The Pirate Curse!

I was a bit skeptical joining in the game with Noah last night. He had a galleon open with two of his friends and had an open slot; the plan was to take down a skull fort so Patibo could get some loot to pay for a new set of sails. My plan had been to explore a couple of uncharted islands where I'd found mermaids before. But, their boat had already spawned and they needed an adult in the room, so what the heck, I did it.

Things actually went exceedingly well. I sailed the boat over, found a good parking spot, and the boys set to attacking the fort while I nervously watched a couple of sloops lurking in the distance. The sloops obviously planned on trying to steal our loot but I have freakin' Pirate Keyser Soze on my boat...none of us were too worried.

A brigantine thought it was worth their time to come over and mess with us. I called the boys off the island, angled the boat for a fight, and loaded the cannons for battle. The brig used the time tested technique of ramming us while taking cannon fire from two cannons. As soon as they got close, Noah jumped on board, killed all three of them, Patibo went below to repair and I ran up to the crow's nest to get an explosive barrel. Turned out we didn't need the barrel. Noah kept killing them while they sank. Patibo repaired the boat and we were done.

After the "battle," Noah decided it was time to take care of the one remaining sloop in the distance. He shot himself over there yelling out that he was with the Brigantine that had just been sank and needed some help. He boarded and nobody was there, so he raised the anchor and ran them into a rock to sink them. Swimming back to our ship, he saw the sloop guys trying to board us. So he killed them.

That should have been a warning to everyone. We are deadly!

Of course, we finished the fort right as the sloop came back (ships respawn on the same server). They made the mistake of sailing right up to us, I hit them with a million cannon shots, sank them while Noah killed both guys. But one of them spawned back right before the ship sank and hid on the island. I had tried to kill him but I kind of stink at PvP combat so he got away. This will be pertinent later!

Our team loaded all the treasure onto a rowboat to bring to the boat while Noah swam over with the mega barrel (an explosive barrel that can sink any ship), right as he got to the boat, the hidden sloop dude shot the barrel, exploded it and sunk our ship, killing everyone on board. But we had all of our loot on a rowboat! Those two guys started rowing away, hoping to hide out while we sailed our respawned boat back. We had to sail upwind back to the fort while they rowed around getting lost.

When we finally got back they were nowhere to be seen! They had rowed to the wrong island exactly where the freaking sloop was! The sloop dusted them, stole the loot and turned it in. The two rowboat dudes called it a night but Noah and I weren't done with the sloop. We made haste down to the outpost where they turned it in and got in a stupid fight as a two man galleon (not easy to do).

Noah boarded them, killed them both, while I circled around trying to get cannon fire on them. And, of course, right then a Megaladon spawned, took a bite out of our boat and almost sank us. I had to repair, leaving Noah to fight two dudes on his own. He died while I was desperately not saving the ship. Right as he got back on, the megaladon took another bite, knocked us both off while our boat sailed away filling with water.

We were done. We'd lost our loot, our friends and our boat. These two sloop-fools had gotten the better of us. But I had one more trick, pulling out my megaphone and yelling at their boat as they sailed away, "You have won today, but on my honor I curse you, you will never win another pirate battle!" And then to mess with their heads, I added "Backstreet's back, oh yeah!"

Noah burst into my office and asked what the heck that meant so I told him. The curse was that they'd always wonder...they would always wonder. Backstreet's back, oh yeah!

Initial Report: Three Bridge Fiasco 2010

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!

Overnight Adventure at the Dock

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

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

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

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



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



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

The Birds (with an apology to Alfred Hitchcock)

The birds are back. One of the side effects of being an brave ocean going sailor on another person's boat is that your own boat gets neglected. And the squatters move in. I have birds again.



This has happened before. And I won, albeit with a LOT of guilt as to how I won. But I'm not at that point yet, the nest was obviously still being built. So I dispatched of it, took some bungees and tightened down my sailcover to an uncomfortable level and crossed my fingers.

