EVK4 SuperBlog

How do you tack?

2012-01-22T13:03:00.000-08:00

When I tack a boat, I like to immediately check my sails and look around to see what new obstacles are out there. Some helmsmen take a swig of beer upon a complete tack. Others might look around, embarrassed, hoping nobody saw the sloppiness.

These 9 year olds dance. And then tack again.

That's how sailing is supposed to be.

Warning: sailing content on this blog, be very concerned.

Ironbirds take to the air!

2012-01-18T13:18:00.000-08:00

In years past, the teams in Noah's league were named after major league teams. Last year, he was on the Red Sox; therefore, the Red Sox are now his second favorite team. After the mighty Giants of San Francisco of course.

I just received the team assignments for this year and saw some awfully funny names: muckdogs, rockhounds, blue claws, ironbirds. What the heck? Minor league team names? But I had already picked out Noah's uniform number: 9, previously worn by one Teddy Ballgame.

At first I thought, that must be the placeholders before all the coaches start bickering over who gets to be the Giants. But, no, those are our team names. My initial instinct (and action) was to email the commissioner and ask to be the 51s (Blue Jays affiliate in Las Vegas that has an alien for their logo). But, unfortunately, the uniform company doesn't offer the 51s.

Then I looked up the Ironbirds and saw this:

Great logo!

A bit more research and I see that the Aberdeen Ironbirds are the single A affiliate for the Orioles. Since Noah's league numbers only go up to 15, my only decision at this point is Cal Ripken Jr's number or Brooks Robinson's?

About the time I was badly out-coached

2012-01-09T15:21:00.000-08:00

A new season ignites past memories.

My team (the Red Sox) shared a practice field with the Giants. We had the north diamond they had the south. It was friendly and since practice was WAY TOO LONG for 5 & 6 year olds' attention spans we would often have a scrimmage for the last 30-40 minutes against the Giants.

This time, though, we hadn't made any plans for the scrimmage since it was the last practice of the season. My plan was simple, make sure the kids could see how far they'd come in the past three months. Take them through the first practice plan and laugh at how lame it seemed compared to where they currently are. Throw in some congratulations and enthusiasm and just play baseball.

But when I looked over at the Giants' side of the field, I felt even more pride in how far I'd come as a coach. Michael, the Giants coach, had a freakin' igloo cooler on the mound instead of the customary ball bucket. I distinctly remember thinking, "rookie" and chortling to myself.

Then he opened the cooler and started an all out water balloon assault on his team. My pride was revealed as hubris and his team became better than mine. Instantly. My kids looked over glumly as the joy of a well executed 6-4 putout paled next to a gigantic team-wide water balloon fight.

My well-crafted year of sunflower seed spitting lessons, take me out to the ballgame renditions, and superstition learning crumbled next to the last-practice antics of the Giants. All year long I could feel that the Giants preferred to be on my side of the field for our half-squad scrimmages. Gone with one well-executed water balloon fight. Heck, I wanted to be on the Giants for those ten minutes.

All I can do now is plan for next year. Keep all of my same gimmicks, hope for a warm day on the last practice, and try to think of one new one. Something like pitching ripe pears to an unsuspecting batter or a life-sized zombie first baseman statue with the first kid to knock his head off with a throw from shortstop wins a prize. Something like that.

I'll never win back next year but I can make sure I never get out-coached like that again.

Baseball & Sailing: two great tastes

2012-01-04T16:42:00.000-08:00

So what do baseball and sailing have to do with each other? Nothing. Except this:

And, really, I'm reaching here.

Maybe I'll never make the Vaunted Tillerman Top Ten again but I have something to say on this here blog. And, unfortunately for the sailing blog readers, it's about baseball.

But, I'll get brackish on you here with one last sailing story. When I was in my early 20's I played golf; not well or often but I did own my own set of golf clubs. When planning out my TransAtlanticSail that is at the heart of my title of "Bad Ass Ocean Going Sailor", my father (and Captain) told me that golf clubs and sailing don't mix. Specifically, my golf clubs were not allowed on his sail boat.

And that killed my plans to golf in Ireland upon landfall. I have barely golfed since.

What does that have to do with baseball. Nothing. See you at the Great Batting Practice Broadcast this Saturday.

Taking blogging to the next level

2012-01-04T10:55:00.000-08:00

I'm a failure as a sailing blogger, not cracking the coveted Tillerman 9 again. Seriously, I used to be good. But then sailing slowed then stopped and I have to find a way to be good again.

So I thought, how about I ignore the old media (blogging) and become a new media dude. That's right, what's old is new and I'm going to be broadcasting live this upcoming Saturday (1/7/2012) at 9AM Pacific.

Actually, I'm not going to be broadcasting me due to the limited appeal. I'm going for hits on this one and broadcasting Noah's batting practice! Live!

Noah plans on hitting the ball hard, some funny banter, possibly an Aaron Rowand batting stance impersonation, and some engaging theories on hitting a baseball.

Please join him at http://ustrea.am/G833 at 9AM Pacific time on Saturday 1/7/2012.

Sailing over the fence

2012-01-03T13:28:00.000-08:00

I got a great Facebook comment on some baseball or swimming somethingoranother post I made last Summer. A friend simply stated, "I used to know a sailor with the same name, do you know him?" Haha, that was funny. Funny because it's true.

I dont' think I've sailed since the 3BF last year. Don't really have much of a plan to sail in the foreseeable future. What I will do is coach baseball and go to swim meets. With an occasional dalliance into geo-caching. I work too, but that's not what this blog is about.

Here's why baseball has taken over for sailing:

Check out that freakin' swing. He just turned 6. He'll be wearing #9 on the Red Sox this year for some very obvious reasons.

Maybe I'll sail again or maybe I'll just watch the balls sail over the fence. Who knows.

Watch out for biomass in the water

2011-01-27T14:41:00.000-08:00

You know when you're driving on the freeway on a dark night and you hear that distinctive "bump bump bump bump" like you just ran over something? That sucks. It's bad for your suspension, sometimes chips your paint, and the poor thing getting run over rarely enjoys it.

When sailing, sometimes you bump a whale, but mostly it's just driftwood and clorox bottles. The dolphins and sea lions and halibut tend to stay out of your way.

But for this year's Three Bridge Fiasco, we are competing with biomass, lots of biomass, that might not be able to stay out of our way. The USCG sent a representative to the skipper's meeting last night to warn us that their is going to be a concurrent open water swim in the same stretch of water at the same time as our race. 30 swimmers with about 20 support boats that are supposed to stay in between them and us.

It really shouldn't be too hard; in all probability they are going to hug the shoreline even more than we need to. But to complicate matters, there are over 360 boats entered this year and I'm pretty sure we're all going CCW directly into the teeth of the open water race.

And swimmers are hard to spot despite their neon caps. Wetsuits are roughly the color of bay water. And only their pink heads stick out of the water. Look at that picture above. Now try to picture yourself in a 44' boat blasting along at a knot or two trying to see the pink cap.

This could get tricky.

Me? I love swimmers. I am one and my daughter is one. I'm going to be d@mned careful of these guys. Might even threaten one of the little boats with VALIS' anchor if they try to get too close. But, it sure is going to be crowded out there.

America's Cup is selling sex

2011-01-19T13:50:00.001-08:00

Ponder that image above for a moment. It's the new AC45, the one design catamaran that will be used by America's Cup teams in the America's Cup World Series (ACWS).

The picture is a screen grab of the boat out on its second test sail in Auckland, cruising along at seemingly supersonic speeds in 25 knots of wind. Looks like it's handling it pretty well. Nice shape on the wing, well trimmed genoa, beautiful graphics.

Erk, wait, the graphics. What is that on the jib? Is it the America's Cup trophy? Or a slightly abstract graphic of a busty woman? Before you think it's just me seeing this, take a look at this painting by my favorite contemporary painter, Stvnski:

Notice the similarities to a nude by renowned maximilist artist Stvnski? I'm not just seeing things. This is not just a freakin' cigar people! The America's Cup is selling sex.

Not that they shouldn't. One of the worries in the sailing world is that we don't attract enough fans, racers, participants, groupies, etc. Well, abstract pictures of naked ladies on the freakin' headsail will solve that problem in a New York minute.

Crowdsourcing yachting strategies

2011-01-12T14:38:00.000-08:00

Being a bad ass ocean going sailor, I often rely on others for the hard work like figuring out where Hawaii is or the best recipe for Mahi Mahi Tacos. But on those rare occasions when I'm sailing within the cozy confines of our natural ampitheater in a doublehanded race, strategy advice gets severely limited to me and the other guy in the boat.

In the case of VALIS, it helps that the other guy in the boat is absurdly smart and has all sorts of electric electronics that make our circumnavigation of the natural ampitheater easier. But still, I'm expected to have some sort of input or an opinion or something beyond "hey, let's trim in that jib a bit."

This is even further compounded by my offer to go to the skipper's meeting to save the other guy in the boat a drive down to Alameda. (Quick side note: the Oakland Yacht Club is not in Oakland and the San Francisco Yacht Club is not in San Francisco, who else finds this annoying?) So, I'm going to be listening to the always intense lecture on strategically navigating the Bay based on what we know at that moment 60 hours before the start of the race. And be expected to have opinions come race-time.

Since I'm just not that smart, I'm crowdsourcing to my ever-shrinking blog audience. Which way should VALIS go? Clockwise or counterclockwise? Here's what we know:

1. the currents will look like this:

2. Our start time is 10:18:18 AM

3. VALIS is a big boat and has a deadly anchor on the bow.

Please vote on direction in the poll to the right of this post.

Three Bridge Fiasco 2011

2011-01-11T16:32:00.000-08:00

And so it starts again. Another season of sailing. And it all begins with: clockwise or counterclockwise.

Quick admission, I haven't sailed since the day I stepped off the boat in Kaneohe. Not once. And that's my big struggle with the Three Bridge Fiasco -- clockwise or counterclockwise? Which frickin' way do you turn the winches again? It has been a while.

I'll do some research before the start. I have this vague recollection that VALIS has two speed winches which might solve my problem; it's entirely possible that both directions work. And then there's the electric winches that you just press buttons for. But still, it's a lot to remember.

For this 3BF, I'll just start clockwise and see what happens.

Wind Assisted Effin' Idiot

2010-10-22T11:59:00.001-07:00

A friend of mine just bought this boat. Usually I'm not a fan of buying upside down boats but this one is different. Because they do this on purpose for boats "like this".

What is a boat "like this"? Well, it's fast and meant for the open ocean. It has a canting keel, a sprit bigger than Barry Bonds' head and is made entirely of carbon. This friend has won a single handed transpac and still admits that this boat is going to be a handful. He sounds freakin' giddy about it.

Now for the boat name: WAFI. Stands for wind assisted f'in idiot. Though it's not clear if we're talking about the boat being an idiot or the sailor. Sheesh, I hate ambiguous boat names worse than boat name puns. Erk, I just realized that this sailor's other boat's name is a pun. I've always given him a pass because the boat came with the name and he's a better sailor than I am. But, I'm not sure if I can deal with two bad boat names in his family. We'll see, he doesn't have the boat yet so there is time.

We should probably see this boat in the Bay Area in the next couple of months. I would ask for a ride but I'm a bit scared of this thing.

Sailors will survive the Zombie Apocalypse

2010-09-07T16:05:00.000-07:00

With the advent of the Zombie Apocalypse Phone and my intent to purchase one, I realize that I need to have a plan of attack for when the zombies start taking over.

According to wikipedia and the tens of movies that I've seen, the problem is that zombies are going to multiply faster than our law enforcement and military agencies will be able to deal with this zombie population explosion. So you need a plan.

Some guys think that rope ladders and baseball bats will do the trick. Others have dogs. Still others are going to rely on chain saws and weed whackers. More still will just die an ugly and gruesome death. Probably lots of that.

Just as I'm always on the lookout for the first signs of the plague (dead squirrels), I've decided to also look out for the first signs of the Zombie Apocalypse. It will probably be gradual but a deteriorating sense of personal hygiene, general sluggishness, and appetite for brain among the masses should clue you in.

Once I see that stuff, my plan goes into effect. I'm freakin' going sailing. See, Zombies can't sail. It's not like gremlins where you can't get them wet because they get nasty and mean and strong and homicidal. Zombies are always like that. But I'm pretty sure they're going to melt or die or sink if they try to go after you on the water. And, believe me, zombies are NOT able to sail a boat.

So, just hop in your boat, sail offshore a little way, heave to and wait for the zombies to exhaust their food supply. Then, return home as the conquering hero to a much less populated land.

In a way, Reid Stowe laid out the blueprint for all of us. Make sure you have a ton of cheese, mung beans and a sewing machine to repair your sails. Get out there, catch fish (this assumes no zombie fish), and use your solar panels to power your watermaker. Voila, Zombie Apocalypse Survival.

How we survived the Pacific Cup

2010-09-01T15:00:00.001-07:00

Everyone knows there are a lot of dangers out on the open ocean: whales, pirates, container ships, airborne aquatic simians, rogue waves and bad helmsmen who crash sailboats in less than 30 knots of wind are the most common. But there are more and VALIS, in her duties as communications boat, was subjected to possibly the worst of them all. IQ leak.

