Jonny and I managed to get the stanchions reinstalled, and the water pump replaced, in time to sail for the weekend. It was a beautiful day and we had a large turnout, but no wind. After having to bleed the engine again (three times in three days–there’s an air leak somewhere, you think!) we motored out beyond the last channel markers, tried to sail, gave up in zero wind, and floated around in a lake of nearly still water. It was a balmy San Francisco winter day, and I didn’t hear a single person complaining about the lack of wind. After an extended period of non-sailing due to constant boat work, it felt really good to have Syzygy in sailing shape again. And maybe next time we’ll actually have to use our sails (they’re just up for show in the picture–or to be honest just because we were too lazy to put it away).
Jon flew out from denver last week to spend the holiday on his boat, and his parents flew in to join us (and get a look at the boat). We went out the day after thanksgiving, got a late start (1pm or so), and made incredible time out to and past the gate. On turning around to head for home, we discovered the cause for our great speed: a 4.5 knot ebb, reaching its peak just as we were trying to get back under the bridge. We spent a fair amount of time crossing back and forth trying to make headway against the river of current trying to push us out to sea. We discovered that the best place to be for a favorable current was right up against the shoreline, as close as we were willing to get–the catch-22 is that the wind fell off close to the shore, as we got in under the lee of the marin headlands. We spread some more canvas (the staysail) and that gave us a little bit of a boost. Once we reached the water along chrissy field (north shore of san francisco) we were home free–we were even helped along at that point by a couple knots of flood. We motored into the marina well after dark, ending another fantastic day on the bay. Here’s our funny looking track, although honestly I expected it to look a lot more ridiculously convoluted than it does:
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.
. . . 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.
What was it like to go sailing for the first time on my boat? It was a feeling not easily expressible in normal sentences; rather, much more elusively affective. And sensory. But read this and maybe you’ll catch a breeze of what I felt that day.
Liberating. Freeing. Bliss. Matt at the wheel, slightly nervous; he hasn’t steered our boat since barely getting into the dock a month ago.
Motoring out of the marina. All of us, grinning like sloppy newlyweds.
Jonny on the foredeck, watching for other boat traffic. I slap Matt across the back. Whoop! Holler! I’m giddy.
The hard work was worth it. 19 hour work days. No climbing. No biking. Just working. Doesn’t seem like work now.
