Tag Archives: Sailing

Alpha Happiness

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Sometimes when you’re a sailor you want to get out there and sail fast and hard and just have a good hoot and holler. You want the sailing version of a rock concert. Unfortunately, Galapagos, as great as she is, is more the sailing equivalent of a night at the opera. She is lovely and cultured and refined, not fast and furious. That’s when it comes in really handy to have sailing friends with smaller boats. And that’s especially true when they are young and just getting feet wet in the world of sailing and want to turn all the handling over to you so they can watch what you do. Are you kidding me? Woo hoo! Let’s go!20160917_161231

Thus it came to pass that we were taking a tour of our new friend James’ boat and he mentioned that he’d like for us to go out with him on his new-to-him Pearson 35 “Morgon Stjarna” (Swedish for Morning Star). He is new to sailing and looking for experience. We have a bit of that. All of us had filled calendars in the near future, so we decided to just drop everything and go. Don’t you love that? I really do. I love this ‘spur of the moment’ ‘let’s just do it’ kind of thinking. I mean, we can work on our boat anytime. And we do.  I vote for going sailing on a Pearson 35, especially as there was good wind today.

Sailing on this smaller boat reminds us of what we love about sailing. We like the feeling of the wind and the water, the heeling of the boat, the wheel work, the tweaking of sails. We love it all. And we love how easy it is to take that boat out and get her back into the slip.  Galapagos would have loved being in that wind today, but it was just so much easier to take Morgon Stjarna out, and the experience is completely different than sailing our queenly vessel, so high up off the water, so protected from the weather in our fine cockpit. We love out boat and we are glad to have her. She is perfect for what we want to do.  But we also love James’ boat for completely different reasons. Hey! Maybe we just love boats!fullsizerender

This would be James’ first real sailing experience on his boat and we felt happy to be the people on board with him and his roommate Kelvin, also new to sailing.   Checking the weather, it looked like wind of 11 knots with gusts up to 19. That’s good sailing weather for us but maybe more than the guys bargained for considering their inexperience. On the inside of the bay, the wind was great and we tooled along under full main and jib doing about 6 knots. Loads of fun and the boat was handling well. James and Kelvin were in their element.

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Kelvin and James, safe and sound and still on board the boat.

As we got out toward the channel, we started getting whitecaps and steadier, heavier wind coming from the south west. I’m thinking that 11 knot forecast was, well, wrong. What a shock! Soon we were heeling magnificently, and while that can be fun, it’s not a very efficient way to sail and looking at the fellas, I saw white around all of their many eyes.  It was apparent that we were overpowered. We immediately reefed the jib but even so, there was a little too much heeling action and weather helm for it to be right. It was a brilliant opportunity to teach James about how his boat will head into the wind if you let her, and how if you release the main and spill wind she is going to pop up. Although it was a probably a little too soon in their sailing careers for those lessons, I’ll bet neither Kelvin nor James ever forget them!

We soon decided to just pull the jib in completely, and Mike and James went forward to reef the main as well. “Keep your center of gravity low, and keep one hand on the boat at all times.” It’s the mom in me. I couldn’t help this little reminder. This was James’ first experience really sailing his boat and it was a little bit of trial by fire. He already knows now what it feels like to be on the foredeck in fairly heavy wind. That’s a pretty exciting place to be, and not always in a fun sort of way. He did well, albeit with eyes wide open now to the force of mother nature in action.

You know, we forget how it feels to be brand new at this sailing thing. After years of sailing this bay, we take things like a quick heeling to 30 degrees for granted and don’t even break a sweat. We know the boat will come back up and what to do if she stays over too long. I was so glad for James and Kelvin they could see Mike and I loved every minute and were not in the least out of our comfort zones.

During a more sedate part of the sail. We were too busy sailing to take photos during the squirrels part of the adventure.

During a more sedate part of the sail. We were too busy sailing to take photos during the squirrely part of the adventure.

I remember years ago being taught how to sail our Catalina 27 and how I watched the previous owner who was on board with us. He was just calm and secure in his ability and in the boat’s ability. We had very brisk conditions and I could have been scared if he had shown any worry at all. But he didn’t, so I didn’t. I hope we were able to pass that on to James and Kelvin, in spite of all the joking about wetting one’s pants! The boat was not actually challenged in any way. We know from our experience that our boat can take more than we can. And that’s true of James’ boat as well.

