Island.


• Sam's for Margaritas. Eric and Wendy: hammered.


• Honked at by a tanker on the way out of the gate.


• Hot cocoa on the way back home. Mmmmm.... cocoa.


• Conversation for the day:
  
  Q: Is it OK to ditch you internet date by email?
  
  A: Yes
  
  So long Santa Cruz. Bring out bald guy.
  

 

Sail: Night sail

We had big plans to take the boat out for the fireworks on the 4th July. In the end the prospect of kicking back and taking it easy all day proved too much to overcome.

However by the evening we rustled up the energy to cycle out to Shoreline Park from home in Mountain View to see the fireworks from the bay. Like a scene from E.T.

Wendy and I took the boat out together the day after. We had plans just to do a quick evening sail and come back. However, the sailing was so good that we kept going out on of the gate and didn't get back until after dark. The Lopolight I installed worked a treat. This is the first time just the two of us have been out on the boat by ourselves. I tried out the boat's autopilot for the first time when we raised and dropped the main. Also awesome.

Sail: Out of the Gate

Took the boat out the gate this weekend.
Sent Wendy up the mast again to sort out the lead line that had snagged in the sheave when I tried to change out the frayed halyard.

BBQd at the dock.
Got a late start and didn't leave the dock until about 2:30. Missed slack at 3 and fought the tide all the way up Raccoon Straight to get to the gate at max flood at 6.

Wendy, Stu, Yoichiro, Jordan, Dana.

Sail: Sunday Fun

Saturday, Wendy, Scott and I went out one of the club's club Catalina 36s with Andreas who was completing his second OCSC big boat charter. The weather turned out beautiful. Sunny with gusts 15-25kts. Berkeley->Angel Island->Golden Gate->City Front->Berkeley. We also passed by the hills at Belvedere Cove. The houses there are amazing - built into the steep hills that rise out of the bay. Several of them are four stories tall has each has winding paths, ladders and tracks that lead down to private jetties where the rich and famous kept their yatchs. Reminds me of Salcombe on the South coast of Devon near where my folks live.

The kite boarders were out in force for the U.S. Kiteboarding National Championships. It looked like there were at least 30 kites buzzing around in front of Crissy Field looking like flock of party balloons.

After we got back. we checked out Trader Vic's near our marina. Its a Tiki restaurant which claims to have invented the Mai Tai. Pretty disappointed. Valet only parking (would be quicker, more convenient and pleasant to walk the 20 steps to the lot to get to your car instead of having to pay to queue), pricey and the food, drinks and service were all disappointing. Later, we went back to Berkeley. Got toasty next to the bonfire the staff had fired up after work and watched the sun go down behind the gate.

We had a lazy day on Sunday. Slept in on the boat. Breakfast. Pump out and fuel up. Debbie and her friend Marianne came by after noon bringing supplies for the grill (and some badly needed toothbrushes). After lunch, we tried servicing the furler, unfurling the sail, dropping the jibs, spraying in a ton of McLube into the bearings and rewinding the furler. Nothing seemed to help much. Still pretty squeaky. Will have to look into replacing the bearings.

We had an awesome sail in the afternoon. Wind felt to be in the mid 20s. We left Emeryville and went clockwise around Treasure Island. Wendy seems to have nailed reefing our main -- hoisting up the boom high on the #2 reef line before tensioning #1 and then snugging the vang seems to be the way to get the foot nice and tight. We sailed up to the ball park in San Francisco and terrorized the ferry boats taking the Oakland A fans back to where they came from. I'm making it my mission to get North Star on TV at the ball game -- they frequently feature the boats that hang out outside the ballpark and listen to the game. Need to set TiVo. Had to put in quick gybe to steer out of the path of one of the ferries. Somehow if left Wendy and Debbie collapsed on the cockpit floor as they sheeted in the main.

Very nice having an all women crew. Great crew, and better to look at than the Dudes.

Life is good...


When we got back, we found that the top of the jib halyard had been somehow shredded. Possibly it jumped the sheaves at the top. It could also be that the halyard wraps around the forestay when we furl the jib. Could also be that it might not be led correctly down the mast and chafes on the through-bolts that secure the standing rigging. We rigged the spare halyard that Russ had spliced. Need to cut the end off the one we took off and re-splice an eye.

Newport 41 Raft Up

We took the boat out again. Very low tide today. The bar alongside the Emeryville channel looked like you could walk across it. We sailed from Emeryville out to Angel Island where we picked up a mooring and met Good Grief for lunch.

The mooring field at Angel Island here is set up for bow and stern mooring. Eric rigged the Happy Hooker to a stern cleat and picked up the stern mooring at the bow. With that attached, it was easy to motor forward to the stern mooring, stopping ourselves from running over it by adjusting the stern line.

Russ and Maureen arrived a little while later and we rafted up.

