Lightship

It's been about 15 years since I've done the OYRA Crewed Lightship Race. Thanks to Team Kuai, I've experienced it again. This time with the honor of trimming the chute (with someone else grinding) on the long ride back.

Kuai is a Sabre 386

Quite a different sort of ride than my experience aboard Moonshadow, an 31' flush deck ultralight that was campaigned heavily back in the 70s during the MORA craze. I was a young lad then. Back then the phrase 'sandwich and a bucket' completely defined the onboard amenities.

The bucket was used to dispose of the sandwich after it's nutritional value had been transferred to the sailor . . . well, sometimes before.

But no matter which end it came out of, capturing it in the waste bucket was essential for ocean racing. Lightweight, the bucket stayed on board, even when the engine cover was left on land for the sake of a few pounds.

As Kuai approached the Lightbucket this year, the winds lightened up. I'd been rail meat as we headed out the gate and there wasn't much need for that in the lumpy seas. Sandwiches were being offered up. I headed below an inquired if there were any Cokes on board. The lady of the boat replied:

"I think there are cold ones in the refrigerator"

"WHAT! this boat has a refrigerator?!!!" I gasped, stunned.

Whoa, I mean, I've been 'yacht racing' for a long time, but this is my first actual Yacht Race. It didn't take long to figure out that those buttons in the head had the same utility as the bucket. With much more class.

Press the button and whooosssh! The holding tank is holding just a little more.

I digress. A quality you, the reader of this blog, must be used to by now.

A debt of gratitude to Admiral Anne, who has taken mercy on this poor Captain and introduced him to actual Yacht racing.

Back to the really important stuff.

The lovely Sonya need not go to the gym this week. She got an upper body work out on Saturday that she didn't have to pay a personal trainer for.

As the crow flies, the Lightship buoy is 12.6 nautical miles from the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge. Most people think of everything West of the bridge as the ocean. Well, the real ocean is out where the Lightship buoy is. It's a long way out there when you are rail meat and anticipating the joy of a downwind ride on big waves. It's a long way back bent over a winch handle grinding for the trimmer.

"Grind, Sonya, Grind!"

"Hold"

"Testing!", "Grind!" "Hold!" "More, More, almost there, Hold!"

Rinse and repeat, repeat, repeat, All the way home.


And if by chance the helmsman and trimmer screw up, resulting in the need for 'blowing the sheet'. The grinder has a lot of sheet to haul in, inch by inch, with the boat on it's ear and the rush of water inches from her legs. With the hope that the trimmer and helm can balance the chaos before the white water reaches her waist.

For me, perched against the stern quarter as we went around the lightship, it was a lovely time.

We transferred the bitter end of the spin sheet to the weather side after the hoist, bent it around the after winch drum and I leaned back to get a better view of the luff. Warm in my foulies, with the yellow hood pulled over my hat, I was snug as a bug in a rug as a gentle rain drifted down on the fleet. We were lost in the weather and I didn't care. With a good view of the instrument cluster, I had the perfect place on the boat to enjoy the ride.

We knew land was to the east, the bridge out there somewhere ahead of us. Lost in the gray sky.

So we played with the GPS and struck a course to Pt. Bonita (it was out there somewhere) to find some favored current. Not like taking bearings and drawing lines on a chart, and staring at a compass until your eyes crossed.

It was still magical, at least for me, the beauty of the wind and waves, the reason I started this blog in the first place.