Six Seconds of Wake

Durng our leisurely sail this past weekend, I appointed Camille to be Director of Photographic Evidence. Basically, since I'm usually toting the camera, I wanted proof that I'm actually on the boat. She gladly accepted responsiblity. From the safety and comfort of the Low Side, she started snapping pictures.

Now keep in mind this kid is 6. She gets distracted from photographing her strikingly handsome father by things like close-ups of her shoe and pictures of our wake. And that's when the magic happened. She also accidentally put the camera on video mode, something that happens to the best of us.



She got what I think is the coolest six seconds of video I've ever seen from one of my sailboats. And keep in mind, I did the classic "Smoke on the Water" and "Tactician Training". This six seconds of wake says so much about San Francisco sailing: the cold grey water and the kind of wind that can even make my 6 knot s-box fly through the waves with the greatest of ease.

This day was completely 100% stereotypical of San Francisco sailing. So completely normal that my theory of "Good Sailing Bad Blogging" goes right out the window, errr, port.

We started the day in Berkeley completely fogbound with about 10-12 knots of wind. Kathy, coming from the North Bay, and I, coming from the Oakland hills, both knew there was sun in the Bay Area, we just had to find it. So we headed towards Angel Island/Marin. The boat was beating beautifully uphill, Kathy at the helm and me on sailtrim; we were averaging high 5s low 6s the whole way. About even with Richmond, we broke through the fog, the boat slowed down a bit and we had sun.

We could see the Angel Island Lee in front of us, we just blasted up to it (still in the high 5s), kept our momentum all the way through the lee and never actually stopped. We enjoyed lunch over in the sunny warm Marinish part of the Bay and then turned around for home. We could again see the windline ahead of us so it was time to give Camille her turn at the helm. But remembering her struggles with the weather helm last week and knowing that we were about to have 20+ knots of wind, we threw in a reef.

She sailed as fast as she ever has, averaging 6 knots in about 15 knots of wind. This time she used the smaller tiller extension and had a much better time. She's getting to the point where she needs much less direction and you can see that this time she's actually smiling.


She gave up the helm and then the wind hit. It was in the low 20s the whole way back and unfortunately the wind had shifted and it was uphill again but one hell of a lot of fun. When Lady Bug has a reef and her 110 up, she is a joy to sail in this wind. it even stayed sunny the whole way home.

As we docked the boat, we could see that the fog was lifting over San Francisco, but we could also see that evening's fog forming outside of the Gate. A perfectly normal day sailing.