See, the modern sailboat is awash in electronics and their associated wave outputs. Single side band, AIS, iPods, VHF, 406 MHz EPIRBs, that annoying squeal from the freezer compressor, tricolor nav lights and Hawaiian music. All of these contribute to rapid gray matter brain deterioration according to a study I might have read in The New England Journal of Medicine.

And, we had the frickin' beehive of electronics going all the time. Well, except for the autopilot, that would have wasted electrons! So, our fearless captain, devised a sort of brain matter faraday cage that kept him safe during those long hours taking positions and keeping boats entertained on the SSB.

Don't know for sure if it worked, I'll give him a basic IQ test next time I see him to find out if he's still a supergenius. With a hat like that, he sure looks like it.

Which way is up? The Crash explained. Sort of.

2010-08-06T15:38:00.001-07:00

Finally, after much hemming and hawing, we were flying the spinnaker on day 10 or 11 or something. I was third on the wheel and nervous as h3ll. Most regular readers here know that I haven't driven much under spinnaker and, truth be told, still haven't much.

I took the wheel with about 20 knots of wind and 6-8 foot seas, not too bad. For about 20 minutes I think I did alright, keeping the boat moving, hitting 10.5 knots (at that point, the record) and sailing on course. Then everyone started joking about the squall behind us, err, the squall behind *me*. Not funny guys, but I turned around, grimaced, did some advanced mathematics to determine that I'd still be on the wheel when it hit, and quietly swore under my breath.

Next thing you know, it hits us, the wind picks up and I realized quickly I was in over my head. I asked to have the pole forward and sheets eased right before the wind picked up and to this day don't know if that happened. If I'd had the sense to shut up, it would have just been a roundup without anyone making fun of me, but I had the stupid ass idea to say, "I can't handle this at 27 knots" as my roundup started. Then the boat was this way:

And we were bathing comfortably in 70+ degree saltwater. I had the wheel hard over, the sheets and the guy were eased and VALIS righted herself. I remember distinctly getting back on course and noticing that the kite wouldn't fill. I kept telling the sheet trimmer this but it's all blurry and I don't know what was being done about it. I might have been the only person who could see that the kite had something wrapped around it halfway up so it had an hourglass shape going. (note: Rich is convinced I was still steering starboard, he may be right).

See, this is when the real problem happened, I couldn't steer the boat (either because I'm an idiot or the kite was out of whack) and suddenly the main backwinded and, oh sh!t, we were rounding down, a much more serious turn of events. Whoosh, we were over on our OTHER SIDE, like this:

And, then, the worst thing almost happened. When the Oh Eight Pac Cup was on, VALIS had a round-down and lost her helm-cushion. I looked over the side of the boat and saw the cushion starting to float away and realized I only had two jobs, keep the wheel hard over and grab that derned cushion. I did both admirably.

As I pulled the cushion back on the boat, Paul eased the preventer, the boat gybed, and I hove to. Taking a deep breath, I noticed that the spinnaker snuffer was broken. Then Tirso said, "dude, don't worry about that, you broke the pole". Erk. That's a lot of money and a lot of sharp little bits of carbon all over the place.

Paul, Tirso, John and Rich did a herculean job of getting the spinnaker back in the boat with no rips. They got the pole sorted out and stowed. We all made sure nothing more was broken as I kept the boat hove to (later realizing, I could have just locked the wheel and helped out). Finally, Rich gave the OK to gybe and start sailing under main alone...I argued for a bit about the giant piece of scrap metal stuck on the shroud that would puncture the main if we gybed. We finally pulled out the slide rule, Rich computed an algorithm or two, and we determined the main was safe. I gybed and we started sailing again.

A bit more sorting and we poled out the genoa with the other carbon pole (bless Paul and his thorough boat prep). And were back to the races.

Paul screenprinted all of the data from the previous eight hours to show our 2 hour break in the middle of the ocean while I flopped the boat over to inspect the keel...on each side. And then he started making fun of me...pointing at the wind. "Oh not, it's 28 knots! Be careful out there!" "Eeek, the wind!" And so on and so on.

Me being the modest type never pointed out to him that "hey dude I saved your freaking seat cushion so you wouldn't need the monkey-butt powder." I'm just not appreciated.

Wishing for the Darkness

2010-08-03T14:27:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to name names because what happens on the boat stays on the boat. Or something like that. I even have photographic evidence but am holding that in my special blackmail folder I keep on all people that I know (or know about). But I do have to tell the story.

Prompted by Tirso's comment on The Darkness identifying himself as the sailor at the wheel when I popped my head out of the companionway (not late by the way, that only happened once dammit), I have to tell another story of coming on watch and the pitfalls that accompany it.

This night wasn't so dark. In fact it wasn't even night yet, sort of late afternoon {editor's note: it is impossible to tell what time it truly is at sea since we keep our watches on Pacific Time and generally only have a hazy idea of where we are and what time zone it is at any given time). But I digress, the point is I popped my head out of the companionway while it was still light out to see Tirso at the wheel staring straight ahead, scared to flinch any muscles that could direct his gaze to starboard. This is weird because Tirso is a compulsive compass-starer, but this day he wasn't looking at anything let alone the compass.

And I soon found out why, but I'm not going to share that yet. First let me tell you about our watch schedules. We each stood a 3 hour 2 person watch but they were staggered. So when I relieved Tirso, I would have an hour and a half with one watchmate who would get relieved and I'd have an hour and a half with the new guy. This is a great system because you always have somebody fresh and the transitions are seamless. So, when I relieved Tirso, there was a guy still on watch who was to take the wheel.

So, back to prairie dogging myself out the companionway to this surreal scene of Tirso staring intently at the horizon and a mystery un-named crewmember sitting to starboard wearing his foulie top, life jacket and tether, and a pair of hi-tech underwear. And nothing else. Ummm, yep, nothing else.

I decided the appropriate course of action was to pretend this wasn't happening. Heck, we hadn't been at sea long enough for "this behavior" to start. So, I sat on port and pondered the situation. We had a clearly freaked out helmsman, a mostly naked watchmate, and a few minutes early me. Just sitting there, contemplating the underwear.

It was such a magnificent moment that I can't remember how the ice was broken but it was something like, "hey, where are your pants?" The reply was something along the lines of, "these are high tech underwear from REI!" You know, a normal conversation in the middle of the ocean.

Well, this couldn't go on forever so the de-pantsed crew member took the wheel, Tirso ran off like a frightened little puppy and for the next hour and a half we sailed the boat like nothing was different. Well, other than asking for permission to photograph the event .... which was granted. And filed away in the blackmail folder, ready for publication when the moment is right.

So, another crew member, wearing pants, popped up an hour and a half later for his watch. And the scene repeated itself. Except this time, it was the pantsless one being relieved. Only thing is, he hung around because, hell, what's better than hanging out in the cockpit with a couple of guys while you lounge in your underwear? Err, high tech underwear.

Again, I'm not going to "out" this sailor. In fact, with the myriad of crew changes that happened on VALIS in the days/weeks before the race, it might be impossible to figure out who was even on the boat. But I will leave you with my last comment to Tirso before I hopped into a cab to go to the airport in Kaneohe: "How on Earth did you get that man naked? I need to know your secret!"

But seriously, anyone who maligns a sailing trip to Hawaii as anything less than terrifying needs to remember this: strange and dangerous things happen at sea, you never know when you're going to get caught pants down.

The Darkness

2010-07-28T11:45:00.000-07:00

It was time for my watch, so I dragged myself out of "bed", pulled on some foulies, donned the PFD, and climbed up the companionway, ready to tether on for another three hours of sailing. As my head popped up, all I saw was a dim green glow from the compass. I assumed that the shape behind the glow was a person but where was everything else? I didn't think to turn off the flash on my camera and take a picture so I did an artist's interpretation of the scene in the cockpit on this dark night:

That is not an exaggeration. We knew that there was going to be no moon for many of these nights but what we didn't expect was that a four mile deep layer of clouds was going to cover the Pacific. No light could get through even if it wanted to.

So how do you sail when you can't see the sails, the waves, the wheel, or your precious mug of hot chocolate? You do it by feel and let all of those hours of practice with the blast shield on (gratuitous Star Wars reference) allow you to feel the force.

Let me set the stage for this night, one of the greatest 3 hours of sailing I ever did. We had about 20-25 knots directly on the beam and based on what the swells were like the last time I was able to see them about 8-10 foot swells, with some bigger sets every once in a while. We had the main, staysail and genoa all up and pulling; I can only assume they were filled. And it was dark. And noisy.

I was steering by compass though I guess I could have done it by wind direction too, but the heading was most important. The boat was blasting along at 9 knots, leaving a ferocious wake as we went up and down these swells. I wish I could tell you where they were coming from but I have no idea, there must have been some sort of cross swell because it felt completely random.

I could hold the course for minutes at a time and then without warning (because, you know, I couldn't see a damned thing) a swell would come along and push our canoe shaped boat higher. I'd have a split second to adjust and then bring the boat back on course as the speed picked up and our bow wake hit our stern wake and buried the leeward rail right to the cockpit coaming. This is known because my watch partner was sitting there!

The sailing was brilliant. It was fast and done completely by feel. The wind angle was perfect for staying on course and I'm pretty sure it made all of us better sailors. Heck, we might as well have been sailing blindfolded.

And, that's the cool thing. You know how they say when you lose one sense that the other 4 senses get more acute? Well, in this case, my hearing picked up. I could hear the waves, the wind, and the sound of the boat through the water. I swear I could hear the boat turning before I could feel it. And it was loud...20+ knots of wind, 26,000 pounds of water being displaced at 9 knots of boat speed, and the wake rushing over the rail...it sounded like we were an unstoppable force. And, thankfully, there were no immovable objects in the way because we would not have seen it.

The only description I have is a freight train....it sounded like we were just an out of control freight train tearing through the Pacific Ocean. The feeling of connectedness I got with VALIS during those pitch black watches and the beam reachy one in particular was fantastic and helped through most of the rest of the trip.

I'll never forget what it was like to sail blind like that. Though to help out the rest of the world who wasn't lucky enough to have been on board that night I started the design of a great iPhone app. The screen shows a dim green compass and four dim red instruments that have no bearing at all on the game. Your goal is to keep the compass pointing at 270 by using the accelerometer in the iPhone and gently rocking it back and forth. The problem is that the inputs to make the needle swing make absolutely no sense and you have no idea which way it is going to swing next. All you can do is correct and hope you don't over correct. It will probably have a cacophony of weird boat noises and wind and water sound. And if you can get a friend to shoot a water cannon at you periodically that would help with the realism.

Oh, and do it in a dark closet.

Arrived in Kaneohe

2010-07-19T21:45:00.001-07:00

I'm going to blog this one differently this time. I didn't keep a detailed journal because this was more of an emotional voyage so it needs to be documented a bit differently.

I think we came in 6th in the division, we made it in 14 days after fearing that we wouldn't get in until August for a while. A lot happened...saw a whale, caught some fish, experienced terror and most importantly sailed in the dark.

That will be its own post, sailing in the dark. Sheesh, I mean DARK. And that story might even pale in comparison to The Crash. Yes, I capitalized The Crash.

More coming soon because I now need sleep, a shower and a pizza.

Should be out of cell range

2010-07-05T14:25:00.001-07:00

We are running out of wind just out of sight of the golden gate. My
estimate is revised to 24 days. The good news is we are pointing due
west.

I'm on watch soon so I am getting sleep.

Tirso is holding up though he might have culture shock about now.

All Typos Courtesy of iPhone

We are racing!

2010-07-05T12:27:00.001-07:00

Out the gate and sailing to Hawaii! We are no longer in last place
and have a veritable ton of wind. My best guess is eight days to
hawaii...haha!

All Typos Courtesy of iPhone

And then we were six

2010-06-29T09:07:00.000-07:00

The whole crew spent a restless weekend trying to figure out who would round out the Pac Cup team. We had a last minute cancellation (one that we knew might happen but were holding out hope that it wouldn't) and we had to fill in the spot quickly. I guess it is technically possible to sail to Hawaii with 5, but some quick math makes you realize that you get a lot more sleep with 6.

Here's how the progression of possibilities sorted out:

Great sailors with whom somebody had sailed
Sailors with whom somebody had sailed
People we knew who sailed
Sailors we'd heard about that might be able to make it
Friends who didn't sail but we knew with whom it would be fun to spend 2 weeks sailing

Yep, we got down to number 5 pretty quickly. It's amazing how few people can drop everything and take 2+ weeks off with 1 week notice. I have such a friend, one who is up for anything, and has sailed a few times with me. He doesn't bring a ton of sailing experience but he can fix anything so I won't be so worried about breaking things. And I've spent a lot of time with him so I know I can stand him for 2 weeks. It's Tirso!

So what if he's a Dodger's fan and might not know port from starboard. We have time for some intensive on the job training. The first few days is close hauled, very little sail trim to be done and Valis steers very nicely to windward. He'll get some great experience getting to know the boat. When we turn the corner, you have calm seas and somewhat light winds to get used to reaching and downwind steering. Your first few days of spinnaker sailing are easy to get a hang of that before the swells and trades kick in. At that point he'll have had plenty of ocean miles to have learned the basics and he'll get a crash course (not literally I hope) for the more intense tradewinds sailing. Hell, I need practice before getting to those conditions.

