“And we sail and we sail and we never see land, just the rum in the bottle and a pipe in my hand…”
We picked up Temerity’s new rudder today, the day after our first ocean race, the OYRA Lightship I. It was designed by Jim Antrim and built by Waterat Sailing Equipment. It will be installed next week, along with the new bearings that were the driver for the project. It is lighter and stronger than the old one, and should lead to easier managment with better balance in heavy conditions.
The Temerities were out for a pleasure sail off South Beach when we had an encounter with the Hawiian Chieftan, the replica square rigger that often visits the Bay in the company of the Lady Washington. We had a lot of fun sailing rings around her!
Well, some tactical mistakes were made, but we finished, and I felt we had sailed the boat well.
I was lucky this year to sail the 3BF with my friend Tom Warren, a.k.a. War Dog, and we had a great time.
Here is the report I filed on S/A. More pics after the break.
Skipper/mixologist – pogen
Fordeck/color commentary – War Dog
Course: CW 
Synopsis:
Start. Managed to get through OK and on course to BH, despite lack of good timing and disorientation as to location of the X-mark. Wind from S. Set the spin early.
BH. We had overtaken a good number of Moores and E-27 who had started before us, and so were feeling pretty good. Finessed our way around BH w/o scraping any paint.
BH to Raccoon, Phase 1. Sucky suck suck. Along with one or two other boats, got stuck in a patch of dead air, hopelessly corkscrewing around with no steerage way at all. Lots of boats passed us just a few dozen yards to the E. WTF?
BH to Raccoon, Phase 2. While the bulk of the CW fleet swung way left up towards Richardson Bay, presumably looking for some better wind off the Gulch, or who knows what, we proceeded straight across, which worked out great as we beat most of them to the entrance.
Raccoon. The ebb had started, so we thought that we would do better on the shallower, Tiburon side of the channel than over by the Angel Is. shore, where it is deeper. Big mistake, we got smoked by many many boats. By now it was 13:45, we knew we were in for a long day.
Raccoon to RR. Made up a lot of time here, boatspeed very good against fleet.
RR. Stayed to the outside, detouring the parking lot of boats being set toward the beach by the current. Set the #1 jib and took off on a close reach towards TI. It was now 16:00, and a great many boats near us that are based in Richmond retired at this point — they were just too close to home!
Long haul south. Made very good time against remaing boats until we got behind TI shore, where a lot of boats further from the shore than we passed us.
At this point, there was a brief waver in our resolve to finish, but we asked ourselves and important question and received an affirmative answer. Getting dark!
And so on, finishing around 18:14, followed by a chilly and all too brief 2hr motor home!
Temerity will be out there with the awesome sailor War Dog as crew. Stay head’s up at the start!
Today we excercised Annika’ Christmas gift, an ATN TopClimber bosun’s chair, to climb to the top of our mast for the first time. It worked out great, with Annika and I making it to the top, and Char up to the first spreader. I didn’t do much besides finding out again how out of shape I am, and fiddling with the windex a bit.
Char ascends.
Annika working her way up.
Annika at the top!
Gnarly stuff at the masthead. We are replacing the light, the windex fitting, and the wind instruments.
Temerity’s new rudder and rudder bearings. Design by Jim Antrim. Now we just need to fab, install, and pay for it.
Temerity is on the hard at Svend’s, getting some very expensive holes drilled so as to accomodate the new Nexus NX-2 intstruments that arrived on my doorstep this afternoon. So no sailing for a bit, but great things to come next season!
So let the fun begin!
Temerity Racing went for a practice sail on Sunday August 9, circumnavigating Angel Island clockwise. Wind was WSW 24 kts gusting to 30 kts in the Slot, and we had our hands more than full with a single-reefed main and 95% #3 jib up. At times control was non-existant during gusts, as the helm loaded up and there was no one available with the physical strength to trim the main. Two fishing boats and the mid-bay #7 red channel marker nearly felt our wrath as we rounded up on them. Good practice for the Sarcoma Cup though, as conditions that day (especially the white-knuckle ride home from Richmond) were nearly identical. We had good intentions about getting in some spin practice as well, and gave the 3/4 oz a good soaking in its bag in the bow, but were too tired by the time we got back to calmer waters.
