3000 miles!

..left in Constance's wake since May 2010! Quite some distance, further than crossing the Atlantic Ocean between America and Europe! Time to reflect on the things I learned, since this is the first time for me owning a boat. So, here is my list of aha moments:

Buying a boat:

- You need to be clear what kind of sailing you will do. If you're planning to competitively race around the buoys with your friends from the sailing club: don't buy an old, classic boat. She may be beautiful to look at, but coming in consistently last kind of sucks. I wasn't quite planning on racing, but it is quite nice to hang out on the water with other folks, so I ended up participating in some races. For that, a more modern boat is more adequate. In the end it doesn't bother me much, but I could imagine some people would be disappointed by their purchase.

- Old vs. new: This is foremost a question on how much money you want to spend. I would love to have a brand new boat, or even one that is younger than 10 years (on account of not spending so much time fixing stuff). But then you need to spend 120k+ to get a boat that can also go offshore. For the value you get, a Tartan34c is a great deal, and you have beautiful, classic looking, very seaworthy design. No regrets!

- If you buy an old boat, get one with a new engine. I'm so glad that I made that one of my criteria. I've seen so many people agonizing over old engine problems. It really sucks if the engine dies when you're under way.

- Check the deck for delamination and soft spots. If you find any, this should be a no go. I kind of ignored the ones our surveyor found (still small, no big deal). It is like tooth decay, once it sets in you need to do something right away. Took a couple of weeks off our sailing life to deal with that. Still not completely fixed. Soft and rotten deck core is serious and very difficult to fix. To make it look nice afterwards is even more difficult. Having it fixed in a yard costs 10ks of $$$.

- Size: 34ft is just fine for double handing. The Tartan 34c is a little confined downstairs, modern boats are way roomier. I still like it, even though I'm missing a real navigation table with seat. One thing I didn't realize earlier: 35ft is the upper limit for the vast majority of marina slips. Any larger and you will have problems finding a slip in your favorite location. 

Sailing & handling experiences:

- Be confident climbing the mast. More often than you like, halyards get loose and you need to retrieve them.

- Don't be a hero. Reefing the sail is done best exactly at the moment you're thinking about it.

- Reverse docking is for spade rudders and short keels, not for classic boats with tons of prop walk. Some scars on Constance to remind me of that.

- Get a folding prop. The difference to a fixed blade prop is amazing, especially in low wind.

- A good anchor is worth a lot. Our 30lbs CQR still hasn't dragged a single time, with 30ft chain and usually 60ft of rope out (90ft if it is deeper, never anchored in anything deeper than 20ft). Nowadays I sleep like a baby when anchored, and don't worry too much. I do check when the wind starts howling in the rigging, but never had any reason to worry. I did drag on a friend's boat and on charter boats before, never had a good sleep when anchored, on other boats. Sleep is precious!

- A good boat usually handles wind and waves better than humans. Since moving to SF I'm much more relaxed when it comes to strong winds.

- As soon as you feel just a little cold you need to go down below and start putting on layers. Once you get really cold there is practically no way of warming up on a sail boat (if you're in the cockpit).

- I used to be mortified by docking maneuvers. Once you own a boat for some time you get much calmer. Speed is your nemesis when docking. Do it slow and you won't get scratches. You'll still mess up docking here and there due to some unexpected gust, but at least there is no 2ft scar to witness your ineptitude.

- Most important rule when sailing: no yelling! Takes the fun out of everything and leaves stale feelings of betrayal and antagonism. Not worth it!

Maintenance:

- I think the most important thing when dealing with an old boat is to realize that you cannot fix all the things immediately. And there are lots and lots of things on an old boat that can be improved, fixed, or upgraded. Instead it is important to focus on the vital parts that keep the boat safe and seaworthy, while enjoying some time on the water. That's why I bought the boat in the first place! So many boats in the marina never move an inch for years on end, while the owner is busy tinkering around, fixing this, upgrading that and all the time never make it out of the harbor entrance. Having said that, the amount of time necessary to keep an old boat up and running can be daunting. And you really need to be able to do most things by yourself, otherwise you'll spend too much money and, worst, wait long weeks for boatyards to finish work, where you cannot go out on the water. 

