Foggy morning sail

SF skyline on the way back to San Mateo

More maintenance!

Spend the last couple of weekends doing some maintenance work on the boat: Oil and filter change, transmission fluid change, fuel filter change and zinc change for the heat exchanger. Looks like the zinc really needs to be replaced every half year, this one was down to a nubbin again. Also started to redo all of the brightwork which is quite some chore with all the wood on the boat: Toe rails, rub rails, hand rails and the cockpit frame / back rests! Plan is to get all of the old varnish off and repaint everything with Cetol. Varnishing turned out to be very unpractical here, the California sun eats through the varnish in no time and the varnish started peeling off everywhere, already half a year after we redid the whole thing. I also had to repair some electric wiring and replace a couple of fuses.

For a treat after all the work we took the boat to Clipper Cove at Treasure Island in the middle of the Bay and stayed there over night. Quite a different setting from our usual Ayala Cove hideout, with the Bay Bridge looming overhead and the decrepit Naval Yard around. Also didn't feel like swimming in the murky water.. But was still nice and quite a different experience. On the way back no wind at all, so we couldn't really test the new 100% Jib and ended up motoring all the way back home to Coyote Point.

Treasure Island Marina

Anchorage at Clipper Cove

Bay bridge during morning fog

The spi is up!

Despite the fact that my broken pole ring is still stuck on the spi track, we managed to get the spi up during a very relaxing and calm Sunday afternoon sail here on the Bay. Double handing that huge sail is quite a challenge, especially when it needs to come down and the wind has come up. I really need to get a spinnaker sock to make that part a little easier. 880sqft are actually a huge headache on the bow if you have to collect it all by yourself while dropping the halyard at the same time!