Some wind!

Jerry at the helm

has returned to the Bay! Took my friend Jerry out on Constance. Wind went up to 22kn on our wind meter (which is reading about 5kn low), so we had to tuck in a reef and roll up the jib somewhat. High speed of 8.1 knots on the return while beam reaching!

Battery monitor!

Spent the day to install the new battery monitor. After the sudden death of the previous main bank batteries I realized that it is quite important to monitor the charge state of the batteries and not let them go deep cycle too often. Actually, better avoid any charge below 80% is apparently the best to maintain battery life. 

The installation is actually quite a brainteaser with 6 different cables you need to install in the right sequence. Also, additionally to the actual monitor I needed to install a shunt and rewire the ground cables for the main bank and the starter battery across the shunt. As usual I only found out when half way through the project that one cable was missing, and so off I went for another Westmarine shopping round! In the end came the anxious moment after the last connection was made: Will the darn thing work? Guess what, first try and it worked like a charm without having to troubleshoot and fix anything! 

The picture shows the battery monitor display. This is a Xantrex LinkLite. It can display the actual voltage, amps drawn, and charge state of the battery for the main bank, and the voltage of the auxiliary starter battery. I mounted it below the companionway to reduce cable length. That way you can also see the display at eye's height when switching on the battery main switch. Checked all the different circuits to see how much they draw. The masthead tricolor is the biggest power drain at 2.2A. Who would have thought! The normal running lights draw only 1.2A, even though they consist of 3 individual bulbs whereas the tricolor has only one.

Battery monitor

Maserati!

Soldini's Maserati at Pier39

Ran across Maserati on Saturday, just after they finished their record breaking NY/SF Route d'Or voyage. They finished the whole distance of 13000+ miles in just a little over 47d, shattering the previous record by more than 10 days!  

Ayala Cove!

Moored at Ayala Cove

Went over the weekend to Angel Island, Ayala Cove. We ended up moored next to a Tartan37, another classic S&S design, very similar to ours (center board, cabin layout with quarterberth,..). The owner came over to say hello and it turned out we had actually talked to each other on the tartansailing group! Quite a coincidence, but I guess the good spots are known among the locals.

After taking a quick plunge in the ice cold waters, we hiked up the island to check out the views of San Francisco and the Golden Gate. Even though it was a bit hazy, the view from top of Angel Island is always breathtaking. The photo above is actually taken from the Sunset trail, high above the cove.

New batteries!

new house batteries (left, 2x73Ah), starter battery (right, 160Ah)

Replaced the aging house batteries with brand new Westmarine gel batteries. The old ones wouldn't hold any charge for more than a few days so I decided to replace them. The overall capacity is now somewhat smaller (146Ah vs. 320Ah before), but I went through the calculation, should be still fine to run a full night with navigation lights, navigation system and radio on, without going below 80% charge. To be safe I will replace the masthead tricolor with an LED and change the interior lights to LED as well.
The batteries are placed underneath the companionway on our boat. That way they are easy accessible from the quarterberth, and are high enough above the water to prevent shorting in case there is a water leak. The drain pipe above is from the kitchen sink and the refrigerator compartment. The yellow cables are from the Xantrex shore power unit. Also hooked directly to the house battery without any switch is the bilge pump and the VHF radio.

More TBF

Here are some more pictures from the race. First the GPS track. Start/finish line is where the little grey pointy triangle is. From there clockwise short tacks to Blackaller buoy and then our biggest mistake, south of Angel Island instead of going through Racoon strait between Angel Island and Tiburon. Red Rock is at the top of the picture, from there spinnaker run to Treasure Island. Round the southern tip and then in 1st reef tacking to back to the finish line. 

Three Bridge Fiasco: Constance track

Starting scene: 365 boats on the line!

Skipper at the start line (round buoy in the background)

Finally, spi is up (coasting towards Angel Is)

TBF!

We participated in the Three Bridge Fiasco Race! This is a annual short handed race in the SF Bay, the goal is to pass 3 marks. One is next to the Golden Gate ("Blackaller"), the Red Rock Island next to Richmond Bridge is #2, and Treasure Island next to the Berkeley Bay Bridge is #3. So you really pass only underneath one bridge, the Bay Bridge. It's called "Fiasco" since you can pick any sequence and direction. That also holds for the start/finish line. So it's very confusing at the start with boats going all directions. The other thing which makes it interesting is that every boat gets a unique starting time based on rating. Slow boats go first, and the starting time is such that theoretically all boats should end up at the finish line at the same time.

Constance under way (blue/white spi)

We spend the night before anchored at Aquatic Cove, which is only a short distance from the start line at the SF Yacht Club. Forecast was for 10-15kn from the West, one model had higher gusts in the late afternoon. Our goal was really to finish, for that we needed to be at the finish before 7pm. The other thing to consider when picking the course is the tidal current, which is enormous around here. So the start was at the tail end of the flood, so I decided to go upwind/upcurrent first to the Blackaller buoy and then head clockwise for RR, then TI, then finish. We got a good start and were able to catch some slower boats in front of us. After rounding the mark, there were 2 options: Going through Raccoon strait (between Tiburon and Angel Island), or go around the southern end of Angel Island. I looked into Raccoon and it was total glass with no winds whatsoever. Getting stuck in there when the tide turns around is quite a disaster, so we opted for going around Angel Island.

But first the spi had to go up! That was somewhat of an issue as I got too excited and managed to totally mess up the hoist with the sheet pulled into the jib furler, the sock wrapped around the pulpit, a huge disaster on the foredeck. Took me 30min to sort it out while we were passed by a couple of boats. Once we got it up we went nicely down the Bay, but then all of a sudden the wind died and everybody just stopped, drifting slowly with the tide. We were parked there for 45min, while everybody who opted for Raccoon caught a nice breeze and went off never to be seen again. That was quite ironic. We eventually started moving again and rounded Red Rock around noon, seeing the whole fleet already sailing towards Treasure Island.

After the Red Rock it was downwind reaching, but it started to gust in the 15-20kn range so first we didn't put the spi back up, having enough speed and angle with the main and jib. Eventually the wind calmed down and I put the spi up again. That unfortunately didn't last long and we saw boats wiping out in front of us. Scary! So down with the spi in a hurry and not too late, thankfully. Next thing was a huge gust of 25-30kn that hit us square but we were able to ride it down. Once behind Treasure Island you could see boats rounding up, and struggling very badly to get upwind. So we tucked in a reef quickly and sure enough, once back in the full breeze the wind was howling with sustained 20kn and big puffs in between. Also you could hear people retiring from the race via radio. Meanwhile the ebb tide was running full speed and with the wind going in the opposite direction the sea build up quite impressively. But the Tartan 34C is just fine for these conditions and it took us under reefed main and jib just another half hour to get to the finish.

Finished at 3pm, way ahead of my initial expectations! But also unfortunately last in our fleet as everybody else who was out there withdrew from the race apparently.. So out of 40 boats that started in our fleet we got position #31, 9 boats didn't finish. Overall only 6 boats from the whole fleet (365 boats) finished after us, and about 90 boats retired early. So I guess that's a statement for the hardiness of the Tartan34C! After the race we still had to go another 15miles back home, with the winds still all the way up. We were safely home at 6p. What a day! A total of 44miles sailed, nothing broke, but totally sore! And next time I will give the Raccoon strait a better consideration :-)

Race report from Norcal here

Race results from Jibeset here