So, we're all set with six and less than a week until we're sailing to Hawaii!!!!!

A sharp dressed man

2010-06-25T16:04:00.000-07:00

The temptation when sailing to Hawaii is to wear t-shirts and flip flops. It's not good sailing garb but you'd really fit in once you hit the Islands. But the crew on Valis is just a bit snappier than that. Not only do we recover cushions with incredible precision and aplomb, but we dress like a Tommy Bahama's ad. For your consideration:

This is the sight that greeted me when I got home from work the other day. It was obviously a plea to not sail to Hawaii. Or it might have been a gesture of support. Or he might have been sleepy.

But, no matter what, he knew a quality Aloha Sailing Shirt when he saw one and didn't pass up the opportunity to get all geared up like a bad ass ocean going racer.

Cushion Overboard

2010-06-21T10:49:00.000-07:00

When it came time for the Pac Cup inspection, we had already signed the certification that we had performed the obligatory MOB practice onboard Valis. The Inspector asked the simple question, "has the crew done the practice?" Paul answered, "yes". The Inspector pressed on, "this crew?" Paul, "Umm, no." Inspector, "no problem, just do the practice and send in the certification form." Paul, "sure, we'll do that."

Lacking the ability to lie, we all decided we'd best do the MOB practice and the Emergency Rudder test. This weekend was perfect for it, blowing 20-30 knots in the slot, exactly the conditions that people, hats and cushions go overboard in real life. We left Sausalito with me on the helm, searching for a good spot. I cruised over to Alcatraz, gybed onto port, wove our way through some racing fleet or another, with top sustained wind in the low 30s, the boat handling like a dream.

Every once in a while, I'd count to make sure we still had four crew on board. You know, in case somebody decided to test me right there and then. But, thankfully, nobody on the crew is that stupid or clumsy. So we kept searching.

Finally, as we started into the lee of Angel Island, the wind moderated down to 20, then 15, then 10. And we were set. We have a lot of thinkers and theoreticians aboard Valis so we got right down to business. The business of discussing what we were about to do as I sailed aimlessly around Southampton, avoiding other less serious more leisurely sailors. We discussed the ins and outs of MOB theory and research. We discussed Valis' particular handling characteristics in such situations. We messed with the nav display to figure the appropriate button to push for MOBs. And we annoyed the heck out of John.

After about 15 minutes, he said "f*** it, man overboard" and threw the hapless cushion to the dangerous seas. Ah, hell, I was the poor schmuck at the helm, I had to do this. So, I beam reached, tacked, broad reached, and tacked up to our cushion and came within about 2 inches of the pole being able to reach our victim. Instead of doing the whole figure 8 again, I just went ahead and did the bottom half of the 8, pulled up alongside of the cushion and David brought him onboard. We had saved the cushion.

High fives all around, discussion on what would have happened in real conditions with a real person, more fussing with the nav display, and John had had it again. He took the cushion and threw it overboard again. He hates that damned cushion apparently (a good thing to know since I'm about to spend 2 weeks at sea with the guy). This time, I hit the button, and said, "I'm not doing that again, you take the darned wheel" and handed all but pointing responsibility over to the man who hates the cushion (John for those of you not paying attention).

He executed a beautiful figure 8, came up upon our victim with flawless precision and promptly ran him over as David fished him out from underneath the boat. We had done it twice! That is downright certifiable. We learned a lot about the crew, the boat, and our seamanship. The only thing I don't know is what the cushion did to John to deserve this treatment.

Nosail in NOLA

2010-06-10T08:05:00.000-07:00

When I started making my plans to go to New Orleans for a convention, the first thing I did was free my Wednesday night calendar and check out the local beer can races. I contacted a few people from Sailing Anarchy about the best way to get a ride and prepared myself to sail on the local lake (even though lake sailing confuses me, everywhere you look there is land, it's like the water is surrounded by it).

Then I got here and started working 14 hour days and just couldn't bring myself to grab my PFD that I packed in our tradeshow trunk and trudge over to the yacht club with a 12 pack of beer and beg for a ride. I feel like I really missed out on a great opportunity. Especially because it is an unworldly hot here in New Orleans and a gentle 95+ degree sea breeze would have been nice.

Luckily, I have sailing planned on a non-lake in the coming weeks. I'm taking Camille and two of her swim friends out for another sail camp day, then the next day I'm hoping to get out on Valis for our MOB certification (Paul, if you're reading this, I haven't confirmed with Heidi yet), and then I think I have two weeks off before I have to sail across a third of the ocean to a little known tropical paradise called Hawaii.

So, bummer that I didn't get to sail on Lake Pontchartrain but maybe next year I'll try Lake Lanier when TechEd goes to Atlanta.

Ass over Teakettle

2010-06-04T09:06:00.000-07:00

Some time around the third knockdown of the night, we heard an ominous sound down below. A clanking sound followed by an impossibly long silence then a devastating CRASH as metal hit finely varnished teak. At the time I was sitting in about 2 feet of frothy saltwater on the now comfortable cockpit coaming so I didn't spend a lot of time trying to figure out what the sound was. But we all knew it was something bad.

The boat was eventually "uprighted" and a cursory glance down below indicated that all was well, nobody's iPhone had broken and nothing appeared to have holed the boat. It wasn't until the sun was about to come up that we discovered the true nature of the "crash." The teapot had fallen the entire width of the boat and the handle had broken. WE WERE UNABLE TO MAKE COFFEE!

Luckily, at this point we could see the finish line. Unluckily, there was no wind and Starbucks might just close by the time we got there. So we were out of luck. Though I'm trying to milk some drama out of this, we did eventually make it to land, and the coffee pots filled with caffeine laced goodness that the Monterey Peninsula Yacht Club so thoughtfully provided.

But we still had a problem, no teapot. So, Jack lied. He told Paul that he had "personal errands" to run and asked me for a ride. I said "yes" without asking where and for some reason assumed it was to his hotel for the night. When Paul asked what time I was leaving I said 11 and that we were driving Jack to his hotel. Paul thought Jack was staying on the boat and when pressed Jack got evasive and wouldn't tell him where he was going. This was fantastic, we were all confused and Paul thought Jack was up to something. As we walked to the car, Jack told me that he was just going to get a new teapot and wanted it to be a surprise. Thanks to my cluelessness I had turned it into a big deal and there is now distrust among the team.

But at least we have a new teapot, hopefully one that will stay put for the next crash. As long as we have a backup.

Where is that Top Ten List????

2010-06-03T13:50:00.000-07:00

As we sailed under the Gate, I was lamenting my demotion and detailing my upcoming futile battle against the Man named Bertranbd to Cap'n Paul. In his inestimable wise way, Paul gave me the best advice he could. Head west young man. And he pointed.

It turns out he was pointing the way to the Infamous Tillerman Top Ten List of Blogging Superbness. Or Hawaii, he might have been pointing to Hawaii. Or the satellites that were tracking us. What the heck is he pointing at?

O Docker outed me

2010-06-03T12:19:00.000-07:00

O Docker is the most amazing blogger on Earth. Somehow he figured out from the AIS tracker on Valis that I had bought new foulies and was wearing them on the foredeck when the satellite flew over. Wow. The insight, the perception, the invasion of privacy!

Since he brought it up and since the Newport Fashion, Lifestyle and Boat Show is coming up soon, I thought I'd give you a preview of the Summer's latest in foul weather fashion!

Coming soon to a foredeck near you.

The things sailors do....

2010-06-03T11:36:00.000-07:00

I don't like to make fun of people. In person that is. On this blog? Well, that's another story. But this particular sailor knew he had it coming the second he emerged from the companionway dressed like this.

Granted, it was windy and everyone knew it was going to be a cold night. And, doubly granted, every boat has one guy who has a hat like this. But, the lobster claw? Why would you steer a boat with lobster claws? Strike that, HOW do you steer a boat with lobster claws?

Keith was warmer than most of us that night. But at what cost?

Ocean Racing: Spinnaker Cup to Monterey

2010-06-02T10:31:00.000-07:00

I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to write about for the Spinnaker Cup. 24 hours of ocean racing doesn't really condense into a blog post. The Pac Cup is easy, each day is like a chapter and the world as you know it is evolving each day as you go through different climates and stages of fatigue. Plus you catch fish. On the Spinnaker Cup, you're basically sprinting down to a wind hole as fast as you can and then drifting for a while.

The most important aspect for me was that I've now sailed with everyone on the Pac Cup crew. If I had to pick a watchmate at this point, I couldn't. I'd be happy spending 4 hours on watch with any of them. I'd even sail with the two guys on the boat who couldn't make the Pac Cup due to other commitments. Now that I think about it, I guess I'd sail with just about anyone. Except that Bertranbd guy, not sure how that would work given our acrimonious history.

So let's go with highlights from here. The start was delayed by over an hour due to light wind and a raging flood. Thanks to that flood, when the race finally started, it took us 15 minutes to get over the line. Though Valis sails like a freight train at times, she is not a freight train that points into the wind very well. I shudder to think what our start would have looked like if I'd been driving; I'm just glad that didn't happen.

You can see from some the track that thanks to the flood, we were not exactly tacking through ninety degrees. So we ended up behind a lot of boats that could outpoint us leaving the Gate. Our main competition was a pilothouse attached to a boat that we battled most of the way down the coast.

When we finally were able to put up the kite magical things happened. Valis was roaring along, keeping a steady 9 knots as the wind built from the NW. I'm not sure what we were thinking but we kept the all purpose kite up as the wind kept building and before we knew it, it was getting dark, we were blasting along at 9+ knots and the wind had built to a steady 25 with gusts to 30. By this point, we were just trying to keep the beast tamed enough to maintain an upright mast.

But, instead, we learned how to crash the boat quite well, succeeding in laying her over on her side three times. I am honestly quite thankful for that; I had never been in a complete roundup before and I feel a lot better about how Valis handles it and what we need to do to bring her back upright. What I didn't like about sitting in a cockpit filled with water is that your boots fill up if you haven't velcro'd your foulies properly. I don't think my socks have dried yet, four days later.

We finally realized that putting the boom in the water every 15 minutes was a bad idea so we pulled the kite down and got back to sailing to Monterey. Everyone but Jack and Keith went to sleep and they continued the effort to sail us to the finish line. Don't know why we let them be in charge because they must have forgotten to put coins in the wind meter and it just shut down. I woke up, saw land and asked how far we had to go. They pointed about 2 miles away and explained that we were slowly drifting away from the finish and hadn't made headway in a couple of hours.

Since it's impossible to make the next five hours of drifting exciting, I'll leave you with the reason we sail on the ocean:

That spec on the horizon is GalaxSea, our closest companion the whole race.

We finished

2010-05-29T09:21:00.001-07:00

All sorts of details coming on moons, roundups, doldrums and
"racing". Right now, I'm tired and proud of our so not last place
finish.

All Typos Courtesy of iPhone

Just put on the running lights

2010-05-28T20:18:00.001-07:00

You know what that means? Yep, people are going to start wearing
goofy hats and headlamps!

All Typos Courtesy of iPhone

I smell chicken tacos

2010-05-28T19:39:00.001-07:00

Dinner time and we're 43 miles from the finish line. This is downwind
sailing. I think I might need my jacket soon.

All Typos Courtesy of iPhone

7.5 miles to pigeon point

2010-05-28T18:42:00.001-07:00

And it's still light out. We have the kite flying and are sailing at
about 9 knots. Still a ways to go but we'll make it ahead of schedule
Neptune wiilimg!

Need binocs to see galaxsea.

All Typos Courtesy of iPhone

Off montara

2010-05-28T17:11:00.001-07:00

Just had a croissant and are abeam of HMB's giant golf ball. We are
sailing fast and the fleet should fear us.

All Typos Courtesy of iPhone

Catching some boats

2010-05-28T15:55:00.000-07:00

Looks like they're parked a bit ahead of us. We got ahead and to
weather of galaxsea. Tiki J is in our sights.

We just had cheese its and passed Pacifica. Montera just ahead.

All Typos Courtesy of iPhone

Passing the cliff house

2010-05-28T14:47:00.001-07:00

Wave if you see us. Oh yeah, we're the boat After GalXsea.

All Typos Courtesy of iPhone

Can still see the fleet

2010-05-28T14:23:00.001-07:00

But that won't last long. We are ahead of galaxsea now and might
clear seal rock. Morale is good we still have snickers bars.

All Typos Courtesy of iPhone

Under the bridge

2010-05-28T13:39:00.000-07:00

2+ hours later and we're ocean racing! Soon we turn left and go &yo
Monterey.

All Typos Courtesy of iPhone

Made the start

2010-05-28T13:04:00.000-07:00

We fought the flood and really kind of lost. We're headin for the
bridge a have seen about two dozen dolphins.

We are racing!

All Typos Courtesy of iPhone

A dolphin, a postponement flag and no wind

2010-05-28T11:38:00.001-07:00

Sounds like the Ryle of a bad movie but really it's just a relaxing
morning.

