Day three started all in a hurry.  I was sleeping pretty deeply when I heard a sorta a bump, not obviously a bump but something.   I rolled over.  Katie heard something too but instead of rolling over she elbowed me and said “I just heard something”.   Once I was put in the position of explaining what the bump was I realized I should go check on it, apparently my brain wasn’t quite functioning yet.   I rolled out of bed and stumbled out on deck.  Looking around in the twilight I saw the surf looming not far off, as I looked at it I tried to locate my fix and determine if we were dragging anchor, it wasn’t clear.  Previously I noted what depth we were at when I set anchor and I decided that I would check the depth and see.  I flicked on the depth meter and sure enough we were in 7-8ft of water.  My boat draws 6ft easy and I’m never comfortable unless there is 10 or so it was time to take action.   By that time Katie and mom were moving a bit and Katie took the helm  I went up to the bow and began to reel in the 150′ of chain that was out.  Getting on my knees I began to crank and nothing…  Now at this point im feeling a bit of adrenaline I’m sure and I look down to see if the chain is fowled and it looked fine.  There was a bit of tension on the chain so I though I just needed to put a a bit of elbow grease into it.  I pulled a bit harder and to my horror I felt the unmistakable shearing of metal as the handle came free.  It seems that in my hurry I stripped the gear in the windlass.   As soon as it happened I realized that there was a safety catch still engaged which caused the whole thing.   I released the catch and of course the windlass was free, but now I only had one direction.   I ended up being able to pull the anchor in using only one direction of the windlass but it took a looooong time pulling in only about 4 inches per stroke of 150 or so feet of chain….    By the time I was done the sun was coming up and we decided to start our day sailing right then.   Katie went below and fixed us breakfast, mom and I raised sail and tried to wrap our brains around the fact that we were sailing again.

Woke up to a beautiful day full of sun and light winds over the boat.  Neither Katie or I could get up when the alarm went off at 4am, and mom decided that it was better for us to get our sleep then wake up early again.  Since we were late getting up again, we decided we would take the afternoon tide and so we had the morning to get ready.

By the time noon rolled around the wind and picked up a bit, not quite to what it was the day before but 20’s for sure.  But we were pretty optimistic and decided to head out.  Things were going well until we got about 100 yards from the gate when all of a sudden the reefing block ripped out of the boom.   You have to understand that Ellora has a wooden mast and boom which are beautiful and original but also they are kind of bizarre.  You see the boom was originally designed to be “roller furling” there is a special gear in the boom which actually allows the boom to rotate around its its self and roll the sail up.   The problem is that the sail looses all its shape when you do it so its something that is basically useless.   So my boom at some point was retrofitted with conventional blocks to facilitate traditional slap reefing.  The problem as I was to learn with this retrofit was that because the boom does rotate from time to time there is no way to insure that the geometry of the reefing does not cause the block to be pulled in an inappropriate direction and make it vulnerable to ripping out of the boom.  Of course this isn’t something you typically experience in the bay since normally you are not sailing in winds that are so strong so I hadn’t noticed the problem previously.  Unfortunately when the wind is strong is exactly when you need to reef the sails!

So we are sailing about 100 yards from the gate when the reefing block ripped off and I had to quickly drop the main before the sail ripped its self to shreds.   Dropping the sail went well but because the wind was so strong we sailed out of the gate under jib and mizzen rather then try and raise the main again.  Leaving the gate the second time wasn’t quite the same as the first time something of the feeling finally was gone.

The rest of the afternoon was fairly uneventful and we actually made some good north-ing, not 50+ miles but 15-20 miles.   As the sun started to go down we were trying to decided what to do, the forecast said that the wind was supposed to pick up again over night to 30 knots.  At about that time I felt my first real despair that I wasn’t going to be able to take the boat to Seattle.   Here we were day three and only about 15miles north of the gate and we were contemplating heading home.  I told Katie the way I was feeling and she suggested that we anchor at Bolinias bay  which we did.   We agreed this seemed like a reasonable plan so we pointed the boat towards the shore and sailed up to Stimpson beach which is just south of Bolinas.  As we sailed up the beach I thought about when I came to the beach as a kid and how different the beach looks from the water.  We got to the bay and dropped anchor.  I checked the depth, 16 to 14ft.  looks like a sand and small rock, feels like we are holding well.  As the boat rocked quietly at anchor I feel my spirits lift again and think to my self that the feel of the boat at anchor is worth it all.  I think at this point we were all feeling pretty good after an eventful day we were content to lick our wounds and settle down for what we hope was a quiet night….