- Having said that, the little things that require constant attention and frequent monitoring: Heat exchanger zinc, prop zinc, anything around the engine (oil, coolant, leaks, chafe points, alternator belt). Actually it is a good idea to give the engine a good look over at least once a month. All lines and hoses have to be secured that there are no chafe points. The fuel line for example was touching a metal piece of the engine at  one point and sure enough started developing a chafe point right there. 

Electrical:

- Quite happy with my Mac Laptop Navigation solution. (MacEnc + GPS on USB connection).

- AIS is very useful, but next time I would rather buy active AIS (mine is passive, i.e. I can see commercial boats, but they cannot see me). 

- Battery load is an issue. Even after installing the battery monitor, my house batteries slowly drain over time and need a good full charge once in a while. Just running the engine here and there is not enough. The thing is that the battery monitor is not catching that creep and needs to be reset every 2 months or so. First I didn't realize this, and while the monitor was showing close to 100%, the voltage was already down to 12.3V. I think it is a good idea to have a solar charger to avoid running the engine for long times if you don't have access to shore power. 

Vallejo 1-2!

Constance participated in the Vallejo 1-2 race last weekend. The first leg is a singlehanded race from Berkeley to Vallejo YC in the Carquinez strait, a good 18 miles. I decided to try out the spinnaker division, winds are usually light enough in th North Bay this time of the year. Still, I've never handled "The Monster" singlehandedly! There was a small craft advisory in effect after 1p so I was somewhat nervous and promised myself to get the beast down at the smallest sign of big winds. I shouldn't have worried, the race was mostly a drifter with highest winds maybe around 8kn. Anyways, I finished the race without fouling anything, and only corrected out due to time to last place. Very happy about it! 2 spi sets and douses, 3 gybes, all by myself! https://www.jibeset.net/show.php?RR=JACKY_T006056317&DOC=r101&TYP=html

Even though I got only last place in my division, overall I got 17 out of 42 boats that started, and 23 boats that finished! Not too bad I think!

The return trip was double handed for us, unfortunately even less wind. We managed to get out of the Napa river quite well, but then got stuck at Pinole Pt when the tide turned and the wind completely shut off. Our stealth anchor got deployed twice, but no progress in the rare zephyrs that showed up here and there. With no hope to finish we called it quits at 3:30p and pretty much motored home, a good 30mls to be precise. Still, a great day on the water, had some fun meeting other sailors at Vallejo YC! 

Spi is up!

Just before the start

Summer Sailing!

Haven't been posting things for a while. We've been busy sailing Constance around the SF Bay.  Weekends are a huge relief from daily job pressure and other ordinary things, so we usually stay at least every 2nd weekend on the boat. Summer is the time to go sailing here! The thermals set in around noon and increase from a benign 10-15kn all the way to 30-40kn on a hot summer day. Which can be quite cold in San Francisco, by the way. What's causing the thermal wind is really the temperature difference between the California Central Valley and the Coast. Over a distance of 100 miles the temperature difference can be as high as 40 degree Fahrenheit or 20 degree Celsius. The hot air rises over the Central Valley and pulls in cold air from the ocean. Hence the fog you often see in the summer in San Francisco. The air has to funnel in between Peninsula of SF and the Marin Headlands in the North, creating an accelerated flow of air roughly between the City Front and Alcatraz Island. That area is also called "The Slot", where the highest wind speeds can be reached. The 34th America's Cup in 2013 happened exactly here for a reason!  Below a video from one of those days, early afternoon just south of Alcatraz, winds peaking around 25-30kn. No problem for Constance with the first reef tucked in!

New sheets!

