Syzygy Sailing

The other day, as I was using a grinder up on deck (I’d earlier drilled 18 holes, cored them, and filled them with epoxy in preparation for installing two rails to fasten the dinghy onto), a fella walked by and offered the best kind of advice there is: free advice.

He was wearing a gray t-shirt from which his stomach protruded, and he had a beer in hand. It was maybe noon. I liked him already.

“So when are you leaving?” he asked.

I pulled my ear plugs out and turned off the grinder, and he repeated his question.

“Not for more than a year,” I said.

“Well, remember, after you’re all stocked up on food, then buy your electronics.”

“Sounds like good advice,” I said.

“Yeah, well, I’ve wrecked all my fuckin’ electronics.”

He went on… he said he’d spent his whole life sailing in Maine — in fog so thick you couldn’t see your hand, and in which GPS didn’t work worth a damn — and that he’d only run aground once, “and that’s cause I was piss drunk.”

Here’s thanks for his advice, and envy for his stories.

A fire destroyed a nearby boat two days ago, and I’ve heard speculation that the fire could have been caused by: a) a cell phone charger or battery or b) a way-too-small shore-power cable or c) some other electrical short circuit created by a leak.

I am, of course, relieved that Syzygy is safe, that we installed GFCI (Ground Fault Cicuit Interrupter) outlets, that we have removed so much old/janky/dangerous wiring and properly fused all circuits — but I am nonetheless, hyper aware of how many things could start a fire. I am, you could say, frazzled. Most people around here are.

Continue reading “a devastating reminder”

It started raining yesterday; it was the first rain we’ve had in eight months.

Then the boat started leaking. I had thought that we had already tested her thoroughly, by putting enough water over her bow in the course of our sailing to leave no dry spot. Knowing how boat things go, though, I should have known that we wouldn’t get off that easy.

It leaks around at least three of our hatches. There’s a leak around the companionway that drains into our engine room–directly over my brand new electrical installations. I stopped looking after that. There must be dozens of leaks: behind cabinets, under boards, inside lockers, etc. I can’t think about it right now, it’s too discouraging.

Well in the blink of an eye two months went by–without a single day of sailing. The half moon bay trip was the last time, and although it left me eager for more time on the open ocean, the rest of life intervened. I’ve been keeping busy with other things: jonny and I climbed half dome via the snake dike route, karen and I drove to utah to join friends for a week of canyoneering, and I picked a thousand pounds of grapes with phil to make some wine (fermenting at this moment). But not much boat related stuff to report. I did get to the boat for a few days sometime in September to install the new head and associated plumbing (99.9% completed anyway), but that was all.

Finally this past weekend we got out for another fun social sail–this time we just barely ducked under the bridge before heading back. It was a super warm day, complements of an exceptional indian summer, and it was really, really good to pass the time with some old–and new–friends. Jonny and I each took a turn climbing to the masthead while under full sail, on the newly installed mast steps, and it was spectacular to be at the very top of the boat with it heeled over nicely in 10 knots of wind. Thanks so much to gary, anna, rob, julie, and dana for joining us for the day.
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It’s the nature of adventures for things not to go as planned, but that’s not much consolation when seasickness renders you as useless and immobile as a jellyfish and you’re out in the middle of the ocean and you’ve got miles to sail before reaching the comfort of terra firma. Only in hindsight, and only reluctantly — once you’ve got your wits about you again — can you call such an experience an adventure. Really, it’s much easier to call it what it was: a miserable, queasy, painful, wretched, torturous journey.

Matt, Karen, and I had decided it was finally time to take Syzygy out in the ocean, so we decided to sail from San Francisco 20 miles south to Half Moon Bay. It’s worth noting, now, that the Coast Guard had issued a small-craft advisory for the weekend, and that the forecast, which included an official “gale warning,” predicted 30 knot winds and 18-foot seas on Sunday, and 25 knot winds and 9-foot seas on Monday.

Continue reading “Anyone seen my sea legs?”

I spent the last two days drilling 36 holes in our mast, and I plan on drilling another 20. Not big holes; just quarter-inch holes. I’m installing mast steps, so that, from now on, getting up our mast won’t be a lengthy/cumbersome affair. You never know what you may need to fix up there.

Matt and I had meant to install the mast steps when the mast was out of the boat and lying flat on the ground, but we got sidetracked. Actually, the mast steps were a side track, and the main track was: fix things that need to be fixed before putting Syzygy in the water.

So now installing these 2-inch aluminum “steps” — which John Ryan custom made for us at his machine shop — requires ascending the mast 21 inches at a time. Twenty one inches seems a good height for a step — it’s about knee height for Matt, Jon, and I — and though we could certainly step higher in present conditions, it seems prudent to make the steps climbable in the rain, in the dark, while the boat is swaying madly.

Continue reading “drilling into the unknown”

. . . is so much more fun than working on the boat all month long. The footage below is brief and uneventful (battery died) but the sail itself was fantastic. We had great wind, and after an hour or so it cleared up and was sunny and beautiful.

Thanks to megan and lee for taking some photos, and thanks to all of our friends that came out (please come again!).

And until the computer ran out of battery power, the gps recorded our track. Note the backtracking that happened between angel island and treasure island–that’s where we decided to furl the jib and put up the staysail. During that process we were sailing with just the main, and that’s how well our boat sails to windward in 20 knots under main alone.

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So the first three times we sailed Jon, Jonny, and I went out by ourselves. This turned out to be a smart idea, because three times in a row we went out and broke something.

On July 4th we broke our reefing hook–broke it right in half (the metal was corroded apparently). We were practicing reefing, we lowered the mainsail, Jon hooked the tack to the reefing hook, and when we started tightening the halyard back up half the hook just flew right off. Lesson learned: don’t trust even large, seemingly strong metal parts without good reason. So we replaced the reefing hooks; we even put one on each side so it’s easy to reef from either tack.

The next time out we blew up a rope clutch. I was unwinding the main halyard from the winch and as soon as the force was transferred to the rope clutch it just shattered, the top popped right off and the axle snapped out. Pretty dramatically. So we replaced all of our rope clutches, and our deck fairleads, and serviced the winches.

The third time the stitching on the luff of our jib came apart. This was to be expected I suppose, since the stitching that failed was the stuff that’s been sitting in the sun for a decade while the sail was wrapped around the furler. It cost $175 to have Pineapple Sails restitch it.

Ready to take people out.

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