Clutching Ropes

The other night I was congratulating myself for getting Lady Bug all spinnakericized. I was actually pretty proud of myself that it had only taken three years or so to do it. I realized that I now had to update my "play book" (that powerpoint that tells new crew members how we do maneuvers on the boat, where to sit, etc.).

So I was visually how we'd hoist, gybe, douse. Hoist made sense, get the pole sorted, raise the kite, sail fast as hell. Then, the gybe routine...whoops, a hiccup. The topping lift and the halyard were sharing a cleat and the topping lift would be under the halyard; so to gybe, I'd have to uncleat the halyard...whoops, big issue.

The thing is I've had a new rope clutch ready to install for this very reason for about two years but I've never done it. And now I only had three days to get it done. Crap crap and double crap, I'd have to take an afternoon off work. But it's a two man job, somebody has to hold a wrench down below while another person holds a screwdriver on deck. And it's during a work day so there was nobody who could help.

Turns out that if I don't mind bruising myself and stretching into uncomfortable positions it can be done. I drilled the holes, I gooped everything up with 5200, I put in the bolts, I contorted and twisted until I could wrench the nuts onto the bolts from below and, voila, I had a rope clutch installed.

I went to put the lines through it and it wouldn't hold! If I pulled from the cockpit it would hold but if I pulled from the loaded end it would slip right through. Was the line too small? Nope, I put the darned thing in BACKWARDS!!!!

Quick, how long until 5200 cures??? I undid everything I had just done, pushed and prodded until the darned thing came off the deck, flipped it around, re-gooped, and repeated the whole process. Success! I ran the lines through and they hold. I can officially clutch ropes now.

Three Bridge Fiasco, Blogger Division Followup

The race is on Saturday and I just want to make sure I have everybody for the blogger division.

• We have Edward of The EVK4 UltraBlog on his trusty Newport 28.
• Then super-commenter O Docker on his falsely rated Catalina 30 :) .
• Of course, David from NeverSeaLand on his racy ass Olson 34.
• Mike (aka BreezeTrees) on his Laser 28.
• World Famous Coverboy Paul on Valis, a Pacific Seacraft 44.

John from Ayala Sandbox and Zen from, ummm Zen, are on the party boat I believe, following around the course without officially starting to keep the lawyers at bay.

One thing to note: the SSS forums have a great discussion of the verboten zone under the Bay Bridge.

The forecast is looking better, see everyone on the water Saturday!

Live Blog the 3BF

Christy had an excellent suggestion: to live blog the Three Bridge Fiasco. Heck, it's an approximately 7 to 8 hour doublehanded race, there's plenty of time to pull out the iPhone and send a quick message to the blog.

I'm just worried that it might be boring. The current extended forecast is "N winds 5 kt...becoming NW. Patchy fog." Hmmm, maybe I will have plenty of free time for blogging. The only way I know how to do it now is to make each message its own post, I'll see if I can quickly and easily update it so it's in one post.

Either way, tune in on Saturday to watch the Incredible Windless Adventures of Phil and Edward (IWAPE). Live.

Topping Lift a Go Go

On Obama's fifth day in office, I installed a topping lift. Finally. The boat is now completely rigged to fly a spinnaker. Well, it'd be nice to have the rope clutches installed so that we're not relying on cleats but heck, this is better than nothing.

I will now re-iterate how much I HATE GOING UP THE MAST. Even if I'm only going halfway. Please see the fear in my face:


Thanks to Tirso for helping me get up there (and back down) safely. And to my kids for playing somewhat patiently.

New Spinnaker!!!!

I got my new spinnaker last night! Yay! I knew this new administration would change things. When Bush was in office I didn't have this spinnaker; with Obama in office I do. I will now end the gratuitous political crap and present a picture of Camille shaded in beautiful red light as we played underneath the spinnaker last night.



Since we couldn't go sailing last night, I pulled it out and taught Camille how to pack a spinnaker. This quickly devolved into playing underneath it and crawling around just enjoying the crinkly goodness.

Next stop: up the mast to install a topping lift.

