So there I am looking at the horizon, left arm wrapped around a Lewmar 44 winch, feet stretched across the cockpit steading me againt the starboard lazarette, having just a grand time!  It is bit cold though...  Sadly I'm not headed anywhere too interesting and if I turn around I can see La Jolla a few miles away, but I'm still having a damn fine time!

Yesterday we wrapped up our ASA-103 class by starting the day with a written test that we all did rather well on.  Then it was time to cast off the dock lines and head out the mouth of the bay again.  Sunday wasn't nearly as rough or windy as Saturday but the wind we had was surely 10 degrees cooler than the day before!  I had all my clothes on, but for rain pants, by the time we were exiting the yacht harbor, as did most every one else.

With the only real hurdle we had left behind us we all just enjoyed a wonderful day on the ocean in a 32 foot sail boat.  Basically day two for us was sailing.  Some tacking, some gybing, some sail trimming, and just a bit of navigation.

After the written test Dennis gave us some basic pointers in navigation and chart reading, again just great info!  The sailing was fun, not too challenging, even if a bit cold.  We cruised down to Point Loma, skirting the kelp beds to the east.  Then we turned north and cruised up past La Jolla before heading back in to Mission Bay. In that time we were able to start to feel how to make the boat work with the swells and the wind.  

As a swell would pass under us the rudder would be pushed this way and that, the bow would swing around and we'd heel and straighten.  You could fight it or you could work with it to keep the boat both on course and trimmed properly to make the most of the wind.  It wasn't easy, certainly not at first, but over time each of us could smoothly rise up and down.  Obviously more practice is needed and we only had swells from a few directions.  Regardless, we began to understand that skippering a sailboat on the ocean is less about compass, knot meter, and tell tales and more about the feel of the boat and the ocean through your feet, hands and butt.

We turned on the knot meter and depth gauge and it was an odd thing, at least for me.  I felt compelled to watch the knot meter and try to make it show me as big a number as I could.  This, then, felt more like driving down the freeway trying to get to where ever I may be headed as soon as possible.  I realized as I was doing this that this was NOT why I came out here to sail.  I want to sail to NOT be in the rat race, to not be in any race other than human.  Sailing is to be my disconnect, so judging myself based on numbers on an LCD display just felt plain wrong.  So I looked away, I looked for sea lions and other animals.  I watched the sails and the horizon and my crewmates as I glanced at the compass to help me stay in the wind.  This felt much more right.  I'll need to remember this lesson in the future.

I now have the ASA-103, Basic Coastal Cruising certification which means I can now leave the bays and head out in the ocean and I can do this on bigger boats, up to 35 feet.  Also If I take a one hour course to get checked out on the 42 footer I can take that boat out as well.  These boats cost more to rent but they can also hold more people comfortably.

I don't have a plan for taking one of these sweet rides out yet, but I'll be working on that over the next few weeks.  My next sail will likely be in San Francisco bay with my father in law.  I'm really looking forward to that sail because I'm betting the conditions will be more challenging than most anything I've sailed in yet.  Now before I get accused of being a dare devil only wanting to sail in tough, read crappy, conditions, understand that I only want to sail in tough conditions to learn and be comfortable in them.  My dream sail is certainly a smooth warm day with 10 to 15 knots of wind.  But I don't want to crawl into the corner and cry if the fan does get hit with something...

With completeing this cert I have taken one more small step towards a bigger goal and taken another step into a bigger world.

Ciao,
Seaman Ray 

This last weekend I took the ASA-103 Coastal Cruising class.  Basically what this means is that now I can do two things.  I can sail boats up to 35 feet and I can leave the shelter of the Bays in San Diego.

The class was out of Mission Bay, where I've never sailed, which has a very short motor to the open ocean.  With the exception of a few hours on a skippered, chartered, boat a few years ago I haven't been in the open ocean in a very long time.  I could tell it's been awhile!

Obviously a boat will move around on the rollers and wind waves but I was surprised at the bobbing nature of the ride.  We had enough wind that we reefed the main and started with a reefed jib for the early part of the day.  With 6-8 foot swells and wind blown white caps it was quite a ride!  But i'm getting a little ahead of myself.

We started the day dockside in a Catalina 320, there were four of us plus the instructor Dennis.  I liked Dennis and my crewmates right away.  Dennis' dry wit matched my own and he is extremely knowledgable on sailing, and other, matters.  We spent an hour and a half going over the boat bow to stern and boom to bilge.  This boat has a Yanmar diesel that we were given a primer on operating and troubleshooting.  While I like the simplicity of diesel engines, I have more to learn before I'll be comfortable in the middle of an ocean with one.  It was good to get information that I'm always interested in but afraid to ask.

[Aside: it turns out that I'm not the only one who wants all kinds of nitty gritty details, that may be superfluous, but was afraid to ask.  My classmates were interested in the very same things...]

So we pulled the speed sensor and saw it's encrustation first hand, we tested the bilge pump, we flushed the toilet, we cleared the raw cooling water strainer, we were given a brief primer on hailing technique, we reviewed the power panels, and even how many of the house acoutrements worked such as tables and berths and hatches.