More once we're racing.

All Typos Courtesy of iPhone

At the start line

2010-05-28T10:54:00.001-07:00

Drifting around, no wind and about to be a lot of current!

Phil on the helm.

All Typos Courtesy of iPhone

Early morning docktime

2010-05-28T07:16:00.000-07:00

Heading out to the boat for an OCEAN RACE! Spinnaker Cup woot!

All Typos Courtesy of iPhone

A challenge to John Bertrand

2010-05-26T14:22:00.000-07:00

Over at the mighty O Dock, there is great consternation over Senor Rouse's demotion from the Tillerman List of Worthy Blogs. After several months of blogging silence brought about by an injured "SWX" finger (you know the one that types those letters), I have decided that I can blog again. I'm not over the emotional turmoil of all that silence but I can at least maintain home position on the keyboard again.

During this absence, this blog was apparently dropped from the Top Ten list. I saw it coming (you don't need the SWX finger to read blogs) but am still somewhat disappointed as I thought I had some sort of lifetime exemption due to my mad blogging skillz. I was wrong. Tillerman pointed it out to me very succinctly:

And there are so many great sailing blogs out there, such as the one written by John Bertrand. Surely, Edward, you wouldn't want me to demote John Bertrand to make room for you?

Well, hell yeah, I think he should demote John Bertrand to make room for the newly re-branded SuperbBlog. I have a new confusing blog name, last post I put a picture of a freakin' Ericsson 35 up, and I know the difference between "it's" and "its". What part of that last sentence doesn't scream, "this guy knows sailing and blogging and is a badass!"?

But, I guess after 5+ years of blogging about sailing, it's time to take it to the water. I hereby challenge John Bertrand to a race. Not just any race, but a very important race that is near and dear to my heart. You see, John Bertrand is possibly a better sailor than I am so I need extra motivation. I am willing to put my world record on the line.

I'm talking about the First Annual Slip J106 to the Berkeley Marina Breakwater Grudgematch Invitational. I'm willing to put up the Catalina 22 half-hull model that I never had made as the trophy (please note, it will live in the form of a sketch of the never to be made half-hull model). The owner of this perpetual "trophy" will only have to promise to periodically challenge someone else to a Grudgematch.

Since I expect to win, I might go after Cayard next to settle our outstanding dispute from last Pac Cup. Either way, are you in Bertand?

Spinnaker Cup or Bust

2010-05-26T12:42:00.000-07:00

I'm doing the Spinnaker Cup on Valis this weekend. I think it's my first ever overnight sail that doesn't include crossing an ocean. That's pretty weird when I think about it. Probably the closest I've ever come to an overnight sail that wasn't crossing an ocean was the Farallones Race a few weeks ago; we didn't cross the line until just before 10PM and didn't get to the dock until an hour later.

But now I'm sailing to Monterey. We leave around Noon on Friday and should arrive in Monterey just before daybreak. If the forecast holds, maybe a a bit before just before daybreak. Either way, overnight.

I was admitting to a friend the other day that despite all my bravado of being a bad ass oceangoing racer, I don't know how to get to Monterey from San Francisco. It's not like you just go out the Gate, turn left and look for the aquarium. There are points and bluffs and currents and a lot of ocean. I don't even know how far out we go before turning left. I guess I'll find out this weekend.

On another note, check out this sail trim:

If you like that photo, either click on photoboy's photo galleries or contribute over at PressureDrop, the new sailing forum. The guy responsible for those FLAT sails is on Valis for the Spinnaker Cup. Should help.

Pac Cup crew finalized

2010-05-20T09:59:00.000-07:00

Our fearless captain has picked the sixth and final crew member for the Pac Cup. The guy wearing the green/yellow shirt over on the right backed out since his son's baseball team is gunning for the little league world series title. Or maybe he realized that 2+ weeks on a 44' boat with five other guys isn't all it's cracked up to be.

So Paul went through an exhaustive crew replacement search that was coordinated much in the same way that American Idol auditions are run. A few crew members plus an insane lady that we grabbed from Cafe Roma near the marina sit behind a table and make the prospective crew members sing sea shanties while we amuse ourselves with blistering personal attacks and quips.

Only one sailor emerged from this process unscathed and has become Valis' sixth crew member. He is a well known blogger, online personality and appears to be a new media expert. I won't out him any more than that quite yet but look for some mid-ocean synchronized blogging. Maybe.

The order of things....

2010-05-19T11:50:00.000-07:00

Since I've apparently messed up the whole order of the universe with my surprise blog post yesterday, I decided to pile on. I am going to write about sailing. Not getting ready to sail, or bad ass oceangoing tricks, or the bike race I'm going to check out at lunch. But sailing.

See that? It's me sailing a boat. I'll give a little explanation. The first step is to get on a boat wearing some nautical stuff. Then place a big green tarp behind you and the boat. You lean a little to your left (what the landlubbers call port). Then have the cameraman, lean to his left (what the landlubber would call starboard). The cameraman then depresses the "shutter" button. He emails this picture to you. You open photoshop, key out the green (I know, this is getting technical) and put a layer behind you of water and blue skies. Put it on the internet and you are sailing!

Expert tip: don't wear green or be seasick at the time.

Loose ends to tie up before the Pacific Cup

2010-05-18T14:36:00.000-07:00

The Pac Cup is less than 50 days away and I am starting to feel like it's real. In 2008, I didn't start keeping a journal until start minus 30 days; this year I'm going to start earlier. Maybe tomorrow.

But in preparation for this epic bout of journalizing, I pulled out my old journal with the intention of just adding on to it. I did a quick scan and the first thing I noticed is that mid-way through I declared Paul Cayard my mortal enemy over a perceived mid-ocean VHF slight. He apparently didn't respond to our hails on 16. In retrospect, I now know that it wasn't even him so I have a dilemma ... sworn enmity can't just go away without some sort of ceremony or a declaration or a writ handed down by the city council. What am I going to do? I assume I have to have this resolved by July 5th.

And that's just one thing on a long checklist. I have to get a new headlight since Noah has been using mine to look under his bed for the last two years. I need to avoid having another day of seasickness. I have to plan my flight home. This is not going to be an easy 50 days if I have to add in some sort of Paul Cayard enemy reconciliation project.

I guess looking at the entry list and seeing if the boat that was most likely responsible for the VHF slight is entered would be a good start. I can transfer my grudge to them and plan some sort of revenge. You know, like snubbing them at the awards ceremony or giving them stink eye when they pass us.

Ultimately, it's good for me to have an enemy in the race so I will most likely transfer it. Maybe to some random boat that won't expect it. Sun Tzu style.

Deja Vu...not in a good way

2010-02-24T09:30:00.000-08:00

This past weekend was a miserable one to be on land. It was wet, drippy, cold and miserable. I was at Camille's swim meet doing everything I could to keep her warm and swimmable. That said, it's good to be a sailor and have decent foul weather gear for such occasions.

Most of the time as a parent you're catering to your swimmer because they're getting in and out of the pool and getting very cold. The team has a canopy that I always arrive early to get Camille a spot right in the middle of. So, many times I'm huddled on the edge of the canopy, forcing her to eat and wear warmer clothes.

And that's what brings me to sailing. I'd been paying attention to her safety and comfort for about 5-10 minutes and hadn't paid any attention to the outside world. Once I was done, I stood up, stretched my legs and stepped out of the canopy to look around. At that moment, I saw the rain again and felt the cold and was wearing foul weather gear and my first thought was, "oh crap, not this again."

And it felt EXACTLY like coming on watch at midnight, stepping out of the companionway in full foulies and that initial blast of "crap it's raining again." You know you're about to have 4 hours of relative misery and there is nothing you can do other than grab the wheel and hope to steer some fun waves to make up for it.

Of course at a swim meet you don't have that balancing factor of getting to sail. So I went to get a coffee instead.

Leaving the coffee generation

2010-02-09T09:24:00.000-08:00

I'm doing it again. Last time I was teased mercilessly for being a girlie-man, scared to drink coffee on the open ocean. But that's the life of the blogger, exposing yourself to the public (in a legal way) for the betterment of all.

So, as of this month I've cut my coffee consumption down to 2 small cups a day -- one at the club and one at the office. I figure it's easier to kick a habit if your addiction is to something that doesn't taste good. Then, starting in March, just the club coffee, and then in April....kablooie, no more coffee.

I do have a good reason for this. Sponsorship. I didn't get sponsored by a coffee company for the second straight Pacific Cup. I tried to get Leslie's Coffee to sponsor me in 2008, even taking this picture at the halfway point on spec. But it didn't pan out and now I go to sea sponsorless and coffeeless once again.

X marks the spot

2010-02-01T19:15:00.000-08:00

If they don't want people to hit it, don't put an X on it, I say. The Golden Gate Yacht Club is basiclly begging people to hit that thing, making it bright yellow, big and marked with an X. We on Valis are nothing if not rule followers. That's me in the yellow hat looking back to make sure we hit it but, alas, not this time. I'll get it for sure next year with a bit more practice under my belt.

Lowering the boom

2010-02-01T16:16:00.000-08:00

Lowering the boom is some sort of sailing related term that the rest of the world uses to mean "bringing the pain." I think. For some reason I thought it just made a good title for this post even though 1) I don't know what it means, and 2) we're not lowering our boom in this photo. If anything we're raising our pole but I was worried what kind of search engine traffic that would bring.

Photo courtesy of Erik Simonson of H2oshots

This is Valis sailing wing and wing down to Red Rock during the Three Bridge Fiasco. You know, just after the mouse incident. You can obviously tell we are sailing fast by the rip-roaring rooster tail of a wake we're leaving. That's why we're qualified to cross most of the Ocean, our improvisational sail trim techniques.

349 boats behind the Eight Ball

2010-02-01T14:39:00.000-08:00

I really really like this article and thought it would be good to link to it here: 349 boats behind the Eight Ball.

I called Scott Easom, skipper of Eight Ball, this morning to discuss his win in the Three Bridge Fiasco and was amazed by the humility that he was showing for some incredibly good decisions. He put a lot of them to luck but that doesn't explain why he keeps winning these races. Of course it's a good idea to get out to the wind and into the favorable current before everyone else but how does he do it more consistently than the rest of the fleet. I felt like a smarter sailor just by talking to him for 10 minutes.

Check out the bottom on Eight Ball in this Kimball Livingston article. That thing is shiny and spotless. I think that Scott was being modest even in discussing his boat prep and that was the only area where any pride even showed through. That boat is ready to sail and sail fast.

He was the talk of Sailing Anarchy this morning and deserved to be...one hell of a race.

The ubiquitous topsider

2010-02-01T12:32:00.000-08:00

I can't stand Sperry Topsiders. It's not that they are bad boat shoes, on the contrary, they are excellent on the boat. Otherwise, why would so many sailors wear them?

And that's the problem, many many sailors do wear them and not just to sail in. They wear them everywhere like the red badge of sailinginess. I was at a party a couple of years ago when a guy comes in late. I knew he was a sailor and asked if he was going out that weekend and we chatted sailing for a minute until somebody found this interesting and asked him if he was a sailor. He didn't say, "yes I love sailing", he said, "yes, can't you tell? I'm wearing a West Marine jacket and topsiders." Kind of upitty-like. Kind of in the way that makes people really hate sailors.

And I knew he hadn't sailed that day nor was he planning on sailing that night. He was wearing this gear to identify himself as a sailor so people would ask about his manly sailing exploits. It was at that moment that I began to hate topsiders; I just can't hold him against waterproof jackets, they just make sense. Full disclosure: I wore topsiders in high school as a fashion statement, but what the hell, I was in high school and didn't know any better.

I can't hold this guy against a brand of shoe forever but for the purpose of Tillerman's Writing Project du Jour, my hatred is real. For the moment.

Initial Report: Three Bridge Fiasco 2010

2010-01-31T17:28:00.000-08:00

This is a write-up I did for Sailing Anarchy (I want to win an SAYC burgee for the effort), I'll write up something more pertinent to the blog this week and add more pictures.

You all know that clumsy big kid with the heart of gold who just can't get out of his own way? He's always bumping into people, accidentally causing trouble and tripping over his own feet? Yep, that was us at the start line. With little to less wind, we came barreling into the start wielding 26,000 pounds of ocean-ready cruising boat, hanging a big anchor off the bow and a wind vane off the stern. And we were on port. So we ventured into the scrum, almost fouled 8 boats in one fell swoop, did our slow motion version of a crash tack, rinsed and repeated. We just kept going in there and getting pushed back out. I'd love to blame the Moores but they only caused the first two failed attempts. Things finally cleared out enough that my helming skills could get us "near" the line about 45 minutes later!

Of course I'm kidding, Paul and I are great sailors and even better racers, we just happen to disagree with PHRF's assessment of Valis at 126. Our egos know the truth, given the boat's maneuverability and straight line speed, combined with our cat-like racing instincts, we should be about a 18, so we just wanted to start with our faster brethren. Give those guys with the high ratings a bit of a head start so we could teach them and PHRF a lesson in Yacht Racing 101.

