We left Santa Cruz Island at about 10:00 AM on the 2nd of October, 1953 and headed for Pt. Fermin. We sailed a considerable amount of the way, but when nightfall fell turned on the motor and carried the engine all the way into Los Angeles Yacht Club where we picked up a mooring.
We had rather a difficult during the last few hours of the watch in as much as a low fog came in that obliterated anything adjacent to you. You could see the glow of the lights on Santa Monica, but were not able to see Pt. Fermin light, ever, until we were almost right on top of it. As a mater of fact, we went in so close to the shore that a rocky point cut off the light and finally we came almost to the base of the light. During this period we were all on deck watching as closely as we could. Some steamers that were adjacent to us, were also having their troubles in attempting to make a landfall and we and the steamers were both going about 1 knot, during the process of picking up Pt. San Vicente light.
When I edited this shot and went to name the file, I zoomed in to get the boat names. Lo! the boat in front is 'Racer X' - a Farr 36, and the boat behind, with the twisted spinnaker is 'Z' (Zamazan) - registered as a 52 ft sloop. It begs the question, what happened to 'Y'. So the photo is named "what happened to". I love this shot for a lot of reasons. The reflection of the chute on the water is beautiful, as is the way the slope of the Island leads the eye to the right and gives the whole thing a sense of motion. A few pictures later, I got a complete shot of Racer X and it's reflection, but I decided to post this one here.
I may get around to publishing a web album of the shots we took, but first I wanted to capture a spectacular day. UPDATE! the web album can be found here.
Thanks to a friend of mine, Kanjana, for teaching me the meaning of spectacular. To be engulfed in beauty is a theme of the blog, and she and I were musing on the different kinds of love, and what it meant to be 'in love' vs. just loving.
She turned to me with a twinkle in her eye and said:"Ah, to be in love . . . it's spectacular!"
I'm 'in love' with sailing.
The day began in a less than spectacular way. Anne and I chartered the Olson 25 #7. Anne was the charter skipper, I, the crew. We'd intended this to be a day where Anne would take a major step up in her learning curve. We got a somewhat later start than I'd hoped for, add to that light winds . . . and so I suggested that we just motor out and find the race course for the 2008 Rolex Big Boat Series.
It wasn't hard to find, just to the west and north of the end of the Berkeley Pier, kind of obvious as the boats were flying spinnakers to make their way to the line on time. An area I always describe as downwind of the slot. So we chugged along and got to the starting line just after the first start, watching the truly big boats surge to windward.
It put us in a good position for the next start and we maneuvered so that we'd be to leeward of the IRC B fleet as it made it's way to weather. Keeping a reasonable distance, we found ourselves at one point in their path at the start, so we headed a little off parallel to their course to slide below. As they caught up to us, we where about 4-6 boat lengths (their boat lengths, not ours) to leeward. With the outboard on #7 at about 80% of max, we were just a little slower than the race boats, giving us a great view as they closed on us and passed us well to windward. The boat in the worst position in the fleet, fully to leeward and in the bad air wasn't having a good day. With the crew on the rail, one of the sailors (perhaps the tactician or the owner) was waving his arms and pointing to leeward calling something out. We looked around to make sure there wasn't someone astern, or to leeward of us, but were too far away to hear or understand what his gestures meant. It was a little comical. There were several motorboats (some of the Protectors) near us, and I gradually got the impression that he wasn't happy that we were where we were. If he was indeed the tactician, I think he'd have been better off focused on what was happening to windward, rather than potentially distracting the helmsman or owner with something unrelated to the race.
Oh well, I'll never know.
They all pulled ahead, and we continued on our course, eventually finding ourselves on the layline to the weather mark, and the J105 fleet (on a different race course) to our leeward. That was a sight! They had started and the fleet was lined up, pointing toward us, but a good half mile away. So we changed course, stayed above the lay line to the big boat weather mark, and headed that way to stay away from the J105 fleet. As we neared the weather mark, most of the power boats, including the buoy tenders and protectors were camped out upwind of the weather mark and offset mark to watch the show. We throttled back and stayed upwind of the offset mark and about 300 yards down along the reaching course.
