A-p-parent What?

From the Log . . .

We arrived in Ensenada arbor at about 9:10 am, on October 20, 1953. The harbor has been much improved since I was here last. There is a large jetty, extending out from the point and instead o a long lazy swell, there is no excellent anchorage with almost no motion at all in Ensedada Harbor. Likewise, a new pier has been built. The fish canneries have been greatly enlarged and there are a number of sport fishing boats as well as small coastwise freighters that are anchored in the harbor.

There were a number of American boats that were anchored when we came in. One small ketch that was called the SilverGull. A 50 foot cruiser from Los Angeles and a small sloop from some place or other. He has skull and cross bones black flag at his stern and apparently is some sort of peculiar person, who have chosen to avoid at least until the time of this writing.

The Mexican official that came aboard was entirely different than any Mexican official I have previously contacted. He was well dressed, polite, spoke English and was no accompanied by several hangers on. He was the immigration officer and did all that was necessary for the captain of the port as well as the customs officials.

My previous experience has been that you have three officials and they usually bring along with them two or three soldiers, who sometimes have shoes and sometimes not. They, always, however, have very large chevrons and most often carry a fixed bayonet or two, in a rather clumsy fashion.

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Clumsy soldiers with a fixed bayonet or two . . . Yikes!

So here is a clumsy attempt at humor, and a story about bayonet like bows-

I’ve decided that I’m going to turn Tillerman’s propensity for self promotion on its head. He shamelessly places links to past posts (usually recently past posts) on his current posts. I guess this enhances his traffic numbers. It must because I follow them all and have a great time.

What ever floats his little boat. He he

In one of his comments, he says he hardly ever goes back and reads his own posts - meaning, his really old posts, like, from 2005.

Now EVK4 is going back to his old posts, like from 2005, see his comments on my recent post. So I'm going to shamelessly promote one of EVK4's old posts, and challenge Tillerman to write a post on Apparent Wind, from the laser sailors point of view.

For me, sailing is past, future and present. And my past goes way back. Not as far back as EVK4’s young son, but close. I’m having a great time reading Tillerman, and EVK4 (and Chapman).

This reading brings to life many of my memories. Some day I’ll describe what it was like to go to the dark side and begin crewing for a speed freak on a Tornado, only to find myself on a trampoline with a fashion model in a knit bikini.

But EVK4’s April 20, 2005 post turns over a rock that has been sitting still for 26 years.

And it is applicable to my current sailing experiences. I’m having a ball sailing with members of OCSC. They are drinking very deeply from the cup of learning. Most of the ones I sail with are somewhere in their own personal journey to accomplish their own sailing goals. My only sailing goal is to sail, and sail, and sail, preferably with Admiral Anne and Nature Girl, and well, anyone else with a sense of humor.

Hey Edward, you want crew? I'm a click away!

Tillerman, when are you going to get off your silly little boat and bring your sense of humor to the wild, warm, west coast? We can pop the chute on a J105 in the slot and go for a wild ride without finding a death roll with or without our names on it.

Where was I?

Oh yes, the day I completely understood Apparent v. True Wind.

I found myself on my Tornado 26 years ago, in THE SLOT, on a January day, with NO WIND, and an EBB current.

Yet I was able to sail against the 5 knot current to return 'up river' to Richmond Yacht Club, before the it switched to a Flood. Even with no wind. Zip. Nada

Chapman explains apparent wind by comparing a Spanish Galleon to an Ice Boat (on page 276 of the 65th edition – look it up, it’s a cool way to explain it).

A Tornado is much closer to an ice boat than a Spanish Galleon, Newport 28, or a Laser. All I had to do was turn the hulls 90 degrees to the ebb current, and the apparent wind generated was able to accelerate the speedy racing machine. Chapman explains that a boat will accelerate until the drag forces equalize the imbalance of the forces acting on the center of effort and the center of lateral resistance. A cool way to describe how and why a sailboat moves through the water with magical ease (assuming the crew knows what they are doing).

The really, really cool thing is that as apparent wind accelerates a boat, you can adjust your point of sail and sail trim to keep the acceleration going, until drag stops your acceleration. Which is why certain very cool racing craft can sail faster than the wind, sometimes (like ice boats) much, much faster, other times (like the Tornado) just faster.

Lucky for me on that day, a Tornado has very, very little drag. It also tracks like a train on rails. I discovered that the rudders will cavitate and ventilate under certain conditions; making it a little tricky to turn up or down when on a beam reach in the slot coming up on Pt. Blunt like a speeding bullet. After the ‘girl in half a wetsuit’ incident at Pt. Blunt, I learned to give that rocky outcrop a wide berth.

There are tricks you can use to eliminate more drag on a light wind day. You can raise both your rudders and your centerboards. You can tilt trim the boat so that it is ‘down by the bow’. This helps the separation of flow from the hulls at the stern. The bayonet like bows act like rudders when you change the trim.

You can check out this video - the opening sequence provides a birds eye view of those bayonet sharp bows.

Sailing without rudders? Am I nuts?

No Way! Yes Way! - the Tornado’s hulls have a CLR, even without rudders and centerboards. They are relatively very long and very narrow. It’s the balance between all the forces that result in your direction vector.

From the slot, I was able to make my way to Treasure Island (I have some pirate blood), then pick up the counter current from the south bay, East of TI, and tack my way north to RYC, using only the apparent wind generated by the tide currents.

When I stopped accelerating, I could dip into the fast ebb current in the ship channel, and use its power to create more apparent wind to recharge my acceleration curve.

It helped I was an engineering student at the time, understood all this, and had a warm, sunny January day (Tillerman, eat your heart out!) in which to play with Mother Nature.

Mother Nature was playing me by keeping all the wind to herself. I played with her by getting my craft, ‘Monkey’s Delight’ to move anyway.

It also helped that I’d crewed for John Liebenberg for a few years in the Fireball Fleet. The two John’s were unbeatable in light winds. He was a master, and I was his apprentice.

It took a few hours, but I got back to my home base even though there wasn’t a breath of wind.

A few months later, my first born came into this world.

But that’s another story.