I have to think about how far I am willing to go in this battle. My boat isn't being useful. I rarely get to sail her. Why shouldn't some birds enjoy Lady Bug? If I can figure out a way they can nest in the sail cover without hurting my sail, what's the danger?

Dratted Bird Update

I lost. The bird won.

After not sailing for almost two weeks, I go down to the boat at lunch on Friday to clean up and let her air out. I step on board and a bird comes darting out of the sail cover. "Aaaaarrrrggggghhhh" I yell. Just like that too.

I peek into the cover and it's a very well formed nest. I decide to leave it until Saturday, I'll bring my camera when Tim and I go sailing. Then I'll trash the nest and shake my little fist skyward.

I get down there on Saturday and as I'm pulling the nest out for its photo opp, I see the eggs. I can't destroy this; we're not talking about any bird, we're talking about a Mama Bird.



The problem is, I'm going sailing. No bird is taking that away from me, eggs or not. If I leave the nest on the dock, a seagull will eat the eggs (there is a reason this bird is in my sailcover). So I put the nest (with eggs) in the dock box for the afternoon.

When we get back to the dock (see story above for sailing description), I do something I never do. I put off cleaning the boat until the next day. And I forgot about the nest. And I left it in the dockbox overnight. And I hope Mama Bird isn't pissed off at me.

I went down to the boat this morning to put the nest and eggs back in the sailcover. Hopefully, it's at least a good faith gesture to Mama Bird so she knows that she can safely nest in there again. I'll learn to live with the hay in the cokpit if she learns to live with her nest being put in the dockbox for several hours every weekend. I'll keep you updated.

The Problems that Sailors Face

I keep a very tidy boat; she's washed down after every sail, I scrub down routinely, keep my lines coiled nicely, and have a fairly new yellow mainsail cover that is taut and well-fitted. I sail at least every couple of weeks so the boat stays clean. I like it that way.

A few months ago, I noticed a problem. I was going out for a sail and the cockpit was covered in hay. Now, I don't live in Kansas, this is a very odd thing. A bit of research and I noticed that the marina was growing some groundcover and had scattered hay to promote growth. No reason why only my cockpit was covered in hay, but Berkeley has some strange wind patterns.

Didn't think anything of it, the next couple of times out, no problems, just a bit of hay, nothing to concern myself with.

Three weeks ago, I'm taking my daughter out; I'm rolling up the sailcover and a frickin' nest falls on her head! Some birds were nesting in my sailcover. Now, that was cute. A great chance to educate my 4 year old about birds and nests. I placed it neatly on the dock in hope that the birds wouldn't lose their hard earned nest.

Three or four days later, I'm down at the boat doing some work and the cockpit is again covered in hay. What the &$#!? The birds were trying it again! This time, I angrily pulled the offending barley out of my sailcover and threw it in the water, glaring at the skies in hopes that the birds would know that I was pissed. That didn't work: while I was on the boat, these two chirpy little finches kept flying around the boat heckling me. Like I was on their boat.

Here's what I needed to do, get one of those plastic owls. No, that's expensive. Put mylar strips up like the vintners do. No, that's ugly. Continue glaring at them. No, I had to go home some time. So, I just tried tightening the sailcover.

Didn't work. More hay. More nest. Even worse, my dockmate (that's like a neighbor on land), told me that she was getting a good laugh from the cute little birds. I was now going down to the boat daily to de-nest the boat. There are approximately four hundred million abandoned boats in the Berkeley Marina and these little beasts continued to choose my boat as their home.

Nothing I have tried worked. So, I go down to the boat yesterday for some more futile extermination. As I walk along the dock, I see that my sailcover is unsnapped at the end where the birds live. DAMN, they have figured out the snaps; next they'll pick my lock and move into the vee-berth. I walk up to the boat and there's only one piece of hay. They're gone. Through no fault of my own.

The bad news....I keep a tidy boat and couldn't resist snapping up the birds home nice and neat as I left.