This was our first raft up and I think that our technique worked pretty well:

• Set fenders and prepare a long stern line on the downwind side.


• Have the arriving boat prepare a long bow line on the opposite side on their boat.


• Have the arriving boat pull up from downwind, bring their bow to your fenders, and exchange lines from their bow.


• Pay out and let the wind blow you apart until you are parallel.


• Set the length of the stern line to allow the boats to come parallel alongside each other but offset by a 1/3 boat length (i.e. allow sufficient slack to ensure that the rigs don't collide).


• The arriving boat motors forward and slack is taken up on the bow.


• Keep in engine in gear until a spring line is secured that prevents parallel motion and the rigs from crashing.

I'm not sure this is exactly what happened, but its what I imagined, and it all turned out very well.

In our case, we were moored bow and stern. If we were anchored or moored at the bow only, the last steps would need to run in reverse: set the bowline to allow the boats to sit offset by 1/3 and run the engine in reverse. This would prevent the engine from pushing the boats over the anchor or the mooring.

Fired up the BBQ for lunch. We drank beer and eat steaks and talked about Newports until Russ and I bored everyone with our boat talk. We headed out towards the gate after lunch. Wendy tipped 9kts reaching across the slot.

The boat felt quite a lot overpowered today. We reefed the jib. It would be nice to find a way of doing this more tidily while headed upwind so that creases don't get wrapped in the furler. Downwind's much easier and tidier, but is not always where you want to be going.

Here's the track Eric made. 26nm.

 

 

Wendy also got some great shots of Good Grief:

 
North Star 

We flushed and refilled the tanks water when we got back. When the tanks were filling, there were a couple of pops, that I assumed was just the tanks flexing. I have two deck water fillers and two tanks that are connected by a valve. Adding water in one side fills one tank. Filling in the other side fills both tanks. When I was filling, the deck filler overflowed, and then the level dropped. I topped off and again and the level dropped again. I figured that this was just water moving from one tank to another. It wasn't until Wendy found a small river running into the bilge that we discovered that one of the water hoses in the shower had popped out of one of the foot pumps. My yard had taken apart the cabinet that this was attached to in order to fit new ball valves. I figure that, along with poorly tightening the clamps for the pressure water system, they also didn't tighten the hose clamps for the shower footpump. I should really had checked over all of the hose clamps. It would be a good idea to make it part of regular maintenance checklist.

Also, some of the hoses looks pretty rank. Will make a point to replace them.

North Star Dude Sail (No. 1)

Wendy's back from Santa Cruz. We stayed over on the boat Friday night and cooked for the first time. Happy to find that most of the house systems are working well. Dinner was a success.

On Staurday, we took out my regular sailing buddies, Eric and Patrick, and also my housemate Meghan. Went up to Richardson Bay and picked up a rank seaweed soaked mooring. Wind probably up in the mid 20's. The boat performed very nicely for the most part. Got 7kts+ up wind and 9.5 downwind. Need to fix the outhaul sheaves so I can get good tension. Got out the BBQ for lunch.

A couple of us used the head at lunch time. We thought the stink was just Eric but it turns out the the holding tank vent doesn't have a check valve. We sunk the rail a couple of times on the way up to Richardson Bay and the tank must have filled with Bay water.

Tried to put in a reef after lunch and found that its difficult to get good tension on the luff, despite Eric's hard work. Less friction in the sheaves might help.



Photos:



Lube it up Eric!

Other caption suggestions please...


We made our first poop-pump out in the evening after we got back.

We were finding the that the pressure water pump was running for a few seconds every 10 minutes or so. That and water in the bilge pointed to a leak which Wendy tracked down on Sunday morning. Looks like the yard disconnected one of the hoses to the pressure water pump and didn't put it back together too well. Cut off the end of the house, new clamps and it was as good as new.

We also found a pinhole leak in the deck where a screw securing a cabinet partition had been drilled too deep. Wendy plugged it up with Life Seal on Sunday. Probably need to be epoxied eventually.

The Shakedown

Woohoo! The boat's ready to sail and I can finally get it out of the yard. Since I bought the boat I've hardly been sailing at all. Today's the big shakedown. I'm moving it from the yard back to the slip at Emeryville with Jonathan, Russ and Maureen's help. Jonathan's the previous owner and Russ owns another Newport 41. Sad that Wendy couldn't make it for today. She's sailing to Santa Cruz and back - I left the good booze back at home.

I had the boat hauled out for the survey at the start of December. Since mid January, I've been thinking, "just another two weeks and it'll finished for sure." It pretty much eaten my weekends between then and now and has been a big source of tension between Wendy and I.