After end-over-ending my jib sheets last year I finally gave in and bought a set of new jib sheets, plus a new main sheet. 50ft each! What a difference it makes! The old ones were trusty and solid, but just way too stiff and extended, really nearing the end of their life span. I went down one size to 7/16, New England Sta-Set, breaking strength at 7100lbs. According to the calculator that is plenty of safety for the Tartan34C. Also I changed the colors such that the tangled mess in the cockpit is easier to divide up :-)

red on port, green on starboard!

Round the Rocks!

At the starting line

Did the SSS (singlehanded sailing society) Round the Rocks race! Was lots of fun, and we even managed to get a decent finish, 4th in our division and 17th out of 44 overall in the double handed class. Already at the start at the Berkeley Olympic circle the wind was blowing 15-20kn and it was forecasted to peak in the afternoon, so we tucked in a reef. Glad we did it, did pretty well on the first leg to Alcatraz where others were struggling. Going around Harding Rock in a breeze but then I was agonizing wether to put the spi up or not. When the wind calmed down in Raccoon St we quickly threw up the spi (aka The Beast) and gently moved past the non spi boats on the growing flood tide past Red Rock towards the Brothers. The Brothers are a couple of small islands in the San Pablo strait, this was also our northernmost turning mark. I took the conservative approach taking the spi down quite early, just to make sure no mess up would prevent us from going upwind after the mark. Man, it was churning in that narrow channel! Thankfully still enough wind to sail free, but once we approached the Richmond bridge it was dying down quickly. Just past the bridge there were a whole lot of boats parked in a wind hole. We tried to sail around, but no avail, the wind eventually died everywhere! So we were slowly swept back through the bridge on the flood tide. It took some agonizing 40 minutes for the wind to come back. From there an exhilarating reach to the finish line at Richmond YC! I love my new folding prop, it makes all the difference in light air!

Anchored at Clipper Cove the night before the race

New folding prop!

Flexofold 16x11

New folding prop is mounted. Flexofold is a danish brand, it is super solid and here are the reasons I liked this one more than the other ones (Gori, Martec): 1) No special designed anode that needs to be bought and replaced in a complicated manner (check out the normal 1" anode on the shaft). 2) The blades are connected with a gear, a Martec prop always has the chance that one blade is hanging down adding drag if the propeller is not exactly centered.  3) The Gori is also way more expensive. 4) Also, the chance of loosing the thing is minuscule vs. Gori (where I heard this happened a couple of times), and Martec (happened to me). First sea trial on the way back to Coyote Point: Man this thing has way more power than the 3blade fixed. At about 1700-1800rpm I get max speed around 7.0kn (!) Let's see how that translates into fuel economy! With the old prop I barely ever got above 5.5kn (@2200rpm). The new smooth bottom may contribute as well, who knows. One downside the yard manager already warned me of: There are quite some added vibrations since the substantial weight of the Flexofold is at the end of the shaft and there is no supporting bearing behind the cutlass bearing. There is some concern that the cutlass bearing will start leaking eventually. Oh well, time will tell. The T34C cutlass bearing is quite solid and I haven't heard that anybody had issues with this and a folding prop. I sure love the speed I get with this prop. Reversing in the marina was no big deal, the boat pretty much stopped on a dime. 

Hauled out!

Constance is getting a new bottom paint. I'm not exactly happy with the hard epoxy Seahawk Sharkskin that is on there right now. Already after one season it started to build up algae within a week after cleaning. So now after 2.5 seasons it's time to get something better! Also, I need to get my new Flexofold 16x11 2blade folding prop installed. Not to mention some blemishes that need to get fixed. Motored today against a strong flood tide to SF Boatworks, located some 2miles south of the Bay Bridge. One thing I noticed after hauling the boat is the comeback of the dreaded center board droop. I might be lucky as it seems to be just the arm position not being right..

Constance getting a wash down 

9BF!