The proof of this skill comes in our actual belated start. Paul: "you're not going to make the mark", me: "crap, you're right", him: "hmmmm", me: "uh oh", him: "maybe stuff her into the wind for a second", me (this one is a thought bubble): "I wonder how much gelcoat costs on a Pacific Seacraft like this?" And, then, miraculously, our skill paid off, we missed that big rusty ball by about 4 inches (Mr. Crealock, good idea on the canoe stern) and our wind vane cleared the top by about 1 inch. We didn't hit it! After high fives and a brief debate on whether it was like football where breaking the plane was the same as hitting, we kept going.

This is where our strategic insight came in. Thanks to our head start strategy, we knew what the two halves of the fleet were doing and it was obvious that CCW was the way to go. As we got to the point of tacking towards TI, we just kept going. Not sure if it was deliberate but we had wind and neither of us wanted to go through all of the headache that involved tacking the beast. Besides, it was sunny over by Richmond and foggy over by Oakland. Decision made, we were going to Red Rock first.

We cleared Point Blunt, bore off and started talking kite run. Paul, as the man that pays the bills, was selected as foredeck (we hadn't discussed this beforehand) so off he went up into the war zone to get the kite hoisted. He came back about 3 minutes later and said, "no spinnaker we have a mouse nest." I'll admit here that despite my huffery over my many ocean miles and insistence that I really know how to sail, my first thought was, "crap, another term I don't know" and figured it was some technical term describing a spinnaker that was tangled up somehow. But, nope, it meant that a mouse had chewed up his spinnaker and made a nest with little pieces of his spinnaker. We had a very expensive laugh over the absurdity of that situation though I know there are some sailmakers out there right now thinking about breeding rodents.

The spinnaker was out of the equation and the wind was dropping so we had to do something. As possibly the only boat in the race that has more anchors than spinnakers on board, our only choice was wing and wing. Again, Paul went forward, swapped poles, and we started a spirited race with a Catalina 22 (to be fair, it might have been a Capri 22).

When we made it almost to Red Rock, we looked down Raccoon expecting to see the masses catching up to us and were surprised to see NONE of them. The TI-first contingent was making its way down there but we realized we only needed to keep a 2 mile lead on the Blackaller crowd to beat them (since we still needed to round that mark). This spurred us into even more action, so I went down below to get lunch ready. While enjoying our pita wraps, Dixie, *photoboy, and a friendly guy whose name I didn't catch pulled up to chat. They kept asking about our other kites and didn't seem to understand what Paul meant that they were all in the barn.

We rounded Red Rock with little incident, saw only one boat looking like it was violating the long wharf but saw hundreds and hundreds of spinnakers coming our way. Being on port, we were blinded by all the pretty colors and using our new-found anti-collision skills, we just weeded our way through the crowd. Pulling out the slide-rule from the navstation, we calculated that these boats would beat us. So I threw a bit of stinkeye at them, and we continued heading south to TI. Suddenly, like last year, wind. This leg always has wind, it might just be my favorite. Wind is what makes a Pacific Seacraft 44 move. When there's a lot of it, we sip coffee, pull down our sou'westers, and start passing boats. And so it was. We had enough wind to counter the 2 knot ebb as we got to TI, blasted through there, seeing only one boat violating the CG exclusion zone (though I can't figure out why unless the wind farther out was bothering him), made our turn and played the current out to The Bay Proper.

One odd note: who were the boats just getting to TI CCW as we got there modified-CW? Had they parked at Blackaller and didn't have the patience to wait it out? At this point, we were sick of Jeff Beck and Neil Young and switched to The Police Unabridged Box Set. We looked back at Red Rock and our Blackaller-first friends were still there, parking again apparently. We felt comfortable we had them.

We had a beautiful upwind ride on the conveyer belt down to Blackaller. For our last tack, we pointed at the finish line, and let the current push us to Blackaller. It was epic. But also disconcerting, we had just spent over 80% of our race upwind. That's plain weird but I think it might be why our strategy worked so well. You know, because a mouse ate our spinnaker. When we rounded Blackaller, we had our last little bit of downwind sailing, the only thing that made it possible to bear fighting that current. We winged and winged (no pole at this point) and headed into shore to get relief and make the finish. At 4:53 we crossed the line, having sailed the *most* unconventional course that freethinkers like us could devise. I'm pretty sure we didn't beat any boats that started with us but a lot of the ones that went before us and went conventional courses were behind.

After putting away the boat, having a nice Thai food dinner, we made a pact to beat down any rodents that we see before they can eat another sail. The next races that Valis is doing are the Spinnaker Cup and the the Pac Cup, I'm pulling out the charts to see if what "alternate" courses we can take there!

3BF preparations: no wind big current

2010-01-29T10:03:00.000-08:00

Paul and I decided to get some boat time in to prepare for the 3BF last weekend. We figured it would be a good time to get back into the sailing swing of things and a great excuse to sail. So on Sunday, we left the comfy confines of the slip and headed to open water. Or, rather, we headed out into the Bay.

Being experienced sailors we put on our foul weather gear before it started raining but decided to go with a hazy, "I think it's ebbing", as our sole source of tidal current info. Well, we soon found out that, yes, it was ebbing. And in true 3BF fashion, there was no wind.

So, how about some quick math? If the water is moving at 3-4 knots East and there is none to zero knots of wind, how long until you're on the rocks at the Farallones? Luckily we didn't find out because Paul and I are manly ocean-going sailors and know how to sail. Yep, we're bad-asses. We managed to coax almost equal boatspeed to the current and basically stayed in place within a couple of hundred yards of the bridge. Honestly, if there is a better way to practice for the 3BF I'd like to hear it.

After breaking free from the clutches of the current, we proceeded to drift slowly down Raccoon Strait around Angel Island into a nice fresh breeze to speed our way home to Sausalito. All told, the exact conditions we had on Sunday would get us to the finish line on time for the 3BF but not without its boring moments. Thank Neptune for cockpit speakers.

Don't call it a comeback!

2010-01-11T12:58:00.000-08:00

I had a very pleasant online experience a few days ago. As part of my excitement over entering the 2010 Three Bridge Fiasco, I obsessively hit "refresh" on the Sailing Anarchy thread devoted to the topic. You know, on the off-chance that somebody posts something about the race.

In this topic, El Capitan Valis posted, I posted, and a few SA regulars that I'm friends with posted. But then I saw a familiar sail number: 184. I've never actually been on that particular boat but I know a lot about it because one of my favorite sailors owns her. And, oh boy, does he sail her well.

Sail a Vie is an Ericsson 35 that has criss-crossed the Pacific singlehanded at least three times that I know of, possibly four. She is helmed by an incredible sailor that I have sailed with many times, even completing the formidable task of finishing the 3BF together in 2009. And, this year, he's singlehanding again after taking about a year off for some odd aeronautical pursuits.

Sail a Vie rates 150 (starting with the Moore 24s, hah!) and Valis rates 126 so we get to start 10 minutes after him and chase him around the course. Assuming, of course, there is wind and he picks the correct route. Of course, we will quickly overtake him if he goes the right way and talk trash and yuk it up a bit.

Either way, we'll see him on the water even if he won't have the pirate hat on this year.

3BF, are you kidding?

2009-12-29T10:58:00.000-08:00

I got a pretty darned good email today. My friend and Captain from Valis said he's thinking about doing the Three Bridge Fiasco again this year and was wondering if I'd like to join him. Hmmmm, ummmm, let me think about that, well, uhhh, hell yeah! Of course I need to clear this with my shore based crew but with a month's notice, that's pretty close to a formality.

It's hard to give a sense of just how great of a boat Valis is. I tried to find one picture that could show it. For me it really boils down to her lines, beautiful teak and ocean-going Pacific Seacraftiness. This picture with Camille shows a lot of it, the graceful curve of the gunwhale, the beautiful wood and the well used jackline. And the fact that the boat is pointing more or less towards Hawaii in this picture. That's kind of Valis' pre-disposed direction in my opinion.

So, barring any unforeseen circumstances, I'll be blogging from the Bay on January 30 and beating that pesky Morning Star for line honors well before 6:45PM!

Feeling crabby

2009-12-28T12:11:00.000-08:00

After Christmas dinner, I was mentioning to my cousin that I'd heard it was a sensational crab season and that we should go out soon. He's owned his fishing boat for about 4 to 5 years and I had never actually taken him up on an invitation to go fishing. Then he asked, "what are you doing tomorrow?" I guess I was going to go crabbing. Crabbing on the darkside.

The darkside means a stinkpot in case you haven't been following this blog for the last five years.

Well, hell's bells, it turns out that fishing boats with a 250 on the back can be fun. And painful. Ocean swells that are benign and fluid to a sailboat are bone-jarring when going 35 MPH. Other swells that would kill a sailboat are easy-peasy on a planing powerboat. Either way, we got out to the crabbing grounds significantly faster than we would have on my Newport 28.

Once there, we dropped our 3 pots over preparing to do battle with the biomass 100 feet below the surface. Then we just kind of waited. And discussed the storm that was coming that made both of us very uncomfortable. And we finally called the wait off so that we could get back in before the swell made the Gate an unpleasant place.

The first pot I hauled up. As it broke the surface I counted FIVE crabs! As it got on deck, we both counted five SMALL crabs. Well, it turns out that heaving an undersized crab back in the ocean is a bit of fun too. The next pot, Arthur did the honors and brought up FOUR undersized crabs. Tossing these back in was not quite as fun.

Then the good pot, the round one with a bungee cord, had its turn. I pulled it up and counted FIVE crabs again. But this time TWO were big enough to keep! We did it, we successfully crabbed!

There was a lot more to the day like seeing 12-15 foot swells breaking offshore in the Bonita Channel, the earnest warning about not letting a crab get its claws near your aorta, the multitudes of dolphins (or porpoises), and the incredible teamwork that helped grab each pot on the first try all four times. But, really, I just wanted to get a picture of me holding two crabs out on the interwebs to get this blog back on track.

An embarrassing admission

2009-12-23T11:01:00.000-08:00

This blog has suffered. For the longest time I blamed my SF Sailing Examiner column that took the joy out of writing about sailing. And then I realized it was because I wasn't sailing as much. And because of these two things I suddenly had an unfulfilled need to write. So I started a swimming blog about my own pathetic attempts at swimming and my daughter's much more successful swim career.

Then the holidays happened and I realized that the Examiner gig, though not very fruitful, had actually created a decent Christmas gift fund. But I didn't go buy sailing gifts, I bought swim gifts. With the proceeds from my sailing writing. Maybe just short of ironic but still worth bringing up.

Which brings me back to writing about sailing. I realized that I had depleted my funds from the Examiner gig and the only way to refill it was to write about sailing again. So, to fund my swim habit, I'm back on the sailing wagon. Wow.

Maybe it will just be the Examiner column but I really want to bring this blog back to life too. I've sailed about a dozen times since the cobwebbing began that I've yet to write about and I have a few more planned so there is *some* content. But until then, please click on this link so I can buy a new swimcap please.

Sailing camp agenda

2009-11-07T10:39:00.001-08:00

Today is the day that Camille and two swimfriends start the Lady Bug
Sailing Camp. The agenda is aggressive:

1. Basic knots: bowline, cleat hitch, stopper knot
2. How to get the darned winch handle in and out of the winch;
related item: which direction to wrap the line
3. Which line is which
4. On the water: tacking with the kids rotating between helm, lazy
jib sheet and loaded jib sheet
5. Basic sea creature identification
6. Fun

If you see a blue boat zig zagging around the circle today with a
reefed main and giggling 9 year olds, watch out because the rules of
the road are on NEXT month's agenda.

All Typos Courtesy of iPhone

Sailing Camp on SF Bay

2009-10-26T12:41:00.000-07:00

In all my hand-wringing about not sailing much this Summer, I had forgotten my favorite reason to sail.

Kids have fun.

We took Lady Bug out for her paces in 10-15 knots last weekend. First thing I did was shake out the summertime reef. Second thing I did was to put it back in when I realized the girls wanted to hang out on the weather rail. Nothing safety-oriented at all but just that put their feet closer to the water and increased the chances of the all-important foot dipping in the chop.

I came up with a game where they get points for certain likely sailing-oriented events: 5 points for seeing a mermaid, 2 points for getting feet wet, 3 points for someone yelling ahoy back at them, 12 points for kicking a shark in its snout, and so on.

But they came up with a better idea: sailing camp. These two, plus another swimming friend, are going to be campers at the Lady Bug Sailing Camp. What this entails is me taking them sailing more often. We'll have dockside activities: learning knots, cleaning my boat, climbing the mast, and sailboat component identification (quick, what's a barberhauler?). Then we'll go sail. If it's too windy or not windy enough, the El Toro goes out.

Seems like a great idea and exactly why I have a sailboat in the first place.

Could it be a sailing weekend?

2009-10-16T15:09:00.000-07:00

For the first time in recent memory we have very little planned. Noah is going up to his grandparents for the weekend. Camille and I have a swim-date to work on flipturns. And nothing else is really on the calendar.

Forecast looks good. Lightish winds in the morning, a bit closer to brisk in the afternoons. A bit foggy, a bit sunny, temperatures in the 60s. Truly exceptional sailing weather. Kind of like a perfect Autumn Sailing Day.

