80 miles to windward in an ultralight

[Alan H]

This weekend I went for a little sail.

Criminy...

My boat is up in Alameda, now, at the marina where she'll be calling it "home" for a while. That's in San Francisco Bay. Tonight the Luminous Joan and I drive to Santa Cruz and get the trailer and bring it here. Tomorrow night is class, and then Wednesday night I take the trailer to Alameda, put the boat on it deliver my EPIRB to the shop to get it checked and the battery replaced. Then after that it's the skippers meeting for the LongPac race. That's the big goal for the summer,to do the LongPac. It's a 400 mile race, solo and is a qualifier TransPac race I want to do next summer.

It was a pretty tough passage. 80+ miles, probably 120 miles of actual sailing, to windward. It started out really, really slow, I went all of about 9 miles in the first 7 hours so I didn't make it to the harbor that's about 2/3rds of the way up the first night. For those of you that know Santa Cruz, I left at 3:30 AM from the Harbor and was at Davenport at around 9:30 AM. Not a lot of progress, eh? There wasn't a lot of wind....understatement of the week.

Anyway, that night I was about halfway between Pigeon Point and Half Moon Bay had to sail 10 miles out and spend the night out there. That's OK, I actually got 5-6 hours of sleep. If I'd been able to use my motor I could have made it, but I needed to sail a full 50 miles to qualify for the LongPac, and besides the fog was coming in and I've never come into Half Moon Bay from the South. The last thing you wantto do is enter a strange harbor at night, in the fog....goes double for HMB becasue it has a big reef that stretches out about 2 miles from the point. I could easily piled the boat up on Colorado Reef.

The next morning I woke up (I was up and down all night, of course,though I couldn't see more than about 100 feet 'cause of the fog) and it was still socked in, and I sailed for SF. Fortunately it lifted when I was still about 5-6 miles away, 'cause it was a total washing machine at the Gate.

I started at 3:30 AM early Saturday morning, went under the Gate at about 1:00 PM Sunday and tied her up at the Alameda Marina at about 4:00 PM Sunday.

I am sore all over! I mean ALL over! That much windward work in an ultralight? Oyyy. Advil is my friend.

I can't say it was "fun", you know? The first passage offshore in a new boat, especially having not tested it out in more protected waters, first is a bit nerve-wracking. I was rather apprehensive going around Ano Nuevo, since that was the site of a significant disaster the last time I did this passge (with two other guys on the boat) and it was blowing hard. The middle of the night in a small boat, wedged into a seat with the boat crashing and flapping all around you, knowing that no other boat/ship can see you because of the fog, bashing to windward in 20 knots of wind and 4 foot seas is not a whole lot of fun (I had a good radar reflector mounted). Look at it this way...On Sunday I was down to two reefs in the main and the working jib, and I was thinking about a headsail change to the heavy-weather jib. fortunately, it eased up a bit.

Essentially everything *worked*, though I have some changes to make and I need to swap out all the nuts on the bolts of my windvane and replace them with nylock nuts and lock washers. That and re-do the main reefing system. The leads are there, I just need to run different lines and rivet on some different anchor points on the boom. Aside from that, everything worked very well. So while it wasn't "fun" it was an excellent test of the boat... which passed with flying colors. It also gives me a feeling of accomplishement. That was a heck of a sail I just did.

[Panache]

Welcome Home Alan and congratulations on a successful voyage!

Get those muscles taken care of, you are competing on Saturday and celebrating after the Games!

Cheers

Jamie

[TimC]

Excellent job my friend! That can be a long trip but both skipper and vessel were equal to the task. Proud of you.

-Tim

[Monkey@Arms]

Dude, it just boggles my mind that you can do such stuff. But then again, I always say if civilization depended on me we would all still be living in mud huts, and unreinforced ones at that.


Best regards,

Jake

[starbkjrus]

Congratulations and welcome home!

[keepoffgrass]

great job! congrats!

[BEEDEE]

From one sailor to another -

“Men go back to the mountains, as they go back to sailing ships at sea, because in the mountains and on the sea they must face up.”

Henry David Thoreau

Congratulations on the first leg of your qualifiers. I know a few solo sailors and have nothing but admiration for them - but it's not for me.

Brian

[way2fractious]

Dry land for me! Between the sailors and the skydivers in this Nor-Cal rabble, I get seasick and/or airsick just contemplating the journeys.

Glad to hear you made it safely to port. After you toss a few weights - then a few glasses - you can regale us with the adventure.

w2f
who's got landlubber legs.