Look what I found on Flickr

A boat named ladybug. Mine is inexplicably named Lady Bug; I've never known why, Camille just said ladybug and I went and made it too words with a capital L and capital B. Either way, Lady Bug is not alone. She has a doppelgänger. Well not really, but a boat with a similar name.

First Step: Fly the Cloth

How long have I been talking about spinnakers? A year, two years? I've sailed with spinnakers on other people's boats. I've seen pictures of spinnakers. I've even owned a spinnaker for almost a year. But I have never flown one on my own boat. Or any of my Dad's now that I think about it.

That all changed on Saturday. Phil joined me (and Camille and her friend Phoebe) for a short sail out in the Berkeley Circle. I broke out my "kite" after Phil helped me rig the boat mostly properly. Camille had joined us on the promise of seeing the world's greatest sailor in action and, man, he did not disappoint. Phil got on the boat and I dumped a hodge-podge of blocks, line, shackles and gizmos on deck in front of him. He looked at it, pulled out a piece of chewing gum to hold it all together and rigged the boat. Then we went sailing.



Phil worked the foredeck and I handled the cockpit (includes pit and mast and helm all at once)...he yelled hoist and I hoisted. Phil took a long look at the kite and said, "hmmm, we can use that one as a storm kite." It was a bit small.



Sidenote: I had packed the kite and Phil didn't even check my work...don't know where he got that level of trust in me but it worked out this time.

The wind had died quite a bit but we got some sailing in, Camille got to drive under spinnaker, and Lady Bug has entered the "Spinnaker Age." Prepare for battle, 3BF!

Overnight Adventure at the Dock

It's been a long slow ride to get Noah to like sailing. We had many issues to overcome (fear of wind, fear of boats, fear of high tide, his father's annoying enthusiasm) but we eventually did. Noah now sails with me and enjoys the boat. All good news.

On our last sail of 2008, he went down below right after we left the dock and took a nap. This must have lit a lightbulb in his head. The next day while talking about sailing he asked if we could sleep on the boat, I said, "of course, you took a nap yesterday" and he got more specific, "can we go night night on the boat?". "Ummm, heck yeah we can!"

I envision weekend family vacations swinging from the hook by Angel Island or going off to the BVIs and possibly retiring early, getting some homeschooling books on tape and heading around the world. But you gotta start slowly. So we had an "Overnight Adventure" on the boat Friday night.

I rushed home from work, packed Noah, a heater, some sleeping bags, a laptop, and lots of good snacks and we went to the boat. We saw Chris in the parking lot when we got there...at the time, Noah was in the dock cart covered in sleeping bags and pillows so Chris didn't immediately know he was there. We talked all the way down the dock but separated when we got to our boats.



Noah and I had some serious plans to follow up on. We played Bakugon, pirates, cards, and assorted mixtures of those games. At one point, we even had one of Camille's old My Little Ponies shooting laser blasts with her tail. We ate badly, had all the apple juice we wanted and kept two heaters going full blast. It was the perfect Friday Night at the Dock.



At bedtime, I got Noah in his pajamas, built a nest in the v-berth and set up the laptop with a short bakugon movie. We read the three books we have on board twice each and fell asleep with the howling of 20 knots of wind in the rigging to keep us company.

Miscellaneous Sailing News for this Friday

Neither of these two items deserve their own post YET but I have a blog and, darnit, I'm going to use it.

Tonight, Noah and I are doing our first ever onboard camping trip. We're going down to the boat after work, have a nice dinner, turn on the heater, play pirates and bionicles, and sleep at the marina. There's still the possibility he'll back out of it but if not we'll have a good night and further his evolution as a sailor. I did some back of the envelope calculations last night and realized I've spent about a year's worth of my life sleeping on boats with about 3 months of those nights being underway. It's about time Noah gets his first night in.

And, I found a picture of my soon-to-be spinnaker online:


Mine is the red and orange one that is in second place there. Hmmm, maybe I should have looked at J/30 spinnakers instead of Olson 30 ones.

Why the Singlehanded Sailing Society Rocks

Yesterday, I got this postcard in the mail. No other club that I've raced with has ever sent me a postcard encouraging me to race (remember, I'm not a member of any club) and not only do they send me this reminder but *personalize* it by putting my boat's name on the spinnaker. Holy toledo, that's cool.