And the boat is clean, which is important for Heidi. It just seems too good to be true. Could I really be sailing this weekend?

Has anyone checked in on Reid?

2009-10-15T15:43:00.001-07:00

I'm curious if he's still out sailing. Has it been 1000 days yet?

Going down to the boat

2009-10-12T13:42:00.000-07:00

Whoohooo, a storm is a-brewin! Even when you stop sailing constantly, a sailor tends to check weather forecasts. And we have a doozy coming up tonight. 45 knot gusts growing to 55 knots by tomorrow.

Thankfully, I tidied and cleaned up Lady Bug last weekend. But while going over a mental checklist of what I did while contemplating the storm, I realized that I didn't lash down Camille's El Toro on the foredeck. It only weighs 60-80 pounds and a 55 knot gust coming underneath it will propel it directly into the Hunter across the dock from me. Which would suck because it's a Cal Sailing Club boat I think and those guys really don't need extra hassles.

So, I will head down and tie that beast down, throw on a couple of extra docklines, and check for chafe. Maybe I'll even make sure the Hunter is in good shape too.

Edit: Hey, O-Docker, do you need me to go check the flemish coils on your docklines?

Why Popeye eats spinach

2009-10-05T15:36:00.000-07:00

You wouldn't know it from looking at most sailors but sailing is a fairly physical sport. On little boats (like Lasers), you need a pretty fit core to hike and use your body to flatten the boat. On big boats, you need to be pretty strong to raise sails and trim loaded sails. On the middle ground (boats like mine), you really don't need to be in very good shape at all. And that's why I never have been.

On last year's Pac Cup, I really felt the lack of strength conditioning. Oceanaire had very heavy sails and when you needed to raise one quickly, I really didn't have the strength to do it. To be fair, only one of us did (hey Phil) but still I could have pulled my weight a bit better. By the time I realized this, it was too late to really get myself in better shape.

Since I'm doing the Pac Cup again, I have an obligation to be stronger. Thanks to my newest obsession (swimming), I'm actually getting there. For the first time in my life, there are actually visible muscles on me and I figure if I can swim 1000 yards without dying, I can probably run to the bow of a 44 foot boat without my lungs imploding.

So, there you have it. Sailors need to be strong and thanks to swimming I'm almost strong. Just in time to join a boat with electric winches.

Cleaning day is upon us

2009-10-02T14:33:00.000-07:00

For some of the more unfortunate parts of the country, sailors are cleaning their boats, readying for a winter of storage. Me, I'm going to clean my boat readying for a winter of sailing after a summer of neglect. Take that Upper Midwest!

My beautiful wife made me promise that we'd go down to the marina as a family, get the darned thing clean and quite possibly take Lady Bug for a ride. Here's the forecast:

Sat
W winds 5 to 15 kt...increasing to 15 to 25 kt in the afternoon. Local gusts up to 35 kt in the afternoon.

Umm, let's get that sailing in early. Whenever the SF Bay has a range, Berkeley is the top-end. So it might just be a cleaning day.

Anyway, what' does Fall Cleaning entail? For me, it's a good solid scrubbing of the deck. For my beautiful wife, it's vacuuming and cleaning of the cabin. So, we'll be on different parts of the boat but it will get clean.

And, O-Dockmeister, I pulled that dinghy painter out of the water weeks ago.

Comments anyone?

2009-09-21T16:49:00.000-07:00

The apocalypse. It's going to happen, maybe soon. The good thing is, there will be signs. You know, like Kraken and boiling seas and G-rated sea shanties. We'll know, it will be OK, don't worry.

Unless one of those signs has happened? And we missed it. Like if a serial commenter started his own blog to elicit comments. Would that be a sign, could it be a sign? Should we expect to see the mythical Four Bowmen hoisting their spinnakers?

Is the apocalypse upon us?

Not a lot of photos

2009-09-11T10:13:00.000-07:00

When preparing for Pac Cup Oh Eight, I took well over a thousand pictures. And this was before the race even started. During the course of the race, I added another 500 or so.

A couple of interesting things happened with respect to cameras. During all the preparations, I took pictures almost exclusively with my Nikon. Once Garrett got a little waterproof camera, I took a few with that but not many. Once the race started, the DSLR got put away and 100% of the pictures were with the little waterproof camera. And I've stayed in that habit. That is, I'm not taking pictures with the big camera any more.

But I don't have a little camera to replace it. So, I've just not taken pictures. I've sailed on Valis twice, Lady Bug dozens of times, Temerity twice, and a charter down in LA. A few pictures with my phone and that's it.

Well, my beautiful wife has solved this for me. She knows that I lead a wet life (swimming and sailing and Camille's swim meets) when I'm recreating. So she got me my very own waterproof camera. Behold:

Plus, it's green. How cool is that.

So you can now expect more pictures of sailing on Valis, Lady Bug and Temerity. Quite possibly, this blog will get video of me learning to swim properly. Hopefully, I'll never have to combine all three (swimming, sailing and photos).

I am sailing to Hawaii with maniacs

2009-09-09T09:47:00.000-07:00

OK, I'll admit I'm mostly disappointed I didn't have time to get to this first. There's an email thread running around the Valis crew about our bios. Apparently, it's a titular bunch filled with Commodores, Captains, and Viceroys. I wanted very badly to photoshop Paul E's face onto the promotional poster for Officer and a Gentleman. But, alas, I had to put the kids to bed last night and I prioritized that over tomfoolery.

But Paul C did this gem:

I get to sail to Hawaii with this guy! And he's not even the highest ranking bigwig on the crew.

Dangerous waters: Little Alcatraz

2009-09-02T14:12:00.001-07:00

I crewed aboard Temerity for the Sarcoma Cup a few weeks ago. There is lots I can say about the race: how much fun it was, the average age of the crew, and the beastly amount of weather helm that Temerity has to name a few. But instead I'm going to talk about Little Alcatraz instead.

Little Alcatraz isn't Big Alcatraz' little brother, it's the buoy just west of the island that marks danger. And by danger I mean rocks. Big rocks just below the surface. The sailing instructions very clearly said, "keep that b@stard to starboard"; what they didn't say is, "keep that b@stard farther to starboard than you think you should since there's a freakin' 3+ knot current trying to make you run into that island and it might not take no for an answer".

I'll go chronologically to help this story along. As we approached Alcatraz, we did what most people did, tack into the island to get some current relief. Because of this, we couldn't see all of the boats (and there were a lot) that were ahead of us. We rounded the island, contending with 25 knot westerlies and the 3 knot current, expecting to see empty water ahead of us.

But the first thing I saw was a red boat dropping sail. What the hey-hey? The conditions sucked but weren't bad enough to drop out. Then David saw a Viper coming back towards us? Huh? Drew's dropping out? David pointed out a broken mast, aha, that's it. But then we saw the scariest thing...there was nobody on the boat, it was sailing back to SF without its crew! That meant that they were in the water. We jumped on the radio, told the race committee and started looking for sailors.

Nothing.

Then Peter Lyons came tearing by us in his RIB trying to catch the Viper. That gave a sense of relief that he wouldn't have left the scene with sailors still in the water. Or would he? Because a minute later, we saw another protector pulling crew off of Alcatraz while Peter acted like a rodeo cowboy trying to lasso a boat that was sailing faster without a crew than we were with a crew. If it wasn't so scary it would have been comical.

We saw the protector charge off with the rescued sailors and then we realized what happened because like countless others in the race before us, we had to crash tack to make Little Alcatraz right then (OK, it was a bit more orderly than a crash tack but I like saying that).

copyright: norcalsailing.com

NorCal Sailing has a full account including that picture that I lifted just above from them.

The moment I realized that there were people in the water was one of the scariest moments I've had sailing. Shorthanded and with the conditions like they were, we were actually having a bear of a time controlling the boat. Plus, there were rocks ahead and an island nicknamed The Rock to leeward. I am so thankful for Peter Lyons and the Norcal sailing guys because there wasn't much we could have done. Drew realized that the current would just send them into the island and really kept his head.

Just realize that Alcatraz' little brother is scary for more than old time prisoners.

The truth revealed

2009-08-31T10:16:00.000-07:00

My blog went on hiatus and it appeared that I had given up sailing this summer. In truth, I had a deep dark secret I was holding. My boat was broken.

In June, I had to move from A to J dock due to construction. As I was warming up the engine and cleaning up for the journey, I noticed smoke coming out of the transom. That's not normal. A quick scan of the situation and it was apparent that water wasn't being pumped. I couldn't troubleshoot and fix it and I had to move the boat so I took a risk. I motored the 1/4 mile or so with a piping hot engine, smoke pouring out of my transom, and the "engine alarm" screaming. It was nerve-wracking and didn't feel good.

Then summer happened. It was busy and I just didn't have time to sail much less to fix the engine. Poor Lady Bug sat at her new home on J dock neglected. O Docker even commented that my el toro painter was dangling in the water. Sad.

Last week jump-started my lagging sailing career, I raced in the Sarcoma Cup with David, and toured the Bay with Paul. On other boats. Again, kind of sad (except for the great sailing).

When my father in law offered to help, I jumped at it. We were going to fix the water pump come h3ll or high water on Sunday. Let me just say that I had a plan to troubleshoot it and fix it. Then let me say that Bob looked at it and asked me a simple question, "do you have an engine thermometer?" When I said no, he said, "describe that alarm you heard." When he heard that, he said, "could it have been a loose belt (the one that turns the water pump's impeller)?". Of course! Solved and easily fixed. This was going to be FAST!

So we tightened it, ran the engine and nothing was coming out of the back but there sure was a lot of water being thrown around the engine compartment (fyi, that means we fixed the pump issue). Long story short, my little jaunt from A to J dock without the cooling system working had melted the inlet to the water lock muffler (pictured below) and that was a $175 repair.

Just another example of problems flowing downstream. But I got off easy since I have a super-smart exceptionally handy father in law who could help figure all this out for me.

And now Lady Bug is ready for action again!

There's something down there

2009-08-28T15:26:00.000-07:00

My fear of massive man-eating sea creatures is well known. I fear them and they know I fear them. That's why the prospect of one of these Kraken migrating from the Ocean Depths into the San Francisco Bay is so troubling. I'm usually not the type to spread mass panic but I believe this to be the case.

I have two proof points and two witnesses. But no pictures because things like this don't actually show up on film so why bother.

On Wednesday, I was steering up Raccoon Strait (thanks O Docker) paying attention to why my tacking angles were so poor when I saw this silvery gray flash of of the port stern and then a big splash. "What the?" I thought. Then Mary said something to the effect of "wow, that was a HUGE fish" and that it jumped clear of our toe-rail. I'd like to point out that Valis has about 4 to 5 feet of freeboard, that fish had JUMPED. And there's only one reason for that, something even bigger was down there trying to eat it. Or us, maybe the thing down there was looking to eat us and the fish just happened to save us by being in the way.

Also on Wednesday, over by AT&T Park, we saw a sea lion repeatedly jumping clear of the water and thrashing about like it had St. Vitus Dance. Over and over this sea lion jumped out of the water. And there's only one reason: sea monster. Or sea monsters. The only comfort came when the same sea lion started tossing what looked like a hunk of sea monster flesh in the air. As odd as that was, it probably wasn't a fish but more the sea lion warning the other sea monster(s) not to mess with it.

At that point, we trimmed the sails a bit more diligently and headed back to Sausalito and the relative safety of the slip. I think I need to warn all sailors and especially you kiteboarders, windsurfers, paddleboarders and kayakers to be careful out there. Sea Monsters are dangerous and quite possibly breeding.

A perfect sail

2009-08-27T11:47:00.000-07:00

I took the day off of work to go out on my Pac Cup Ride, Valis. What an absolutely perfect day and I am fairly certain that a day off work wasn't the only reason.

Valis is a dream to sail in SF Bay conditions. You can reef up and down easily and quickly, she can handle 25 knots of wind without killing yourself, and she's a comfortable beautiful boat. I am psyched to sail her to Hawaii.

Paul and his wife Mary are also perfect hosts. It was just the three of us and conversation was interesting and effortless, they made very nice sandwiches and we even went to an excellent Thai restaurant afterwards.

Alright, here's the layout of our trip: we left Sausalito, rounded Angel Island (yeah, I have to work on my tacking angles), headed over to the South Bay, buzzing by Pier 39, did a u-turn at AT&T Park, then had an exhilarating beat back to Sausalito. The beat back was FANTASTIC; we did it on one tack, had a reef in the genoa and main and had a very comfortable 30 degree heel in 23-25 knots of wind. The rail was just short of being buried and the boat felt like it was on tracks. We probably could have lessened the weather helm a bit but it just felt good.

Garrett always wanted slow tacks on Oceanaire to be able to trim in before the headsail loaded up; I think Valis likes a faster tack since the primaries are bigger, we can rassle in the genoa even when fully loaded. It feels like she wants to bear off to pick up speed before heading higher but Phil worked really hard to break me of that habit, I might need him to come sailing with us to help me find a middle ground.

Even better than the boat, sailing for two weeks with someone as smart and interesting as Paul is going to be pretty good. I just have to read up on radio astronomy.

