Syzygy Sailing

Pete and I believe that we fixed the engine, and Pete replaced the capacitor and rebuilt the fried portion of the ssb circuit board (our long-range radio), so barring other obstacles, we will be heading over to the fuel dock in an hour, and then departing.

As we leave, you should be able to watch us sail out of the bay in real-time on this website.  Stations on shore pick up our AIS signal (while we’re in range) and track us.  I added a link to the sidebar that will take you to our AIS signal (if there is one at the moment that is).  Whenever we are within range of one of these stations on the coast, you’ll be able to see exactly where we are, what direction we’re headed, and how fast (or slow!) we’re getting there.

Disclaimer: I don’t know how many other stations there are down the coast, or how often we’ll be in range, so don’t worry about us if we rarely show up on the tracking site.  Mainly, I don’t want family and friends fretting about us on account of this AIS thing.  The AIS takes power to operate, too, so we may power it up only occasionally.  But see if you can catch a glimpse of us leaving the bay at the least!

Karen and I took the boat out to fill up on fuel over at the berkeley marina.  The engine overheated.  We will not be leaving tomorrow.

The last priority projects have been checked off the list, the tools and food have been stowed.  We are waiting for one item in Monday’s mail, and we still have to fill up on fuel and water and do a hundred other little things that need to get done when you’re about to sail away for a long time, but those are just details, not the kind of thing that will hold us back for too long.

Starting Tuesday, we look for a weather window.  If the current predictions hold true, then Tuesday could end up being ideal for departure.  If the weather isn’t adequate, we will sail circles in the bay until we can leave.

About the weather: this time of year is generally shitty sailing weather.  Low-pressure systems form out in the middle of the pacific and head east, sometimes reaching the coast before they dissipate, and they bring with them bad weather.  When they approach the coast, the wind picks up and shifts around such that it comes out of the south south-west–which happens to be exactly where we’re trying to go.  If the storm is large, the wind produces large waves as well.  Sailing upwind in stormy weather, heavy wind, and large swell is to be avoided if possible.

So we’re looking for a at least a three-day window in which none of these low-pressure systems are headed into our region.  If we have three good days, we can head out, get a ways down the coast, and duck back into a harbor before the weather deteriorates.

We consult a few different weather sites: magicseaweed is a convenient portal to view the GRIB files, which give animated predictions for what the wind direction and strength will be (and swell height, period, also).  My navigation software can download this GRIP data and overlay it on the sailing charts.  I will trust the predictions for maybe three days out, after that I get rapidly skeptical and pay less attention to the predictions.  Anything past five days is probably useless, though if it shows some good weather I can’t help but get a little excited.  Check out magicseaweed–look for the squiggly line along the coast that is San Francisco Bay–and you’ll be looking at the same material we’re looking at each day.  Remember we’re looking for at least a three day stretch where the wind is not predicted to be strong out of the south/southwest.

After we pass under the gate, we’ll turn south, head offshore about five miles, then set a course to stay roughly parallel the coast.  We’ll keep going for as long as we feel awake, alert, healthy, and happy–that may be as little as one day or as long as a week.

I have a road-trip analogy: when you’re driving across the country, you make best use of wakefulness, as long as it lasts, to put some miles under the tires.  If you feel good and happy, you keep going.  As soon as you start to feel tired, you stop for the night.  For a few hours before that happens you’ve been paying attention to potential stopping spots–rest areas, campgrounds, backroads, state parks, etc–so that you can stop somewhere as soon as you need to.

That’s is more or less our approach as we sail down the coast.  The goal is to get south to better weather relatively quickly, within the parameters of staying happy and safe while we’re doing it.  As long as all the crew are awake, alert, well-rested, enjoying themselves etc, we’ll continue to take advantage of whatever weather window we have.  I have a list of harbors that are potential stops; at every point we’ll be within a day’s sail of a harbor on the list.  When we need a break, or if conditions are predicted to deteriorate, we’ll head in to the nearest harbor on the list and stay for however long we feel like.

In a month or two, when we find ourselves in hot weather with clear warm water and white sand beaches, then we toast the trip, throw a party, and get lazy.

I’m in the passenger seat of the car writing this post right now, as Karen and I drive down to Bakersfield to drop off the car . . .  tomorrow we catch the train back up to Emeryville. . . things are happening quickly now

Tonight Jim and Jeanne took all for of us (Pete, Ray, Karen, and myself) out to dinner.  Jim and Jeanne have a Valiant 40 just down the dock from us, and have from the beginning been supportive fans.  I get the feeling that they believe in us, they think we have been doing the right things, they think we’re ready to do this trip.  Their vote of confidence feels pretty fantastic.  So I thank them both for tonight’s dinner, and for their ongoing friendship.

Last night we had an informal departure party at a bar in San Francisco with a sizable crew of friends.  It was uplifting and encouraging to feel the support of so many good people who want to see us succeed, who wish us well and are excited for us.  I am grateful for such friends in my life.  To be surrounded last night by rational, sensible people that were giving us the “thumbs up, good for you, we think you’re doing the right thing” . . . well it was powerfully nice.

I would like to point out that such support is rare.  Most people who hear about our trip are not particularly encouraging, thinking either that we are being irresponsible (fiscally and morally), or unsafe.  I understand why people believe those things–their reasoning is sound–so I don’t get angry and I don’t  defend myself (I feel good about my choices).  But it sure is wonderful to be with people that don’t give us a hard time, but instead a rather great time!  So thanks to you all!  And thanks also to all of you who read this blog and are excited for us!