With a working knowledge of the systems on our boat we headed out.  It became immediately apparent that a 32 foot boat is much bigger than a 22 foot boat!  From Quivira Basin in Mission bay it's a short motor out the harbor and into the channel leaving the bay.  You're soon met with slow rollers coming in the channel from the ocean. :D  We started bobbing...  As I mentioned earlier the swells were substantial and we actually started taking them over the bow with spray all over.  These were the exact conditions I hoped we'd see.

As we made our way out the channel we raised the main and reefed it.  Once out in the open we partially unfurled the jib and killed the engine.  It was such a change in noise and vibration, and oh so pleasant.  But it wasn't a smooth ride by any means...  We learned some interesting techniques for handling the boat like short stopping in a boat length while under sail and under power.  I thought it was pretty amazing that we'd throw the wheel all the way over, control the main, but still try to allow it to luff, and just spinning in a circle for a minute before stopping completely.  Simple as you please and all we needed to do to get into heave to was spin the wheel the other way at the right moment.

The rest of the morning was a pleasant sail with tacking, gybing, furling, unfurling, shaking reefs out and just basically boat handling in the swells.  All these topics were challenging in the conditions we had but they came to all of us in short order.

The afternoon was spent learning anchoring, docking - both forward and backwards - in tight spaces, and a significant amount of time was spent on man over board practice.  We finished up with a short sail back out the channel and back, just killing time till the 5-oclock end of our first day.

When i got home I was surprised at how tired I was.  I also got some grief for being so sunburned...  Put on sunscreen!

This was just a taste of ocean sailing and it was yummy!

Seaman Ray 

It's been a while.  I've been busy...

But yesterday we shook off the sailing cob-webs and got underway once again.  Our excursion was again in a Catalina 250 and this time we added a few adventurers to the fun.  Sam, Mandi, Madison and I were joined by Alec and Sergei, two kids in our neighborhood.  They kept Sam occupied, perhaps a bit too much.

Initially I wanted to get Mandi and Sam some time on Tiller and Sheet, so once I raised the sails Sam got on the tiller, I took the baby, and Mandi hit the sheets, so to speak...

As we approached a lee shore I deemed it time to tack.  Sam called the commands, and Mandi was ready, so Helm to Lee!  But then the sheets were not cooperating on the winches.  The fairleads were too close to the winches which was causing the sheets to ride up on themselves and get wrapped up, jamming the sheet and not allowing the Jib to switch sides.  This happened three times before I had to take the sheets in hand myself and see if I could do any better.  I could not, but at least I was strong enough to pull the sheets out once they'd wrapped.  Of course I didn't diagnose the true problem until much later in the day when we'd already wrapped the sheets around the winches far too many times for a four hour sail.  We moved the fairleads forwards on their tracks a few clicks...  lessons lessons...

All of this was exacerbated by inconsistent shifty winds.  From the moment we left Marriott Yacht Harbor to the point where we were abeam of Shelter Island the winds had shifted a good 140 degrees!  Further challenges lay in the fact that the winds would gust from 0 to 20 knotts and back.  When we finally decided to turn and head back down wind towards San Diego we ended up in a wind hole.  Not sure how else to describe it.  We were becalmed when just minutes before we were heeled nearly 30 degrees.  What I did notice as we bore westward though was that the closer we got to the mouth of the Bay the more consistent the winds became.  Mental notes were taken...

Another factor that was challenging us was the rudder flopping around on very loose or worn pintals.  We could not make minor adjustments in course because the rudder would just flop over a few more degrees than intended and the course would swing MUCH farther than intended.

Okay, I can hear you out there, I know...  We were still enjoying a spectacular day on San Diego Bay!  Truth be told we probably learned more under these conditions than we would have in perfectly steady 10 knot winds on a brand new boat.  At this point in my sailing career that really is the point of most of the these trips.

I did get to practice one more manuever before the day was out.  I successly got the boat into Heave To, albeit probably from the worst point of sail to start from.  We were running, having just passed under the bridge, in a wing and wing configuration.  With the mainsail to starboard and jib to port I probably should have turned to port there-by taking pressure off the main and backing the jib.  Huh?  What?  You mean that would have just put us into Heave To pain free?  Well, yes it would have, had that been what I chose to do...

Of course I'm Monday Morning Skippering here and at the time it seemed the right thing to do was to turn starboard.  I really wish we would have had some video of the events that followed but long story short we did a 270 with the main flailing from full starboard to full port and back again.  Under certain circumstances this really wouldn't have been all that bad because we weren't moving very fast and the wind was in somewhat of a lull.  The problem we encountered was that Sam was straddling the traveler and the main sheet wacked him in the face as it swung to port and back again.  It wasn't enough to hurt him but I'm sure it scared him and made me feel like a total twit!

While I appologized to him profusely I maintained the tiller full starboard with the jib backed on the port side and the main swinging free, as we very slowly drifted leeward.  Yes ladies and gentlelmen, we were hove to!  Nothing about the evolution was graceful but we did end up in the configuration sought.  I continue to be thankful for small successes...

Next weekend I take the ASA 103 class and I hope we have at least as challenging conditions.  I'd really like to see how someone who knows how to sail handles these things.

Until then I remain hove to,
Seaman Ray