Back in the saddle, err, cockpit

2009-08-21T12:41:00.000-07:00

I am sailing twice in the next week. It's been a while and I sure hope I remember the difference between a halyard and a barberhauler. Well, actually, I really don't know what a barberhauler is, I might but I'm not sure. Either way, if either of the boats I'm sailing on has a barberhauler, I'll take a picture.

On Sunday, I'm sailing on Temerity for the Sarcoma Cup pursuit race. I don't add much to that equation other than a warm body who's willing to go on the foredeck if things get nasty but sometimes that's a good role to fill. Camille is going to join us; she's pretty excited to meet David's daughter and sail with her. Hopefully it doesn't rain since I still don't have foulies for Camille.

Next Wednesday, I'm playing hookie to go out on Valis for the first time in a while. It might be just Paul and me, but maybe we can scare some others up. I LOVE Valis and am psyched to get to go "blast" around the Bay on her. Even willing to take a day off of work to do it. Hopefully, Heidi and Noah will be back home in time to go with us.

Anyway, my first planned sails in some time. Good to be back.

Liveblogging a regatta

2009-08-07T13:52:00.001-07:00

I got an offer to liveblog a pretty major regatta in September. I'd be positioned on a committee boat, have wireless access and specialized software that would stream directly to the yacht club and regatta website. It's like a dream come true.

The problem is that it's the same weekend as my 10th wedding anniversary and my son's 4th birthday party. I love sailing and writing and anchoring in the middle of a lot of big fast boats but I kind of love my family more. Damn.

I'll find out if I can do 1-2 days instead of all 4, maybe I'll be out on the water again somehow. Oh yeah, maybe the Sarcoma cup too (David, I'm checking on that one now with the scheduling master).

Swim v. Sail

2009-08-07T09:56:00.000-07:00

You'd think both are water sports...they can certainly co-exist. But swimming violates one of the my most guarded tenets of sailing, "keep the people on the boat". If I'm sailing, I want the boat on the water, the water out of the boat, and the people out of the water. It's simple. So I can't blog both swimming and sailing in the same blog. Just not possible, I'd go crazy.

So, Crazy Swim Dad has been launched. I don't envision much cross traffic (see above paragraph); in fact, I'm not even going to link them.

What I am going to do is fix my Atomic 4 waterpump this weekend and then start sailing again in August and start blogging about that. Heck, I might even blog about the few times I've sailed since the blog went on hiatus at the beginning of the summer. Or tell about my new digs at J dock (assuming I ever go there). Or talk about my daughter's sail camps (last month and next week). Or give in to my swim obsession. No matter what, i won't be mixing and matching swim and sail in one blog.

A picture in my office

2009-07-30T12:20:00.000-07:00

There is a picture in my office of my wife and then 5 year old daughter sticking their heads out of the v-berth hatch with huge smiles as I sit comfortably at the helm in the back of the boat. My father in law took the picture and it's pretty special to me, combining two of my favorite things: family and sailing.

Every time I look at it, I'm reminded that I need to go sailing more. Maybe that will spur me to write about sailing more but in the meantime, I'm also reminded about the reason I haven't sailed as much this summer: family. My littler girl has blossomed into a very fast swimmer; she loves going to meets and has been swimming most every weekend this summer, thus keeping me from sailing.

It won't last forever, she has all but one weekend in August and one in September off. After that, we're off to the races again. I wonder if anyone would mind if I changed the tagline of this blog from "crapola, sailing, me and more me" to "swimming, sailing, me and more me"?

A sailboat lists

2009-05-26T13:16:00.000-07:00

I am arriving late to Tillerman's latest group writing project, Lists. I could give you three reasons why I'm late or five reasons why Tillerman does group projects. But I won't. Instead, I will give you a sailboat list:

Sailing in San Francisco: 1976 style

2009-04-29T15:48:00.000-07:00

Borrowed from:
Gordon Waldear Productions - SF Bay Folkboats

Honor RKJ Every Day

2009-04-22T10:48:00.000-07:00

In July of last year, I sailed to Hawaii. Before going I begged desperately for halfway gifts...letting people know that it isn't a Voyage One Third of the Way Across an Ocean without halfway gifts (what's that 1/6th gifts in reality?).

Many answered the call but only one "virtual" friend, Lonnie Bruner. Lonnie wanted to send me a bottle of whiskey and the picture above of him and Robin Knox-Johnston. In almost all ways, RKJ's way is the way to sail the ocean...full of salt and whiskey (disclaimer: I don't drink while sailing but consider it pretty darned salty anyway).

Long story short, Fedex shot down his plan due to some crazy ATF regulations about interstate commerce and alcohol. So he sent me the picture and a CD of raunchy sea shanties designed to offend anyone and everyone. I bet Robin Knox-Johnston would have enjoyed them.

Take Your Daughter to Sea Day: April 5th

2009-03-27T14:02:00.000-07:00

I hate to double-post, but I wrote a fun article over at the Examiner about the first annual Take Your Daughter to Sea Day.

Three reasons for this excellent new holiday:

To increase participation in sailing, you have to start them young
Take Your Daughter to Work Day is partially responsible for an increase in women in the workplace (insert huge stretch here) so it goes without saying that Take Your Daughter to Sea Day will eventually lead to more women in sailing
I'm going sailing with my daughter that weekend anyway

Join in and post your own reasons in the comments (if I still have any readers that is).

Big Daddy Big Finish

2009-03-23T14:59:00.000-07:00

I like to do point to point races; it just feels like there's more of a reason to what we're doing. Going back and forth over a W/L race is like pacing. Kind of pointless. That's why the Three Bridge Fiasco, the Big Daddy, and the Great Pumpkin appeal to me. You're basically being timed on a tour of the bay.

The Big Daddy's Sunday pursuit race is billed as a little less serious than their Saturday races, they let in slower boats though the boats I saw didn't seem slow. We took it seriously but made it more of a family affair (more on that later).

The weather sucked; I had seen that the day before and pulled Camille out. She doesn't have foul weather gear and I saw no reason for her to go on a race where she'd have to stay below for 6+ hours. David, bless his soul, got foul weather gear for his 9 year old daughter the week before the race. Turns out, this was key.

We left Alameda about 9:30 or so, motored for a few miles and then set the spinnaker for the downwind journey over to Richmond. On our way there, we were hit by a few squalls and the weather just stunk. This colored our decision to start the race with the #2 Genoa. As we started, this became quite obviously a bad decision since everyone else was running away from us and pointing higher.

We decided wrongly to go CCW and committed to Raccoon Straits. This is when David made the BEST DECISION OF THE DAY -- he turned the tiller over to his 9 year old daughter. She steered her heart out for the next hour, right into the flood up Raccoon Straits. A bunch of boats passed us but I'm pretty sure nobody on that boat cared. Look at her smile!

I know that those miles between Angel Island and Tiburon were my favorite of the day. David had to go down below for a while and I got to work with her on her steering, it was wonderful, she listened, she got the feel of the boat and more than anything she enjoyed it.

As we got around Angel Island, the wind was picking up and the weather helm was too much for her, we tacked to make the island and Little Alcatraz. As we got into the slot, we gave loud thanks to the #2. We would have been a mess trying to handle the big genoa in that wind. We saw the CW leaders passing us as we made our way to Alcatraz, waved to a few that we knew and just fought the weather helm the whole way over.

We finally made it over to Alcatraz and our downind shot over to Richmond with only one boat behind us, the Flying Tiger Savage Beauty. They were now in their downwind comfort zone and we had to hold them off to avoid DFL. We set the kite beautifully and David's older daughter took the helm and pointed us towards Richmond. Savage Beauty had to take a hotter angle and we were converging right at the finish line. They were coming in faster but we had "leverage" on them. We all leaned forward at the last minute and beat them by mere seconds. Victory is ours! Err, Not Last Place is ours!

Then David and I somehow enjoyed simultaneous mental meltdowns. We had to get the kite down with no room in front of us. Two good options: 1) gybe and take it down in the channel; and 2) raise the jib, blanket the kite and take it down right there ery quickly. We chose the bad option number 3, gybe the main while simultaneously trying to take down the kite on the wrong side in absolute full view of a marina full of boats that already finished. When David finally got our several hundred square foot nylon drogue out of the water, we had entertained perhaps 200 sailors. At least it wasn't my sail number being flogged in front of the masses, sorry David.

Afterwards, I really wish I had brought Camille, she would have had a good time. But we didn't finish last, we had fun, and half the people we talked to at the dock commented on our grinning 9 year old blonde helmsgirl. We didn't win, but she did.

Microphone Check one two ... one two

2009-03-02T10:44:00.000-08:00

I got an invitation that I just couldn't pass up on Saturday. My dock-neighbor Chris asked if Noah and I would like to go increase our carbon footprint for a bit on the Bay. I could not say "yes" fast enough...a chance to go Boston Whaling, h3ll yeah!

Now, here's the thing, Chris knows Noah. His boat is close enough to Lady Bug that he can hear when Noah is scared (you know, scared of things like turning on the engine, touching a dockline, that sort of thing). Noah screams and Chris probably still hears echoes of these screams when he shuts his eyes.

But I worked my magic and through bribes of Tootsie Pops and assurances of fun, we set off. Noah was insistent that we should not go fast. So, Chris slowly ratcheted up the throttle and Noah's protests were drowned out by the roar of the mighty 35hp outboard. Maybe Noah was just too scared to scream but we probably wouldn't have heard him anyway.

Then the absolute worst thing happened, I forgot to set my velcro hat adjuster and the darned thing flew off. Proper protocol calls for an immediate drop in RPM and a rapid U-turn to go get the hat. Noah had his chance! He immediately let it be known that we were not doing any more of that speeding stuff and we were to return to the dock immediately.

Of course, we hadn't burned enough gasoline to return to the dock yet so we settled on Plan B....a quick tour of O Dock to find Mr. O Docker. We never did though Facebook assures me he was on his boat Saturday...he must dock backwards for a quick getaway or something.

Our slow tour of O dock (and N it turns out) gave us a lot of time to talk without the roar of the Engine. As fellow Serious Blue Water Racers (SBWRs), we discussed our 2010 plans (Pac Cup for me and possibility of SHTP for him). Chris is thinking about maybe not doing the SHTP but instead spending some time up in the Seattle area cruising and the beginnings of another idea had been in his head. The Bermuda 1 2 in 2011.

I got excited at this idea ... sailing to Bermuda was one of my favorite trips ever as my first blue water passage. Also, you end up in Bermuda. Chris has family in Bermuda and visits often but has never sailed there. So it's a perfect idea.

And then he hit me with another doozie, he threw out the possibility that I could be the "2" in "1 2". I'll take a step back in case you haven't clicked on the link above. The Bermuda 1 2 is a single-handed race from Newport to Bermuda; and then, double-handed on the way back because it's uphill and less fun. But still the family would get to go to Bermuda and I'd get to do one of the coolest sails known to man, ending at the epicenter of our country's sailing, Newport, Rhode Island.

This is still in its nascent stages, but it is another invitation I just can't pass up.

When Blogs Collide

2009-02-24T16:17:00.001-08:00

Sounds like an excellent soap opera. But it's not, it's a race...a super race. I am joining David over at Never Sea Land for the Big Daddy Pursuit Race. David has an Olson 34, Temerity, that is in training for the 2010 Pacific Cup. Part of this training apparently includes bringing sub-par sailors and their 8 year old daughters out for a race around the Bay.

The Big Daddy is a race I've always wanted to do. It's a reverse start pursuit race like the Three Bridge Fiasco but it starts over by Richmond then goes around Angel Island and Alcatraz and then back to Richmond. I'm pretty sure you can only go one direction but I don't know that for sure.

Since David doesn't have his own personal paparazzi (Zen, I have put a stamp on your thank you gift but haven't mailed it yet), I had to grab a picture of his boat sitting in the dock. We'll bribe some other racers to get some shots of us at the Big Daddy for the Temerity collection.

But there are two important questions. First, do you think both blogs will give the same account of the race (me for example: frickin' maniacal cap'n pooched up the start; him for example: how did that &*%#!@%$ guy make it all the way across one ocean and a third of the way across another?)?

Second question: what superhero am I going to dress as?

BMW Oracle's Big Fast Trimaran

2009-02-18T09:10:00.001-08:00

I'm not usually a fan of just linking to other people's stuff (not when there is so much to write about myself) but this is very very cool. One of the guys (Squid) over at The Anarchy Challenge posted this picture of Dogzilla, with cutout closeups of some technical pieces of the boat.

You have got to check it out.

Aloooohhhhaaaa!!!!

2009-02-13T10:45:00.000-08:00

Aloha means both hello and goodbye in Hawaiian. Whatever. Because what it really means is that I'm sailing to Hawaii again in 2010!

And this time I won't have to keep two blogs since the Captain already has his own blog...that's right I'm sailing to Hawaii on Valis! The Pacific Cup is slated to start July 5, 2010 which is only 507 days away though I'm currently involved in an internal debate over when to place that counter on the navbar. I'm thinking in a week when it gets under 500.