With reduced sail we made good time across the bay, trying to out run a rain system coming up behind us. It was no good, though. It caught us just as we were getting ready to start the engine and take down the sail. By the time we were motoring into the fairway, I was hunkered down underneath the dodger, staying as dry as possible, memories of Moonrise, our old Cal 34, floating through my mind. In the bay, Alpha Happiness stood witness to the wide eyed wonder of new sailors and to the happiness of these kind of older ones. Apropos. Completely. p1100498

James brought Morgon Stjarna  into the slip, his first time docking bow-in, nailing it perfectly the first time. He’s going to love sailing this boat as he gradually gets used to her, learns her ways, and is guided by the many more experienced sailors waiting with open hearts to give him a hand. Sail on, Sailor!

Us. Having fun. Not working on our boat.

Us. Having fun. Not working on our boat.

 

 

 

Our New Summer Gig

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As summer approaches with us unable to go on an extended cruise, we are chomping at the bit to be out on the water. The Universe has presented us with the opportunity to go sailing each week and to learn a bit more about sail trim. We are crewing on a C&C  40 named Blue Moon. She races every Wednesday night in Commencement Bay in the PHRF class, which means she flies a pretty spinnaker during the downwind leg of the race.

Another pretty boat.

Another pretty boat.

We feel really lucky to have places on this boat. The captain is very experienced and even tempered. He has primary crew who have been sailing with him on this boat for years. They know the boat and each other very well. In general it’s pretty hard to enter a group like that and feel like you are a part of the team. But they were so welcoming and patient with us, teaching us about the boat and giving us jobs to do. Mike and I now know how to properly pack a spinnaker. Mike is working the foredeck (a place where I quickly learned that I do not belong on this boat) and I am working the cockpit. I help with the main sail, and loose the foresail lines on a tack. Mike’s been thrown into the fire on this boat because he’s a guy and they can use another guy on deck. Good thing he’s a quick study.

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Consultation time.

Last weekend we did the Race Around Vashon Island on Blue Moon and it was an excellent day for sailing! We had good wind for the entire race, and with sustained wind building to about 16 knots with gusts beyond 20 knots on the down wind leg, there were some exciting times getting the spinnaker down and changing sails. Here are some photos from our first two races, and some of the lessons we learned, or re-learned.

  1.  I do not get anxious on other people’s boats. There were plenty of opportunities for me to be a little worried on this race boat, especially as people jockey for position at the start line. Not me. Calm as a cucumber. Why? Because it’s not my boat. I’m not responsible for it, and I don’t have to pay for any damage incurred to that boat or other boats. Getting hurt doesn’t actually cross my mind. I also trust this captain. He’s been at this a long time. He doesn’t want to hurt his boat or his crew. He’s also not hard-core-win-at-all-costs. I like that. He wants to have fun. I like that, too.

    This could be an anxious moment. But it’s not.

  2. I now understand completely why there are all-women crew. I am going to want to spend some time on an all-woman boat simply because it will show me how women handle things like all the action on the foredeck during a race when there are no men around to take over. As a middle aged woman, I am definitely the weak link on this crew of mostly men.  At one point I went forward to help the foresail around because everyone else was busy. I’m very glad Mike was there as well because otherwise it would not have ended well for me. I was happy to have escaped with only a small rope burn to my nose. Lesson learned. While we both had a great time that day, Mike came home with considerable bruises as a reward for his time up front. We both took a big dose of ibuprofen and went to bed early, thinking about how much energy it takes to sail a relatively small boat (smaller than ours) in high winds for that long.

    From the left: John, Forrest, Theda, Rich.

  3. I can move fast if I have to. Who knew?

    Captain Forrest at the wheel.

  4. We know more than I thought. The assumption appears to be that if you are a cruiser rather than a racer, you don’t pay much attention to things like where the wind is, what the currents are doing, where you may get caught in a counter-current, how to tweak the sail to get another .1 knot from the boat. We do pay attention to that stuff and always have. The difference is that our current boat, an Olympic 47 that weighs 23 tons, is a different animal from our previous boat, a Cal 34. For instance, we don’t have a traveler on our boat. The traveler on this C&C 40 gets tweaked every time there is a minor change in the wind because that makes a difference in a race. It would not make that much of a difference on our boat. But on our Cal, we used the traveler a lot to make the boat sail better. 
  5. There is something simply glorious about sitting on the rail during a fast race, spray coming over the bow. Especially when it’s not cold. We both miss sailing that close to the water. We love our boat for the purpose of our long trip. She is so comfortable on the ocean and at anchor. But we both see a day when we will go back to a boat that sails closer to the water.

    Sail change.

    Sail change.

We’re looking forward to our Wednesday nights on the water this summer. Tonight it looks like we’ll have terrific wind and sunny skies! Let’s go!