Finally.  10 months after it started, the sail is finished.  It was supposed to be done by June.  Then…. that didn’t quite happen. And so it got put off.  And put off.  And put off.  And soon, the boat was threatening to leave!  So I doubled down over Thanksgiving break and brought the thought of the completion of the sail into the ballpark.

Those first days of sewing in the gym were fun.  Huge panels getting sewn together and enormous visible progress of work.  It was fun back then!  But at Thanksgiving, I was no longer in a large gymnasium.   I was squashed into the smallish living room of a house.  The sail’s luff was three times the length of the room.  At one point, I felt it absolutely necessary to stretch out the luff of the sail.  It went through the living room, through the kitchen, over the island countertop, out the door to a deck off the kitchen and to the other side of deck railing where I anchored it so that I could stretch it taught.  There was snow out on the deck.  It felt ridiculous.

I was stretching the luff line of the sail to try and see by how much I had to chop off the top of our sail.  The luff line, which came with the sail-making kit from Sailrite is made of T900 from New England Ropes, requires two double braid eyesplices, one at each end, to attach the sail at it’s head to the mast, and at it’s tack to the bow of the boat.  After making the first eyesplice, I then,carefully measured the T900 line to the exact measure ment of our luff, (48’9”)  and marked that point as where the other eye-splice should end.  I then remeasured it as I’ve had trouble measuring things in the past.

With the second eyesplice made I tried as best I could in a 18′ wide room to see how well the luff line matched up to the length of the luff of the sail.  And everytime, it seemed to come up short.  And then I remembered that when making the second eye splice the rope will bunch up, thicken and consequently shorten. This happens because the eyesplice is designed to have the rope double back on itself.  The core of the rope, after going around the eye, goes back inside itself.  It’s a very cool thing and it locks itself into place.  I highly recommend making them simply because they are so cool.  At any rate, I had to chop off about 2 inches from the head of the sail and short both ends just a smidge so that the luff line would be better aligned.  Such are the trials and tribulations of a first time sail maker.

A week after Thanksgiving, I took two days off from work during a major push where I was determined to get 30 hours of work done on the sail.  Sorry boss, priorities.  One half of one of these days was spent trying to figure out how to install the cleats for the leech line and the foot line.  My first issue was with the rivot/grommet thing they sent me.  Home Depot was baffled as to what tool should be used to both A: cut a hole through the 9 layers of fabric where the cleats were to be installed, and B: how to press home the rivot/grommet.  Finally a leather store, Tandy Leather Factory, came through for me with a suggestion, while I was there buying a sewing palm.  I Suffice to say I ended up using a cordless drill to make the holes in the sail, at very low RPM and with clamps within milimeters of where the drill bit was.  All of this was conducted in the kitchen.  See pictures.  I was at Tandy after suffering through a day of using a makeshift palm out of duct tape and a tiny plastic cup.  Tandy wasn’t open on Sunday and I had work to do, so makeshift palm it was.

Within that time, though, there came a moment of celebration when I could finally put the sewing machine away and move on to hand sewing.  My roommates were also happy that I didn’t have to rearrange all of the living room furniture every time I wanted to work on the sail.  To begin the hand sewing, I first installed metal rings next to the head and tack of the sail.  Then there was anchoring those to the edges.  Then there was sewing the leather patches on.  When sewing the leather patches (this was done in California after driving out there over my winter break with an unfinished sail in the back seat), I began attaching the sewing palm to a leg of a chair turned upside down so I could then more effectively use both hands and all my weight as leverage to drive the needle through 5 layers of 1.5 oz ripstop nylon, 5 layers of 4 oz dacron, and if it was near the edge of the sail, another two layers of the 5 oz Dacron tape folded around the sail edge.  By my count that’s 37.5 ounces of fabric to push through.  That means something, I’m not sure what though.  No easy task is what it meant to me.  I had to simultaneously hold the needle so that it wouldn’t flex and bend and hold the fabric around the needle and hold the chair with the palm attached to it with my feet so that it wouldn’t slide away and make sure I didn’t stab myself.  I’m impressed I didn’t draw blood more than twice.

It’s finished though and I have an enormous sense of exhaustion, elation and pride.  This was the largest boat project I got to be a part of, and it was pretty much all on me.  No help, no other expertise from the other guys.  It felt good to be the sole expert.  At one point, Matt said, “You better finish it, ’cause I sure as hell have no clue how to.”  Well I finished it, even if I stretched it out until December 28th.

After finally finishing and toasting, with a much deserved beer, the official hand-over ceremony of the sail to Matt, Matt began playing with the scraps of sail left over for repairs if that might ever be necessary.  Karen, please make sure you’ve made him some better shorts by the time I get out there.  Because if I ever see him in just the sail cloth like he was showing off, I think I might be permanently scarred.

I was back out in San Francisco helping with a big last minute push on getting work done.  And giving Karen and Matt, and me in particular a big morale boost.  There was mention of going sailing to see the sail get flown.  Given the state of the boat, I knew that wasn’t really a possibility.  But we did end up hoisting my sail in the marina just to see how it looked, and to cut some drifter sheet lines for it.  It looked beautiful.  I felt proud.  I also felt embarrassed that I left on highly visible small stickers identifying each panel. I think Karen took some pictures.  If so, I hope she posts them.  I was too busy just looking at it,  thinking about how long it had taken, and how much has happened in my life since I started it.  A ten month sailboat project was right there flapping lightly in the breeze.  The last ten month saga of my life was there, playing lightly in my mind.

I’m envious that I won’t get to be there when it is first flown.  But I looking forward to joining the boat in June and being there as long as my money can sustain me.  We’re not exactly sure where the boat will be.  I’m committed as I can be to being there.  And finally getting to use the boat, instead of just talking about it.  Looking forward to it.