Collin

Friday morning rolled around and we didn’t leave, just a couple more tasks then Friday afternoon came and went finally about 4ish we got underway for what we hopped was a 2-3 week trip.  All that anticipation had me excited to get going so rather then sail up the whole estuary we sailed some and motored the rest of the way.  Of course we were fighting the tide so we didn’t make it up the channel for quite some time and by then we had worked out that our strategy was to anchor at Treasure Island for the night and catch the motoring tide out of the gate.

At this point in the trip we had grand notions that we would make it to Fort Bragg as the first leg of trip.

Pulling into Treasure island, a trip I’ve done dozens of times now we dropped anchor about 9pm and proceeded to make a nice supper.  All the work getting ready pooped us out so we all went to sleep early the plan was to get up about 4am to catch the tide.

At about four am I got up and roused the crew.  We were all a bit sluggish but I got things going.  I had the idea that I would slip anchor under the jib and sneak out of the harbor before anyone was really going.  I had the anchor up and was sailing out of the lagoon when to my horror I felt the boat come to a slow halt!  Damn bay mud had us.  Now I’ve been in and out of that lagoon quite a bit and I know that you have to stay near the pier or you can run aground pretty easy and I was damn close to it especially since I was under sail and the pier was a bit intimidating to get too close to with very little wind for steerage.  Well we were stuck, and stuck good.  Since this was not the first time Ive been stuck in the bay I took it okay and sat back on the deck to wait for the tide to come in and raise the boat up and free us.

While sitting in the mud I reviewed my strategy for the day.  We were trying to sail towards the gate while the flood tide was happening so that we would get to the gate during the slack before the ebb tide.  For the non sailors out there we were trying to get the water to push us out the gate as opposed to fighting us.  Waiting for 3-4 hours for the tide to come up enough for us to get out of the lagoon put us off that timetable and stressed the crew out somewhat in the bargain.   Finally we got free and headed out towards the gate, and as the air of the day warms the winds and the gate are picking up, and picking up, and picking up…

By the time we reach the gate the wind is at its full 30+ knots of summertime strength, the weather radio says the swells are 15-20 feet outside the gate but we are well reefed down and with just a shred of jib we decided to head out and see how it goes.

The boat is doing fine, the crew is fine, its warm and while the sailing is pretty extreme we are doing okay as far as safety goes, we are all tied in and things feel very controllable but I think our energy is being depleted pretty quickly because of the magnitude of everything.  I go below and take a nap at about 2pm.  I’m down for 2 hours or so and Katie and Mom take turns at the helm, by the time I get back up to take a look around its about 5ish.  Disappointingly we are not even past Stimson beach!  The swell, the wind, the tanker ships, and the buoys, the rocks, and the potato patch all working to making tacking upwind and making any  north a tricky business.

At this point I make the decision to head back into the gate to try again the next day.  I wasn’t up for our first night of the trip to be a battle with 30knot winds and big waves.  We dropped anchor in Sausalito around 9pm (dusk) and licked our wounds.  It had been a looong day 4am getting stuck, 10+ hours of big waves and wind and demoralizing to head home again after all that work.   As I worked on the deck getting things sorted out for the night I thought to my self that a warm meal and a good nights sleep might change the mood but I wasn’t sure that dream of Fort Bragg was seeming like a fantasy a looong way away.