In further 3BF news, it looks like Paul from Valis might be getting into the 3BF blogger fun!

Getting Ready for the Big Day

I'm all riled up about the Three Bridge Fiasco. I've got a superb crew, a new spinnaker coming, plans for actually rigging the beast, and an organized community.

Captain John is shadowing the race (legal implications of racing a chartered boat), O Docker is entered, David is entered, Breezetrees is entered, Zen is looking into it, and a preliminary badge has been designed.

Now, I have to get the boat ready. The first step was this last Saturday: Noah and I went to the boat, fired up the Atomic 4, took a short journey over to H dock, and emptied the holding tank! 80+ pounds gone from the port bow, getting the boat down to fighting trim!

I got new spinnaker sheets and figured out the block placement. This coming Saturday, Phil is going to come by and help me figure out what I'm doing wrong and take the small kite out for a practice sail. Once he tells me all of my rigging shortcomings I'll have 3 weeks to get it going. I'll put pictures up for even more input.

Three weeks until the fiasco!

3 Bridge Fiasco, Blogger Division

We really should get our own start. David, of Never Sea Land fame, is in. I'm in. O Docker is making noises about joining. Captain John, of Ayala Sandbox, is looking to do it. Zen should do it. That would be five if we could pull it off. Probably more considering I don't keep up with all the blogs the way I should.

There's something similar over at Sailing Anarchy. War Dog started it last year with a bottle of rum to the winner and The Editor sent some t-shirts up our way to encourage interaction in the real world. It was nice, I met three different racers, two of whom also sailed in the Pac Cup that summer. This year, of the 131 boats entered this morning 19 were joining the SA festivities.

Which brings me to my point, the last two years have had just under 300 entries. It would be great to top 300 this year. I can guarantee you that you have not experienced life if you haven't participated in a Three Bridge Fiasco starting line. 300 boats with various starting times 63 seconds apart can go either direction with a pre-start on either side of the line. Last year was an absolute blast shooting down the city front at 7 knots on starboard watching all the pre-starters scatter away from my "Invisible Bubble of Starboard Righteousness".

If you're a blogger (or just play one on the internet) and want to join in on the festivities, I'm offering a custom-designed badge graphic to the winner of the 3BF Blogger Division to be proudly displayed on your blog (or profile if you're O Docker). Join the fun, place a comment to this post if you want to be in the "blogger division".

Update: Winner will receive a badge something like this but with a lot more pomp and official-ness to it. This was just a quick and dirty in case people had no idea what I was talking about:

Moving into the Spinnaker Age

When I bought my first spinnaker for Lady Bug on EBay, I fell victim to the classic EBay blunder: trusting anybody on EBay with a frickin' tape measure. The luff on it was a good 6 feet shorter than advertised. Oh well, maybe when the wind picks up, I can fly that one.

But I still need a spinnaker. Last year, I had corresponded with an Olson 30 owner who had an extra kite in good shape for a very good price. I just never bought it since I knew I was sailing on Oceanaire more than Lady Bug. Now that I have gone and entered into a spinnaker division for the Three Bridge Fiasco, I need a properly sized kite so I made the plunge and am buying the O30 sail.



It turns out that Erik Estrada *does not* sail on this particular boat, that's the owner. Certainly looks like Ponch doesn't he?

The next step is to receive the sail and spring into action rigging the topping lift, after guy, and buying some spin sheets. I am not 100% sure that I got the right blocks so I might have some more purchases there. Updates through January are coming -- the adventure is just beginning.

New Years Day Sailing

My goal was to get a short sail in this morning before going out with some friends for New Years Lunch. Unfortunately, two things got in the way. 1) The kids were up late last night and are kind of sluggish; and 2) the real reason from a Bay Cam down in the Berkeley Marina:


Hmmm, no visibility and cold. That's do-able. But OCSC also provides windspeed.


Yeah, I know I need to sail 101 days this year but I'm not sure if drifting in cold wet fog with zero visibility would even count towards my goal. Happy New Year.