Race site here.
Angel Island (west side), San Francisco Bay, California
23 August 2009
2009-08-23 02:16 PDT 5.47 feet High Tide
2009-08-23 06:32 PDT Sunrise
2009-08-23 08:15 PDT 0.72 feet Low Tide
2009-08-23 10:24 PDT Moonrise
2009-08-23 14:48 PDT 5.95 feet High Tide
2009-08-23 19:51 PDT Sunset
2009-08-23 20:59 PDT 0.72 feet Low Tide
2009-08-23 21:28 PDT Moonset
Continue reading ‘Sarcoma Cup Currents’
We took Temerity on her first cruise, starting with an overnight in our slip in Alameda Friday, July 3 and returning on Friday July 10. Above, our route — Blue: Day 1, Alameda to China Camp. Green: days 2 and 3, up the Petaluma River and down, to Benicia. Red: Day 4, Benicia to Potato Slough. Black: Day 5, Potato Slough to Benicia. Yellow: Benicia to Alameda.
Over the Spring Break week Char and I did our first overnight cruise to Angel Island’s Ayala Cove. And forgot the damn camera. Again. Annika was busy that week riding herd over 16 sixth-graders as camp counselor so we were on our own.
The exciting element was the weather, with a Small Craft Advisory posted, and winds in the bay forecast into the 25 kt range. But we talked about it, and decided we could be OK by reefing the main from the get-go, and using our #4 (75%) jib. We would bail if we had to. As it turned out, we did see 20 – 25 apparent winds as we reached accross the Bay at 6 – 7 kts. Whee! But we never felt out of control, and Char was a champ!
After paying our fee at the dock and a rather awkward effort of mooring, we settled in to a dinner of spit pea soup and hard tack, and enjoyed watching Pirates of the Caribbean on the newly repaired mini-dvd player. The next morning winds were light and Easterly, so we had to resort to the motoring more than we might like to get home in a timely way. But we were in cruiser-mode, the weather was spectacular, and it was OK.
Better late than never, here is my report on our first completed race ever in Temerity, RYC’s Big Daddy pursuit race which was held back on March 15. Crew for the day was David, guest sailor/blogger Edward (who has his own very nice report up), Annika, Char, and Michael.
The route. After some shilly-shallying, we chose CCW, or did it choose us? Pretty painful with the #2 up in light air, getting rolled over and over, but we were glad of it on the reach down to Alcatraz (curiously not on the map). Char was responsible for the upwind work in Raccoon Straight.
Speed as recorded on the GPS. The three legs of the race are pretty distinct. Pretty exciting there in the end, kissing 9kts with the 0.6 oz blue kite up. Pretty exciting getting the kite down on the wrong side, too, and entertaining the rest of the fleet in the ensuing shrimp-fest.
Crew enjoys hot chocolate race-day morning.
The next Sam Davies (?), spokesmodel for Gill junior foulies.
Char driving.
Char rocks!
At the end, we were DFL – 1, which is an improvement over DNF. Next year we will beat 10 boats, the year after that? We will see!
Some scenes from last year’s Great Vallejo Race. We’ll be there this year, enjoying the racing, the multiple bars, and Johnny Nitro and the Doorslammers.
The race starts near the Berkeley Circle on Saturday morning, rounds a single weather mark near Alcatraz, and then heads to Vallejo, usually under spinnaker for the remainder of the race. The challenge is to maintain speed through the shadow of Angel Island, find the best combination of wind and current past the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge and East Brother Light Station and then avoid the mud shoals on the east side of San Pablo Bay. Depending on the day, the passage through San Pablo Bay can be a breeze (intentional pun), or a miserable drifter, complicated always by the currents, no matter its direction.
http://vallejorace.vyc.org/ (blog)
http://www.vyc.org/vallejo_race_about.html
Below: more video of people having fun in the GVR.
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