Collin

I drove back to the bay area on Friday the 12th of June.   Instead of heading directly to the boat I went to Sig and Carol’s boat for a sister-ship get together.   There were two other ChoeyLee offshore 40’s there it was awesome to see what these other boats looked like and to meet with some other owners and hear and learn from them.  I finally got back to the boat on Monday the 14th and Katie was due the 15th.   Basically the plan was to finish up the boat and start sailing as soon as possible.

Right away I started on the dodger.  Well actually I started the dodger in Seattle with Colin M. and the plan was to fit the dodger to the boat, and glass it when I got back to the boat.  As it turned out fitting the dodger to the boat was going to be a week long job so with a little prodding from Mom and Katie I decided to put that on the back burner especially since I got the dodger for the companion way up.

That left the chain-plates as the only major project I needed to finish up before sailing.  The ongoing debate about the chain-plates was trying to decide weather I should move the chain-plates to the outside of the boat or to leave them where they were going through the deck.   The advantage of moving them is that on the outside of the boat they are much easier to monitor, as time goes on and the metal fatigues its easy to see what condition the plates are in, the downside is that it changes look of the boat and bending the metal to the contours of the hull was potentially hard as a DIY task.  In the end I decided to leave them where they were and I went to the metal shop and bought some galvanized steel to make replacement plates.

While the dodger and chain-plates were being built and installed a variety of other projects were going on with Mom, Katie and I doing 2 or 5 things at once, the boat was a real zoo.  Katie took care of outfitting the boat for the trip.  She basically filled the van again with things that didn’t need to go on the trip as well as provisioning food and all the necessities such as water and medicines.  Mom helped out with most everything running errands, helping with the dodger and installing the radar.  While part of me wanted to finnish every little project before we left one of the advantages of the Seattle trip vrs Hawaii is that we knew that we would be able to get more of most anything during the trip.

By Thursday we were ready to go, and the decision was to get a good nights sleep and leave Friday morning.

I’ve been trying to nail down a departure date and it seems like the land is holding me down gaaah!  I’m still in Seattle trying to finish up some paying work for spending money.  Its exciting to be so close to the adventure.  The plan is to be in SF by the weekend.  Last minute preparations include inspecting the chain-plates, installing my second generator to charge the second battery bank, and testing the wind-vane I installed before I moved my stuff and kitty up to Seattle.

Collin

Right now I’m working on building a dodger for the boat.  I’m building a hard dodger kind of like the ones you see here:

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/steve.marshall/HardDodgersForSailBoats#

I wish I were as dedicated to the process of documentation as some people are with projects but oh well here I did make a small video I took of the build in process.  I hope to post a couple pictures of the fiber-glassing part of the project and of course the final look.

Here is a sideways video of the work in progress:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWYkrkmj0f4

Collin

I pretty much deleted the last 6 months of posts.  No amount a backups prevents you from being a bone head.  Anyway.  The last thing I wrote about was how I was taking time off to study for my captains test.  Well I’m back sailing and sooner or later Ill make it through all hoops to get my licence.

The last 2 months have been a blur of plans and Ideas.  Since I was laid from reach (http://reachsystems.com) off I’ve been dreaming and trying to plan a trip to Hawaii.  Finishing what I need to get the boat ready has been epic.  Unfortunately I think that I’m not sure I have the budget to spend the next 2 months on the water.  A more manageable trip would be the trip to Seattle and that’s really what I’m thinking Ill end up doing.  Not to mention Katie can only take off 3 weeks so she could only do one leg of the Hawaii trip.  No matter the outcome the exciting part is the idea of actually setting sail a dream come true for sure.

Collin

Katie, John, and I sailed to Half Moon Bay the first weekend in October–what a trip.  Katie and I have been working up to the level where we felt comfortable but it pushed us both outside of our comfort level.

John arrived on Friday night. His flight was delayed and he didn’t get in until later then we expected.  Initially the plan was to head on up to Treasure Island by nightfall and have a long evening of it under the hook.  Instead, we were behind schedule from the start.  Not that I’m blaming John, or even the airline, but I was definitely was feeling behind most of the weekend.  That must be from the internet lifestyle we are living where everything you want is a quick lookup away, but I digress…

By Saturday morning we were making our way through the gate.  The plan was to be at the gate well before the finish of the ebb tide,  and definitely before slack.  We didn’t make that timeline at all. Perhaps it was the hearty meal of hot cereal I leisurely made that morning which delayed us, otherwise it was the whole sleeping in thing, whatever.