Jarrell Cove Holiday

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We’ve decided that since we can’t have a long cruise this summer (BOOO!!!) we will do long weekends exploring south Puget Sound. As a rule, south sound is less crowded than the northern area and there are a lot of quiet areas to anchor, even if most of them are surrounded by houses.  Our engine, Hiram, got all the pent up energy out of his system on this trip, although we actually got plenty of sailing in as well. That’s kind of unusual in the south sound. We’ll take it!

Hey, that’s a Cal 34 sailing there!

So off we went to the lovely little Jarrell Cove on the north end of Harstine Island. We took off on Thursday evening, figuring we’d take advantage of the currents for a head start down to the island. We had an ulterior motive: to visit good friends Rose and Gary Benz, see their cute little Vivacity 20, Mudduck, and convince Rose to cook dinner for us.

Mudduck is like a boat for fairies. That boarding ladder is so tiny it borders on adorable. See how she sparkles?

The last time we were in Jarrell Cove was so long ago I’d have to do math to figure it out. You know how I feel about math. We had just sold our Catalina 27 to a woman who lived on Harstine Island and had docked the boat at a small private marina there. We had some boat stuff to bring her so decided to make the trek. Aboard our new-to-us Cal34, it took us an entire long day to get there. It seemed like such a long way.

After spending two nights in Rosedale catching our breath and doing a few boat projects, we had a nice downwind sail up Case Inlet to the northern shore of Stretch Island for a night, hoping to go ashore and walk a bit. Okay. I’m just going to say this: waste of time. There is a park on Stretch Island but perhaps the island is named for what a ‘stretch’ it is to say that this park is anything but a small beach, surrounded by – you guessed it- houses. Can you tell I’m ready for a little anchor time in the wilds of Canada? We anchored in front of a houseless sandy bluff and didn’t even get off the boat. Should have just gone directly to Jarrell Cove. Next time.

Scene from the side of a very sweet workshop.

Scene from the side of a very sweet workshop.

The wind shifted for us overnight, and we sailed into Jarrell Cove the following day, looking for a place to anchor. Perhaps my memory is bad, but it seems to me like we anchored out last time we were there. This time there were no places to anchor inside the cove, which was filled with mooring balls from the state park, as well as private mooring balls. We decided to pick up a ball, as it would be good practice.

The last time we tried this on Galapagos it was at James Island in the San Juans. The boat was new to us and I was filled with anxiety about the closeness of rocky cliffs. Mike was filled with anxiety about my anxiety. It was windy. We tried a couple of times, then bailed on the whole project instead of stopping, calming Amy G. Dala down, and coming up with another plan. It was dead disappointing and we felt like mooring ball failures.

There she is!

This time was way different! We had at least two plans before we even started. I helmed the boat, Mike lay flat on the deck just by the cockpit, and we picked it up on the first pass. Take THAT people on the nice Beneteau hoping for dinner and a show! Nothing to see here except a pretty boat! Go back to your previously scheduled drinking party. We high fived and I was so excited I posted to Facebook.

Tiny bitty winches and a tiny winch handle. Coming from our big boat, these amaze me.

We hooked up with Rose and Gary and prepared for a fun-filled afternoon and evening kayaking, showing off Galapagos, looking at boats, and visiting. The thing about Rose and Gary is that they like little boats. They like them so much that they own at least 10 of them, including that cute little twin keel Vivacity, 6 kayaks, a minto, a double kayak, and a zodiac. They are our heroes. In retirement, they live a life we aspire to live. They are in a great community of people who do things together and support each other,  have a wonderful place on the water where they can launch their little boats anytime they want to, and they have huge his and hers workshops where they can putter around and make lovely things. Seriously, if Harstine Island were not in the south sound (read: not enough sunshine, winters too long and dark for us) we would consider retiring there.

Rose also has a number of industrial sewing machines, since she used to have a saddle and tackle shop.

We spent a completely quiet night on the mooring ball and awoke to brilliant sunshine for our motorboat ride back home. It’s sure hard to leave when the day is so pretty and warm and the cockpit is so comfortable. No wind, but we continue to be amazed at how fast this boat goes compared to our Cal34. We left Jarrell Cove at noon and arrived back in our slip by 4:30. Whaaatt?? Of course, timing is everything through the narrows, but still, we were pushing 10 knots with a lift of about 2 knots from current. Not bad at all! I guess size really does matter.

Need a screw or nail, or brad, or anything else?

Back in Tacoma three friends waited on the dock, having seen us coming. I sure appreciate it when people run to help, just in case we need it. It makes my docking anxiety go way down. When was the last time we got that kind of help with stuff at home? I’m staring at the rocks that need cementing around that pond in my yard. I don’t see anyone at my front door here with big smiles on their faces, arms outstretched to catch bags of mortar …just saying. Our marina is pretty great.

Mike always makes a little list of things he’s decided to do to the boat at the end of every trip.