Sailing Aug 26, 2007
Its been way too long since I've been sailing. This weekend I decided to change that, so today I went on a Club Sail from Modern Sailing Academy. This is where you sign up to go sailing with a bunch of strangers for a small fee. Our 'strangers' today included Captain Bob, Scotty, Rick, Rick, and myself. It was easy for me to keep the names straight cuz other than Captain Bob, there was Scotty (who is, unbelievably, 72) and everyone else was named Rick. I've gotta find Scotty's fountain of youth. His mind was sharp and he was keeping up with all of us at every turn.
We took out Kapalina, a Beneteau 38. This boat has a roller furling jib and an in mast furling main and all the lines are drawn back to the cockpit.
We started out in Sausalito (of course) and headed out toward the Golden Gate Bridge, even though we were in flood currents. I was at the helm as we tacked under the bridge. Incoming was a 633 foot Military Ship named Cape Orlando. More info here: http://www.boatingsf.com/ais_shipnotes.php After she passed us in the shipping lane we fell in behind her and proceeded up the San Francisco waterfront. We jibed along until Pier 1 as the sun broke through the marine layer. Then we tacked and headed to the backside of Angel Island and toward the Richmond San Rafael Bridge. We rounded Red Rock (which is for sale, if you want it) then began our journey back to Sausalito through Raccoon Strait. I took the helm again on our way to Raccoon Strait. This is about when the wind picked up and we had to reef. On a boat with a roller furling main, this is a piece of cake. You don't even need to leave the cockpit. I gave up the helm to Rick in Raccoon Strait. We were healed over pretty well and it's always fun to be at the helm when you're healed over.
This is the first time that I've been out on the bay with fewer GPS units than people. Ok, I'm exaggerating, but no one had one out and no one cared. In fact, no one even had a camera. Now that's definitely a first. It also explains why there are no pictures in this post. No one was fanatical about perfect sail trim or, well, anything else, other than enjoying the day. This helped make this a great day on the Bay.
Bob probably had the most experience on sailing vessels, but I'm sure Scotty has logged the most time on the water. He served in the military in the 1950s.
Anyway, the conversation turned to 'so, what do you do Dave?' Then everyone gave their thoughts on what a blog is. I have to come up with a better answer cuz my current one doesn't really do it justice.
