Happy New Year!

I have much to be happy about.

I told Peter I wouldn't care much if I reached 1/3, i.e. if the number of times I'd gone sailing in 2009 reached one third of the number of days in the year.

That was not a lie.

When I started counting, it was just to count. There was no real object or goal.

I wanted to see what happened.

The 'Usual Suspects' happened, a group of people that I couldn't imagine in a million years. That they would become my best friends . . . through sailing, how lucky am I? That I would find them and them me through a group that Andy, Gabe, Jacky and I started on the last day of March.

And what happened was that I was at 117 before Christmas.

Peter and I took Sabina out cause I didn't like the sound of 117. It was an odd number. 118 sounded better. Thanks Peter, Thanks Sabina - he and his diva did that just for me. Cool!

I wanted to, Peter wanted to do that for me.

So we did.

Thanks Peter, for Christmas I got to go sailing 118 times in 2009.

I thought I'd go sailing with Herb on Kira on the Sat. after Christmas.

That didn't happen, oh well. But I did help him get Kira ready for his absence in January. And I got to have lunch with him at San Francisco Yacht Club, which by the way is NOT in San Francisco. It has a view of San Francisco.

So I raced with Kurt and the gang on Yellow Fin on Sunday. Now I was at 119, another odd number.

Aaron wanted to talk about the 36.7 fleet building project, I said:

"Let's talk about it while we sail".

So we did.

120 is a nice round number. 365 days divided by 3 is

121.6666 . . . .

120 is so much nicer than that.

Along the way from 117 to 120, I was worried. During the Winter Sailstice event, the comment from a lot of the members was 'How do I go sailing with you guys when the events fill up so fast?"

So we started this thing on the Got Wind and Water website where you can click a graphic and get to a discussion board and talk about when you can go sailing.

The idea was that people could

follow the discussion and decide who to call or email to work out sailing plans.

So we did.

Paul suggested a NYE sail.

So we . . .

Yeah, that's right, a wonderful thing happened. I put up a NYE event on Got Wind and Water. I put it up on Dec. 31st.

By that time Paul had made other plans, so instead of sailing, I thought I'd do something for the group.

It started as a 'RSVP so you can comment on what the site has done for you in 2009' kind of thing. If you RSVP'd, then, through the power of the MeetUp API, you could make a comment. I thought it would be a fun thing for people to do as they got ready to celebrate New Year's Eve.

I planned on going home after work and going to sleep and waking up next year.

Within 4 hours of putting this non-event event up, Bruce emailed me.

"I just got back in town, I like the idea of sailing over to the fireworks, how do I turn the non-event event into a sailing event?"

"No problem, I'll make you an assistant organizer and you can do what ever you want."

Of course I want to sail with Bruce, I mean, he's such a cool guy, how could I not go sailing with him when the opportunity presented itself?

In a matter of minutes, it was done. In a matter of hours we filled the boat.

So Bruce, a friend of his, Andy, and I signed up. These are people I've sailed with before and really like sailing with.

Cool

Then Patrica signs up. I greeted her when she went sailing with Paul on one of our events. I had her email and phone, so she's on board.

Yun signed up.

Yun has visited the site but never signed up for an event. Huh, why is he signing up for this?

I email him and find out (it will remain a mystery for now). I need his phone number, I email him mine, he calls me.

Cool.

Then Stacy signs up. Wow, I haven't seen her out for quite a while. So I call her. She wants to bring a friend.

Ok.

Now the boat is full.

We went from zero to full in about 3 hours.

2009 is a year I will never forget.

I started something that has exceeded my expectations.

I've sailed with 69 *new* friends through the Got Wind and Water website.

A weird thing happened today.

Got Wind and Water reached 121 events.

I will do my 121st sail of 2009 tonight.

No, really, that wasn't planned at all. It just happened. Really.

As the fireworks go off. I'll do my 1st sail of 2010.

Happy New Year!

Sailing at the Speed of FUN

For my 119th sail of 2009, I joined Kurt and his crew on Yellow Fin to do the last Berkeley Yacht Club Chowder race of the year.

Yellow Fin is a J105 that is 'in charter' at OCSC. It's a favorite of mine. Often, the Got Wind and Water gang will charter it and enjoy a romp in the wind with the kite skipping us over the waves. Such was in fact, the 117th sail of 2009.

The 'Usual Suspects', 7 of my closest friends, all of them Got Wind and Water members, chartered the boat and worked our way up wind to Red Rock before turning the corner and reaching off to the Corte Madera Channel Marker. Sailflow uses it as a continuous feed to report wind strength and direction, and we thought it would be fun to sail by. We raised the kite and blasted off towards Paradise.

Paradise cove that is.

From there we jibed our way back to Berkeley.

On that particular day we had the perfect amount of wind, even if the sea state was less than orgasmic.

On the Sunday of the BYC chowder race, for my 119th sail of the year, we didn't think we'd have much wind to make Yellow Fin go.

We got out the race sails and bent them on.

Leaving the Berkeley Marina it looked promising. We took a moment to feel out the depth of the channel behind the middle entrance in the breakwater. It turned out that we didn't learn enough. Or perhaps we just zoned out, drunk a little too much of the fun and let it go to our heads.

The race itself was wonderful. With flat water and around 14 knots of wind, finding our way from the starting line to Olympic Circle Mark 'G' was a joyful balance of beauty. Any little adjustment made for an immediate feedback from the instruments and we worked our way past the front of the fleet. Only a trimaran was ahead of us.