Having missed our tide we were beating back and forth under the bridge with all the sails up trying to get out past the land and head south down the coast.  It was somewhere around the third or fourth tack passing the same landmark when I realized we were never going to make it unless I started the engine to get us out of the pull of the current at the gate.  This was the first of many concessions we made to the sailing purist ideal which I someday may achieve…

Next we found our selves heading down the coast looking at ocean beach and the other famous landmarks of San Francisco.  The view is spectacular and we were all appreciating the beautiful weather and the scene and it would have been perfect but it turned out that the waves were freaking huge and the wind was blowing hard.  That morning, I noticed that the forecast called for a Small Craft Advisory but 12-16 foot waves and gusts to 25 knots don’t seem as bad in the abstract.   Hey, I’m still learning.

Somewhere around hour four, both Katie and I found ourselves leaning over opposite sides of the boat, puking our guts out.   Neither of us took any motion sickness pills before the trip just to see what would happen. In retrospect, that wasn’t the wisest plan.  In anycase, there is something mildly restorative about puking and I’m optimistic that I am not the type who will get unbearable sea sickness, something I still had lingering concerns about.

As we approached Pillar Point Harbor, I turned on the radio to hear the chatter and let the harbor master know we were looking for a slip for the night.  Right away, we picked up a conversation between a couple boats discussing the approach to the marina.  The word was that the large waves combined with the low tide were causing the waves to break unusually close to the approach to the marina.  I don’t remember the exact wording but it was something like “get in quick or you will be surfing in”.  After hearing that, I decided that it was a good idea to turn the motor on and boogie on in as fast as we could since the wind had decided to die down a bit as the sun went down.   As we approached the point in front of the marina, all we could see was massive waves breaking on the reef.  By this time, everyone was straining to see the channel markers to guide us in.  Finally, we saw them and headed in.  In the end, navigating the channel wasn’t too hard, and we made it in safe and sound but it was quite a challenge at the end of a long trip.

That night we went into town and found a brewery. All trips should have a brewery at the end. Even though we only had a beer or two each it felt great to relax and unwind after our first adventure out of the gate.

and things just aren’t the same. My awesome sister is doing the Peace Corps in Macedonia. While this is totally great for her and the people of Macedonia, I’m bitter that she won’t be around for Christmas. I’m all for change but not when it comes to Christmas, for Christ’s sake!!! I am just getting used to the fake Christmas tree that my parents are now using. How can we have Christmas without Jessica!?

Anyway, I am also bitter about the price of plane tickets. I’m taking Hollywood home for the holidays but I cannot find a ticket for anything resembling a reasonable fee.

I can anticipate Hollywood’s reaction to this entry. He is going to make fun of me writing about Christmas in September. But I can’t help it. I can feel it coming.

Katie had four good friends visiting last weekend. Six people on the boat for four days was fun. Nobody got too grumpy, except maybe kitty. On Saturday we went for a day sail. We left at noon and were motoring down the estuary when we were pulled over by the Coast Guard. My first instinct when I saw the blinking lights was a bit of panic, but it helped when they actually got on the boat and I realized there were just a bunch of 20 somethings and not the “authority figures” as my mind had made them up.

Once on board, the Coast Guard had their list of things they wanted to go over. I had everything on the list but one small thing: I could not for the life of me remember where the serial numbers were on the boat. I clearly remember seeing a wooden plaque attached to the hull somewhere, but for some reason I can’t remember where it is. Of course, tearing up the boat under the scrutiny of the Coast Guard doesn’t help you remember.

Word got back that despite the Coast Guard and the close proximity everyone had a good time over the weekend. I’m looking forward to next weekend. The plan is to work on some boat projects then go sailing.