Valis is an exceptional boat, a Pacific Seacraft 42. Pacific Seacraft makes big heavy ocean going boats, the sort that tend to stick to waves rather than surf them; this will sound familiar to those of you that remember Oceanaire. It's my kind of racing. And, besides, Valis has a great PR history so she doesn't mind being written about:

Remember, this is the fun race to Hawaii so we are contractually obligated to have fun (it's on the waiver forms). Paul handled that with the shirts in 2008:

There will be more on this space regarding Valis over the next 18 months including plans to live-blog that will not be followed through. Aloha.

Edit: I couldn't wait to publish my 500 Days until Pac Cup article at the Examiner. Check it out.

That Red Hat

2009-02-12T11:00:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've talked about the "Red Hat". I had the good fortune of a rum-drinking crewmate who didn't wear hats. I'm a hat-wearing sailor who doesn't drink rum. And you needed to go to a rum party to get the hat. Hello synergy!

So now I have the red hat and can wear it until it turns pink. And sailors can make fun of me!

How to Make Fun of a Sailor

2009-02-08T09:22:00.000-08:00

New article posted at examiner.com: How to make fun of a sailor.

Quick synopsis: we're a quirky bunch and really deserve to get called on it. Feel free to click your way over there and subscribe to my ramblings.

Sailing with Phil

2009-02-06T15:24:00.000-08:00

I've milked a week's worth of posts out of the Three Bridge Fiasco. Actually, more like a month given all of my pre-3BF ramblings. I love the race but the best part was sailing with my old Pac Cup friend. Not that he's old or anything...

I absolutely 100% could not have finished this race without Phil. He helped me sort out the spinnaker rigging, placing blocks, getting the pole set up, and showing me where to lead lines. Once underway, he trimmed the spinnaker while patiently explaining what he was doing. When my driving concentration wavered a quick "watch your course" followed. He taught me some light air tricks such as using the current and the spinnaker trimmed in tight to create apparent wind for yourself. He wore the pirate hat.

Not that he's a sailing saint or anything...I stocked the frickin' cooler with beer and he didn't finish all of them. Now I'm stuck with beer. He didn't take the tiller from me when it was apparent that I was going to kill us. And the pirate hat *is* on backwards.

But he did help me to point the boat. Christy asked earlier what his secret was. It is actually pretty simple and I bet exactly what you already do. Obviously, you trim the sails in tight (we did not go traveler up though) and then you point the boat higher than you think possible and you watch the telltales. You can ease into pointing up but the second you're too high you drop down fast. Repeat this process. And concentrate concentrate concentrate on those telltales.

I had always been taught to drop down to 45 degrees or so during a tack then ease back up as you pick up boat speed. But in light air, you're losing boat lengths every time you do that so you need to end up your tack at a very close-hauled point. Since we were fighting a current this was absolutely essential. Any time spent perpendicular to the current is lost distance.

I don't know if I explained it very well but it is all obvious when you think about it. I was just always scared to have that windex pointing that close to the front of the boat and have never spent that much time steering to the telltales.

I got the best email from him the next day. Obviously, he had fun but when his wife asked him whether we'd flown the kite he said, "hell yeah, 4 times!" Now that's enthusiasm, but then she asked, "and how many times in the Pacific Cup?" In our 21 mile race we set the spinnaker 3 more times than in our 2100 mile TransOceanicVoyage. See, I like sailing with Phil because he finds that as funny as I do.

San Francisco Sailing Examiner

2009-02-04T15:08:00.000-08:00

I am the San Francisco Sailing Examiner.

About three months ago, the Seattle Sailing Examiner left a comment on Tillerman's blog; I have no idea what she said, I just knew that I wanted to be the San Francisco equivalent. You know, like a journalist.

Since I have 10 to 20 loyal readers of this blog, I need to make a distinction. This blog is about me and my sailing; the Examiner is about sailing in the SF Bay. You want to read about me (and my kids and my boat and the rivalry with O dock), come here. You want to read about how to find a crew position or where to anchor or who is the best sailor on the Bay, go to the Examiner.

And, please, click on those ads!

Leader of the Pack

2009-02-04T14:11:00.001-08:00

Remember in my recap, how I talked about being in the lead pack of boats? Well, there's no way to prove that. You look at our somewhat pedestrian 200th place finish and say, "sure EVK4, you were up with the leaders almost halfway through the race? Sure."

Luckily I went Flickr-diving yesterday and found this.

That's us right up there at the front...obviously taken by someone still behind us. Though I am positive they passed us shortly after this shot was taken, maybe even one of the boats we almost fouled trying to get out of that current.

More to come on the race but I like this picture and thought I'd share it...click it for a slightly bigger view.

Three Bridge Fiasco: Blogger Division Results

2009-02-03T10:51:00.000-08:00

The winner of the First Inaugural Annual Yearly Blogger Division of the Three Bridge Fiasco is: BreezeTrees on board his Laser 28 Firebolt!

BreezeTrees doesn't actually have a blog but is a loyal reader and friend of the program. I will be issuing him the badge as winner but will make a special concession to Valis as the winner with an actual blog and send him one as well.

Official Blogger Division Results

Breezetrees, 118, 17:24:38, recap
Valis, 169, 17:44:15, recap
O Docker, 183, 18:00:44
EVK4, 200, 18:42:57, recap
NeverSeaLand, DNF

The blogger division was an absolute success from my standpoint. Not just for the five racers but we had two bloggers shadowing the fleet aboard the J109, Knots Squared. As this particular blog is about me, I'm going to write about my interactions with the other bloggers in the order I saw them.

Lady Bug got to the starting line about an hour early so we had plenty of time to drift around, check out the scenery and eat doughnuts. Just as we were starting to get ready to think about how we were going to attack the start, a boat motors past and yells at us. By nature, I'm an angry man so I got ready to rumble until I looked up and saw a tall guy on a Laser 28 motoring by. Hey, that's BreezeTrees! We waved and then didn't see each other again all day. We didn't see each other because he beat us by almost and hour and a half! This was his first race with his wife and I'm happy to report they're still married...but kids, don't try that at home.

Next up was the super surprise of the day, Lady Bug's own personal photo boat came steaming into view, Knots Squared.

On board are Zen and Lady Zen, Captain John, and Admiral Anne (whose blog mysteriously disappeared). I awkwardly threw Zen the Z sign and he expertly threw it back!

Then we sailed and sailed and blah blah blah and finally made it near Red Rock. I was intently steering, Phil was wearing the pirate hat, and I saw a boat on port coming towards us. I looked over at the Dread Pirate Phil and said, "that boat didn't round Red Rock, where'd it come from?"; he said, "watch your course, sheesh" or something like that; so I countered with "I've been itching to protest someone, fetch me my red flag!" Then I saw them waving at us, WTF? "Mess with the bull and you'll get the horns", I thought angrily, clutching the red washcloth that I use as a protest flag. "It's your friends stupid!" Oh, hey, it's John and Anne again, this time they're under sail! Just one of those moments that make you smile, we exchanged some pleasantries and they kept sailing, obviously enjoying themselves.

Fast forward past the bridge/current/hours lost incident and we're getting back into the race on port tack trying to cross a bunch of starboard tackers. We're very very diligent about letting people know our intentions as we duck some and cross others but we cut it very very close about three times. I mean so close that you can feel the anger-waves emanating from the other boats.

We finally made it to our tack and bust over to starboard, heading towards Treasure Island. I see a Catalina 30 looking to take our stern on port...the skipper is yelling at us. I look over at Phil, "well after that last 20 minutes, we deserve someone angrily trying to hit us"...I figured it was someone doing the same to us after they tacked onto port...you know, to teach us a lesson. They passed about 10 yards behind us (might as well have been a mile after all of our close encounters) and I hear this doppler affect yell of "it's O doooccccccckkkkkeeeerrrrrr" as he sails away. Holy crap, now I recognize that boat. O Docker was the only participant that I didn't already have a face to the name and I missed my chance. He then stayed West of us all the way to TI, got through the hole faster and finished a solid 40 minutes sooner.

That was the last blogger I saw all day, never seeing David from Never Sea Land or Paul on Valis. I did encounter a few Pacific Cup buddies on the course and have listed their results (Valis is on both lists).

Official Pac Cup Buddies Division Results

Roshambo, 27, 16:55:53
Head Rush, 94, 17:16:02
Valis, 169, 17:44:15
Lady Bug, 200, 18:42:57
Moonshine, DNF

We're doing this again next year...maybe even for the Great Pumpkin Regatta in October so people, get your pens and tillers ready, it's sail blogging time.

Three Bridge Fiasco 2009 Recap

2009-02-02T09:22:00.000-08:00

Me: "If I were a better sailor, we might have gotten through Raccoon Straits a bit faster. I should have seen that counter current coming."

Phil: "What are you talking about, we're in the lead pack!"

This was all true for about the next 30 minutes and I held dearly to that conversation. I looked at the leaders barely 100 yards ahead of us and I looked back at the hundreds of boats still behind us at the second mark of this very long race. And I was proud.

We had started well, setting the spinnaker right after crossing the line, executing a beautiful rounding, got up into what I now know is called a headstay reach until the wind clocked too much, doused and headed upwind for a while until the next shift, set the kite for a wonderful ride down Raccoon Straits, doused again as the wind shifted, then set the darned thing for the third time as we exited the straits.

Here we were, flying the kite comfortably, talking to fellow racers in the light winds, and keeping up with the leaders. Phil had the pirate hat on and all was good. We got to Red Rock, doused and tacked. Still good. But I wasn't pointing high enough in the light winds and the current was setting us back to the bridge. We had to tack again, and this time we were on port heading into a wall of starboard boats.

We had to tack again to keep from fouling a JS9000. Back closer to the bridge, we tried to tack back but the current was keeping my bow down, we were going sideways through the bridge. One last chance to not get pushed through, I tacked and of course, here comes another starboard boat. She said very calmly, I'm not turning and whoops, we have to take our medicine and let the current push us under the bridge. Now we're screwed.

On the wrong side of the bridge, we saw probably a hundred or more boats pass us as we clawed back up, trying to get current relief over by the shore. There was a bright side to all this, Phil very patiently taught me how to point my boat higher than I thought my boat could point. Somehow in almost non-existent wind we were making headway against a 3 knot current pointing at what seemed like directly into the wind. If he hadn't been with me, I'd be down in Vallejo still.

But we made it, we fought the current and won. Now to claw through the rest of the fleet on port. Two boats we passed within feet of their stern while one boat we passed within feet of what seemed like the largest sharpest bowsprit ever made.

From here it was drift calmly toward Richmond. I then broke the tension and suggested if we were still off Berkeley at 5PM, we could just turn left and head into the marina. Phil didn't really want to hear that but I think he agreed. Then we started noticing something weird. The boats ahead of us were over on their ears. WIND AHEAD!!!!

We patiently sailed towards it and were suddenly engulfed in a 15 knot super-wind, completely blowing the remnants of that conversation off the boat. We were going to make it. Our only decision was whether to try to go under the Bay Bridge in the construction zone or the "safe zone". The construction zone was closer, that made the decision easier.

We got under the Bay Bridge and then, suddenly, another parking lot. This one was bad. We had a mild ebb pushing us backwards but about .2 knots of breeze to fight it. We set the kite for the fourth time and just eked out every bit of boatspeed we could. We could see our windline about a quarter of a mile ahead of us. It was 4:30. The decision was made that if we could get to the windline by 5:30, we could still make the finish.

We'd had the radio on the RC's channel for the past hour or so and had heard dropout after dropout; all we had to do was finish and we'd beat those guys. But still, covering half a mile in an hour seemed pretty difficult when the speedo read 0.0. We were passing boats and the ones behind us seemed to be falling backwards so it must have been a rounding issue, we were at 0.049 knots maybe. I'm going to drag this paragraph on and on so that you can feel what it was like to go that slowly. The word for it is "interminable". We could see the windline and the few boats that were making progress through the hole would just take off as soon as they hit it. Somebody needs to shorten that island or put a tunnel through it so the wind can make it through. Then, finally, the wind switch was turned on as we hit the windline at 5:31!

We were able to hold the kite for a few minutes longer than we should as we saw our Pac Cup team-mate coming back from the finish, we realized it was worth missing the finish so that he'd see us fully spinnakericized as he passed. But it wasn't him...damn low light conditions. So we doused and started our uphill climb to the finish line.

It got dark right after we passed under the bridge. We stayed on one tack up to Alcatraz, tacked over to Ghirardelli Square, back out one more time, back into Fort Mason, then one last tack to the finish. I got out my flashlight and we headed right for the pin end of the line. A J80 passed in front of us, tacked over and we had a drag race to the finish. I lit up the sail, we heard two quick hornblasts indicating that it was a photofinish with said J80. And we were done!

We had finished the Three Bridge Fiasco with 15 minutes to spare! A complete and total victory.

Note: The blogger division was a success and a non-success, I saw a few of the other boats and didn't see a few. All blogger interaction will be covered in a separate post so I can give it its full due. But I will mention that both photos in this post are courtesy of Zen.

Clutching Ropes

2009-01-30T10:35:00.001-08:00

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

2009-01-29T09:20:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-27T09:20:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-26T11:47:00.001-08:00

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!!!!

2009-01-21T08:46:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-14T17:05:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-14T13:13:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-12T15:37:00.000-08:00

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.