Setting the kite at 'G' we reached off towards the offshore end of the Berkeley Pier ruins. There we jibed on a perfect fetch to the 'D' mark, the green #3 day mark to the north of the pier.

The wind carried us past and onward towards our objective.

A shift in direction resulted in a quick douse of the chute and a close hauled fetch to the entrance. As we neared the breakwater, we passed the tri and ignored our experience.

The boat came to a sudden and complete stop as the keel buried itself in the muck. The tri worked its way between us and the breakwater. It stopped until the crew pulled up the centerboard and it continued on its way to the finish line.

It took a little more work on our part. Perhaps a lot more work, including red lining the engine, and hanging a crew member from the boom to get us on our way out of the mud to a DNF.

Observers on the shoreline applauded our efforts, but the race committee could only wave. We were 'that close' to getting the gun, only to cross in last place.

All in all though, it was a fun ride around the race course, with gentle but firm wind and flat water, the boat traveling at the speed of fun.

Sailing at the speed of nice

For my 118th sail of 2009, I sailed on Peter's Islander 27 'Sabina'.

It's a nice little vessel, just the perfect size for one or two people. The salon is open and feels spacious even if it is in fact small. Below decks on a J105 feels cramped in comparison.

While blasting along in a J105, watching the knot meter for every .1 of a knot improvement is fun with a capital F (especially with the kite up), Sabina is just nice.

We left Emeryville with the promise of little wind. Flat seas and a small amount of current set the tone of the day.

Peter wanted to practice sailing without the helm, balancing the center of effort of the jib and main so that what was left over force wise was a straight line. Once the main was up and the jib unfurled, we headed off towards the end of the ruins of the Berkeley pier and adjusted things. Eventually we got both the main and jib working together and the boat sailing straight and true. This brought us along a course that would have passed through the ruins, so we adjusted some more and got the boat to turn itself off the wind.

With everything set, we headed towards Alcatraz. Ghosting along in 3-6 knots of wind, it was a very mellow sail. We watched a small number of other boats around the bay doing much the same thing and relaxed.

We watched a sea going tug drag an old navy ship out of the South Bay and pull her through the Golden Gate under grey skies. Bound for points south to be sold for scrap it left the bay for the last time.

We motor sailed for a while then turned off the iron wind and made our way through Raccoon Straights to raise the Genniker and play with that as we made out way south again. Watching the texture of the water carefully, we stayed in a wind/tidal current zone that quickly brought us to Pt. Blunt and set us up for an easy ride under the Genniker back to the channel leading through the shallow water to the Emeryville Marina.

We were able to carry it all the way through the channel, jibe it and drop it inside the marina, a first for Sabina and a source of joy for her crew.

We then sailed the boat into the slip using the engine for stopping power alone.

Isn't sailing nice?

Merry Christmas

In Tillerman's blog post on December 31st, 2008, "Random Thoughts on Number Ninety Four" he talks about setting a target and learning things as you go after the target.

I've always approached sailing with the notion that no matter what happens, I learn something from going out there. For me, sailing just changes your perspective. This changed perspective requires the sailor to think about things differently. It teaches me, every single time I go out on the water, that I don't know enough. It's a learning curve that has no top.

At the beginning of the year I did not set a target like Tillerman did in 2008.

I decided, out of frustration, that I would sail as soon as I could. I'd been chartering boats from OCSC, and darn it, they closed their doors between Christmas and New Years. I'd set aside some time off to sail then, and I could not.

I did not know anyone with a boat that wanted to go sailing then, and my options were limited.

That would change in a big way in 2009.

I did not set a target to 'beat' - I'm just not that competitive.

I decided to count.

I decided to see what would happen.

I kept a log.

On Friday, March 20th, 2009, I tried my first 'MeetUp' Sailing Event. OCSC had created a 'MeetUp' group and I was asked to be their Assistant Organizer.

It was my 23rd sail of the year.

On the last day of March, I resigned from being the Assistant Organizer of the OCSC MeetUp group and formed the Got Wind and Water Sailing Network Group. Using the MeetUp platform, I decided to see if I could network sailors together and create something that would Pay It Forward.

On April 1st, GOTWAW had it's first event.

It was my 27th sail of the year.

Yesterday I had my 118th sail of the year.

Tomorrow will be my 119th sail of the year.

Got Wind and Water has been a huge success.

Out of 385 members, 128 members have gone sailing with the group an astonishing 617 times since April 1st. There have been 120 GOTWAW events so far. There are 69 GOTWAW Photo Albums.

According to Latitude 38, about 20 sailboats and 65 sailors gathered at Ayala Cove for the Winter Sailstice. Most of the sailboats participating were boats from the Got Wind and Water Group.

Members participated in the Vallejo Race, the Sarcoma Cup, the Rolex Big Boat Series and the Jessica Cup.

So my friends, if you've been wondering where I've been, what I've been doing, well, instead of blogging about it, I've just been sailing. I'm going to try to return to Ayala Sandbox. 119 is more than enough sailing. I'm not going to stop sailing, but I am going to try to return to blogging about sailing.

I've had a Merry Christmas, one that has been full of reflection about what a lucky guy I am. I have sailed my heart out in 2009.

It will be interesting seeing just how many times I'll eventually go sailing in 2009. I'm not done yet. Between Christmas and New Years, it won't matter that OCSC will be shut down for the holidays.

I'm ready to sail, and I have the opportunity to do so.

I have a lot of friends.

We all can go sailing through the Got Wind and Water Network just about anytime we want.