I got out my 'good' camera and started taking pictures as the fleets made their way up to and around the marks for the second time. Anne enjoyed the show as I called out instructions for her to cruise back and forth at low speed upwind of the fleet, always prepared to throttle up and skedaddle out of the way should we drift too close to the course.
I named this shot 'Here we come' - the Transpac 52s are overtaking the Melges 32 fleet. It gives a good perspective on our position. I had to take a good look at the photo, that's the Richmond / San Rafael Bridge in the back ground, and the yellow weather mark is almost lost in the traffic to the left of the orange turning mark. We are in a perfect position for what happens next:
We catch 3 of the transpac 52's in a row heading downwind looking good withing a few boatlengths of each other. This is racing! When you can almost spit at your competition.
We are in a great spot to catch some good shots as the boats cruise by.
This one of Flash turned out well. Going into the day, I wondered if I could even come close to the photography of Charlie Bergstedt.
I'm pleased, in the right spot and calm conditions, I feel I did ok.
There was one shot that surprised me even as I took it. When I was editing the photos and posting them, I had to go back and forth to find a pair of shots that proved I had in fact seen what I thought I had.
The first shot was of Vincilore with the Melges 32 RED. At the time I was impressed with how much bigger the Transpac 52's looked. When I went to upload the photo, I did a double take. Perhaps the 'smaller' big boat was just farther away. So I found the second photo, and sure enough, it isn't farther away, it's just scurrying away from the larger boat, jibing to find some clear air on the other side, out of the tremendous shadow of big brother:
And here is the second shot:
After I posted this I did some research. There was a Melges 32 division, and obviously they were mixing it up with the IRC divisions. There are big boats, and then there are BIG BOATS, and of course, even BIGGER BOATS:
I had to zoom way OUT to capture this shot of Akela, a R/P 78 . In no time at all, I began to realize I'd used up all my memory, taking 90 shots in all. Good thing, had we stayed an longer, I think my heart would have pined for the days when I danced on the foredeck of Big Boats in my youth. This prompted me to google this evening to gets some facts straight on a memory. In 1978, I sailed with Don Tucker, Bruce Powell, George Pedrick, and others on Wild Turkey, a Farr design. I can't remember just what size that boat was, whether it was a Farr 36 (like Petard) or a 44, or something else, but to us going from Don's Santana 30 'Obsessed' to Wild Turkey, it was a BIG boat. Until we found ourselves between Kialoa III (79 ft) , Windward Passage (72 ft) and Christine (84 feet) in drifting conditions off of Pt. Knox. We were completely boxed in, within a stone's throw of all three of these maxi racing boats.
Back to the present, I swapped my Canon SureShot for the now full Nikon D100 and snapped a few departing shots as we headed the puny Olson 25 for Ayala Cove, where I planned to download these photos to my laptop. . . and get on with the day's activities.
As we motored around Pt. Knox, Anne was wondering why we didn't set sail and go with the wind instead of laboring under the outboard. There were a lot of reasons, some of them emotional. I wanted to get the photos off the card on the camera because I had other photo plans, I was balancing my memory of my youth against the reality of the present, and just didn't want to leave those thoughts behind and embrace the wind quite yet. It was complicated and the simple joy of sailing wasn't something I was ready for.
She was patient with me and we got to the cove in due time. I directed her to pass close by the buoys and watch the way the water moved in relation to them to judge the tide currents, get a feel for how the water was flowing out of Raccoon Straits even though we were at 'slack' at the gate according to the tables.
There were no bread bowls at the cafe, 'summer' being officially over at the concession stand (just have to come back next year). I took the photos I wanted at the cove and we departed, setting sail for Sausalito. We put in to Schoonmaker's, got to the bay model too late to check it out, but had a nice meal at Paradise Bay, then headed back out for Anne's 'lesson'.