So what's happened in the last months? Here's a list of the work that the yard did:

1. Pull mast, install rigging, re-install mast and tune rigging


2. Install new VHF antenna


3. Repaint bottom


4. Service propeller


5. Install mast boot


6. Fabricate new backstay chainplate


7. Replaced two broken ball valves


8. Install dripless stuffing box

Things the yard said they'd do and decided they couldn't get around to:

9. Relocate propane tank


10. Install a sump pump for the shower

Things that went wrong:

• When the boat was on the hard, I tested the through-hull ball valves. One of them had become jammed. Closer inspection revealed that in this and in another, the stem from the handle to the ball had sheared. I can't underestimate how serious a problem this could have turned out to be -- the valves gave the appearance of being closed when, in fact, they were open to the sea. Its the kind of thing you'd hope that your surveyor would spot. I figure she *must* have at least exercised all the handles... but then, if she did, I'm not sure how the problem developed while the boat was out of the water.


• I didn't get the yard to agree to a time-line for the work they did -- so, it took from December to May for a half finished job.


• Either the yard or the riggers mis-measured the original rigging and so new SS wire was cut too short for my mast. Luckily, I'd asked the the riggers to keep the original rigging so they were to (eventually) able to fix the problem.


• The yard's crane squirted oil all over my deck leaving quite a few large stains.


• I broke the bleed valve banjo bolt when I overtightened it. It took over a month dealing with parts distributors to get a replacement that didn't fit.


• I wish I'd completely de-rigged the mast and put the contents of the boat and the sails into storage. Would have made working much easier.


• I broke off the masthead fly while working on the mast.


• A friend of mine, Paul, noticed that the yard hadn't tightened one of the locking nuts on my forestay. Furling up the jib could have unscrewed my forestay...


• The mast boot the yard installed was a pretty shoddy job. It had split along the length of the boom-vang bracket a week after they fitted it. I brought it up with them and they wrapped more tape over the top. Not sure whether it will seal. We'll see. Looks pretty ugly.

Other work we've done while the boat has been out of the water includes:

1. Installed new lifelines


2. Removed SS mast fittings, sanded, primed, and painted mast beneath, and rebedded fittings


3. Installed new anchor/tricolor light


4. Design aluminium riser mount for masthead light and has it machined


5. Installed new steaming light


6. Ran new electrical wiring from thoughout mast to distribution panel


7. Rebedded all chainplate covers


8. Replaced wiring from bilge pump and float switch to distribution panel


9. Replaced masthead sheaves with roller-bearing sheaves


10. Replaced two fraying wire halyards with rope


11. Polished topsides


12. Greased mast track


13. Replaced masthead fly


14. Replaced docklines and fenders


15. Repainted mast-step (and replaced lucky coin)


16. De-rigged and rerigged boom


17. Changed primary fuel filter


18. Had new banjo bolt fabricated


19. Replaced engine fresh water pump gasket


20. Pumped out leaked coolant from bilge

Wendy, Jonathan and Eric have helped out with a lot of this. Russ has also been a big help and constant source of advice. He also found the new halyards on Craigslist and put in eye slices and shackles.

When I got to the boat, I was happy to find that the yard had heard that we'd got the engine running earlier in the week and had moved the boat out its place 3 deep in a raft and onto the long dock. We had to wait a hour or so for the tide to give us clearance. The engine fired up nicely and after swinging after the nose at the dock, we made our way into the channel. The new sheaves and newly greased track worked great and the main went up very easily. We received some cheerios from people at the dock who'd been watching the work on the boat and made our way out into the Bay and up to Alcatraz.

The boat seemed to handle just fine. The new rigging looked great. Russ noted that the lowers looked a little slack, but the otherwise the mast looked pretty fine and Jonathan noted that the helm felt more balanced than it did previously. Weather was overcast with a brisk breeze.

Up around Alcatraz we cross the path of the Master Mariner's Race where all the old woodies compete. We followed the race for a while and crashed their finish line before putting the boat back home in Emeryville.

KFOG KABOOM

My friend Adrian is in town, visiting from England and so Wendy and I took out one of the club's J24s to give him a tour around the bay, finishing up with the KFOG fireworks display under the bay bridge. It was howling today. We put on the 80% and a reef in at the dock -- the first time I've ever felt the need. I'm glad I did. The boat got battered on the upwind leg to Alcatraz. Cold. Wet. And the fog started rolling in two hours before sunset. We abandoned our plans to get to the Golden Gate and headed to be in sight of the city front before the fog caught up with us. Under the Bay Bridge was a parking lot. We anchored and rafted up with a friend of ours. Wine. Cheese and Crackers. Cocoa. Mmmm...

Sailing back to Berkeley was a bitch in dark and the limited visibility from the fog. Made for a lot of tension.

 

 

The Haulout

 

 

 

 

Sail To Pillar Point

Pictures. Click. Click. Click.

Took these on North Star when it was Jonathan's -- before I bought it.

Angel Island

Sail To Farallones

Click. Click. Click.