Actually, this is called the Three Bridge Fiasco, aka TBF. See last year's post. It's called the 'Fiasco' since you can chose the order of rounding marks at your leisure, including in which direction to pass the start/finish line. On top of that, this is the most popular race in SF Bay for the whole year, with 350+ boats on the starting line. One caveat, you cannot have a full crew, max is 2 people on board. So, maneuvering in tight quarters with plenty of boats is quite a challenge. The race is a pursuit race, that means each boat has an individual starting time, based on handicap. Slow boats start first, and theoretically everybody should arrive at the finish line around the same time. Chaos pure! 

SO this year, totally different conditions, compared to last year! A raging noon ebb tide paired with low winds made things really difficult. With Constance being slow in little wind, we opted to go with the current and start downwind, finishing the race course clockwise. I positioned ourselves upwind/upcurrent of the line with 5 minutes to go and started setting the spinnaker. Everything went fine while Jewel was steering towards the line. THEN I realized that EVERYBODY else was starting upwind, meaning in opposite direction as we were. Luckily we were on starboard tack and most boats just stayed out of the way, but for a moment I was truly scared looking at the fleet coming towards us. To give you an impression: Time lapse of the starting line here:  

After we got without incident through the starting line (only 30sec past our starting time!), things went pretty well and we passed a bunch of boats on the way to the first mark. Spinnaker takedown was equally successful and we rounded the mark tightly, heading hard up into the wind to cross the shipping channel towards Raccoon strait. That's when I realized that boats in front of us got swept out of the Golden Gate by the ebb current. Checking the GPS track showed clearly that this was our fate too, so I tacked back to get upstream somewhat. Meanwhile we were in the maximum ebb current and could barely hold our position, just moving sideways over ground while going 5kn through the water. 

Then the wind died. And like the rest of the fleet that had opted for this direction, we got brutally sucked out of the Golden Gate. While spinning the boat in the current eddies, a big gigantic cargo freighter appeared from the ocean and tried to work his way through hundreds of sail boats drifting slowly with the tides. TOOOOOOT!!!! At that time we were in the middle of the channel, but luckily I was able to spin the boat around and point in the right direction. The 4kn of current speed gave us enough wind into the sails so that we could inch out of the channel before the biggie was there. Some other boats had to fire up the engine and had to abandon the race therefore. 

Now came the biggest challenge, getting back into the SF Bay against all that current. There is a strong countercurrent heading east at the northern shore, so that's where we went. And miraculously we made it back under the bridge, until we almost were able to tack over into horseshoe cove out of the current. Almost! Just like 30 other boats we ended up in one big gigantic eddie swirling just West of the bridge. Once you cleared that little headland, a strong side current would sweep you easily back into the Pacific Ocean. We tried 9 times (!) to clear that headland without success. That's why we call this race the 9BF :-). After 3 hours of this no end was in sight and out of 21 miles race distance we had done maybe 2 miles. No way we could finish the race and we opted to abandon the race instead to go swimming at Aquatic Park anchorage!

Out of 357 boats on the start line, only 1 boat finished (!), about 9 minutes before the deadline at 7pm. Another catamaran apparently finished too but didn't have running lights so got disqualified. Bummer! Anyways, was lots of fun, totally sore the next day from numerous tacks and even more close encounters with other boat in the tidal swirl off the North Tower of Golden Gate! Next year we'll be back...

Motor-sailing towards SF

Beautiful sunset

3BF starting line

30 boats stuck under the Golden Gate

Captain got a sunburn..

Spi training!

Spi is flying!

Light winds today, perfect for some spinnaker training. Not so easy with only 2 people on the boat! Went through 10 gybes, 2 sets and 2 dowses. I was totally sweaty, already sore before we went home! Still need to work on the spi dowse, takes way too long to take the monster down, even with the sock. The problem is really the possibly disastrous interaction between sip and jib. Need to find a way of unrolling the jib without getting the spi all tangled up.