To the north of Yellow Bluff, the wind howls off of the fog and blasts down the hillside, hitting the water with tremendous force. Anne had wanted to learn the art of handling the boat as it worked hard to go out of control, and to recover when the inevitable happens. So we close reached our way past the ferry and headed for this blast zone. What wind looks like on the water is obvious here. You can see a gust coming with sunglasses on in the fog.
I demonstrated how to pinch up when the rail is forced under. Not too fast, and straighten out just as the boat starts to level out.
"Pinching? that's not pinching, that's feathering"
Anne states firmly.
As gust after gust threatens to knock us over, Anne takes the helm and I talk her through it.
We debate pinching vs. feathering.
"Feathering is intentionally rounding up to level out"
"But that is just pinching"
"No, when you do it on purpose it's feathering, pinching is bad"
"No, it's the same thing, you are doing the same thing" I say.
"but nobody wants to pinch" Anne retorts.
"Well, ok, but feathering is just pinching on purpose"
We agree to disagree, but an understanding is reached. It's also obvious that if you can calmly debate what to call it while you are doing it, you've mastered it.
Lesson over.
As we leave the blast zone, the sun has gone down behind the fog spilling over the Marin Headlands and the lights of the Golden Gate are presented against a dark grey curtain. The wind and water is a calm and delightful 10-15 knots, and I'm mentally calculating whether it's going to be a long ride home in light air in the dark, should the wind drop further.
So we turn downwind away from the Gate, no sense in going up to the bridge if it's going to be a long ride back.
BOB goes for a swim!
MAN overboard!
Anne wanted to practice this, and in the darkening twilight, I decide it's now or never, to give her an unexpected MOB drill. She's startled, but recovers quickly and starts through the sequence. It's not perfect, but we get back to BOB, I fumble the snatch and he goes adrift behind us (we weren't slow enough, but that's the point, find out what we need to work on). As we recover from the aborted 'rescue', we notice that a pair of tugs and barge are approaching. By the time we've assessed how far away they are, BOB is lost in the waves and gloom. We have enough time to go find him again, and execute a better recovery before the tow arrives in our vicinity.
We jibe and head off for the face of Angel Island and get away from any more traffic as the sky darkens and the moonlight becomes stronger than the fading twilight. The trip back to the marina is magical. We get in close to Angel Island, jibe again to pass to the south of the green buoy marking Pt. Blunt. Checking the shipping lanes, we transit them in the direction of the northeastern tip of Treasure Island. Watching the angle of lights on the Berkeley Pier, we mark our position and start looking for the light at the end of the Island. Sailing into the moonlight, it clearly highlights where the Island ends and the waves begin.
Thus our course takes us up to the corner of TI, and we know precisely where we are relative to the end of the pier. Just jibe and head north. The waves build as the shallows approach, surfing our way in the moonlight. Life is good.
Until we head up a little to catch a wave, and catch a tug boat bearing down on us from the dark side of the moonlight instead. Far enough away, our craft passes in front, and we surf continuously on it's wake for about a quarter mile. Sweet!
There is the red light at the end of the pier and watching closely, note how the gold lights of the fishing portion narrow until the red light is on them and we pass by to the west to place the ruins in the moonlight. Now all we have to do is find the green light of the channel mark on it's pole about halfway down the pier.
A few more jibes and we find it and pass it close enough to see it clearly, far enough to be comfortable.
And on we go, with a few other OCSC boats for company as we approach the harbor.
Spectacular, returning from the gate on a full moon and a light breeze, the beauty of wind and water and friendship.
Thank you Kanjana, you were with me in spirit. And thanks to you, Anne, handling the skipper duties so I could relax as crew, letting me acheive what I wanted out of the day, holding your desire to practice, practice, practice, in check. I'm sure your crew on Sunday was more firmly under your control.
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