Apr 30 2007
Day on the Bay
Saturday, I was given the opportunity to crew with my friend Patrick on one of OCSC’s little training J/24s, for a nice, no-hassle day sail around the Bay. He was going to bringing not only his friend Missy, but another one of his signature fabulous lunches, so I leapt at the opportunity. Pleasantly, the day’s forecast had been for a whole lot of warm and a whole lot of still, but there was a nice stiff breeze, which made us all happy. Last time I was out with Patrick, there was so little wind that we basically motorsailed, and at one point, we got passed up by a kayak. With the forecast, that was on my mind, and clearly on Patrick’s too, because he made a few surly comments about the incident as we were finishing up loading everyone’s gear on board.
After being on our catamaran, being back on a J/24 was kind of like going back to elementary school, where they have those tiny desks. You remember sitting in them, and you even try, but your knees hit in odd spots. It’s been over six months since I was out on a J/24, and I was a little worried that I was too rusty, or had forgotten stuff. But even as my brain was saying “I wonder if I remember how to tie a highwayman’s hitch?”, my fingers were already doing it. So that was a nice little confidence booster.
Patrick’s sail plan was to head straight west, circle around Angel Island, dock at Ayala Cove for lunch, then head back out and home down the slot.
No plan survives first contact with the enemy. The bay was seriously crowded. Not as crowded as during Fleet Week when the Blue Angels were practicing maneuvers right over the bay, and the Coast Guard was deployed as crowd control. And probably not as crowded as it was Sunday, which was officially Opening of Season. But still, more boats than I’ve seen out in a while. Patrick skillfully zigzagged us up the Bay, where we were overtaken by this gem of a boat: Aldebaran, out of Alviso. (They seem to have no web presence at all. If anyone knows anything about this boat, please drop me a line, OK? I have about a gazillion questions I want to ask them about their sails.)
They overtook us, headed left down the city front, and still had time to loop back, recross the mouth of the Bay, and head over into Richardson Bay, in the time it took us to get the rest of the way up to Richardson Bay. But it was totally worth it to see her. If you click on any of these images and head back to the album, you’ll see that I got a little trigger-happy with the camera. Couldn’t help it. She’s gorgeous. And speaking as someone whose boat is going to need a whole lot of love when she gets back home, it was really inspirational for me to see a boat that is so completely not-factory. The vast majority of the other boats out on the water with us were totally non-modified factory boats, or raceboats whose sails alone are more than my personal net worth. But even then (oh God, here I go, getting all sappy), I think there’s something about a boat that’s been heavily modified and personalized that speaks more to nautical history, where boats were individual marks of craftsmanship, not just “Hull Number Gazillion.”
Here’s a sampling of the madness at the Gate end of the Bay, and just turning the corner into Richardson Bay, around Angel Island. We thought that perhaps someone was racing, but as we got closer, we couldn’t see any organized activity, nor could we see the normal pair of pylons. Again, if anyone wants to educate me as to what was going on, please do, because the three of us were baffled.
We slowed down considerably at this point, partially because of the wind shadow of the Peninsula, but also because only a great fool goes charging top-speed into chaos like that. And wouldn’t you know it… right there in the center of everything, was Patrick’s nemesis, the Speed Kayaker. I’m guessing he’d just launched from Angel Island, but still, he was out in the thick of it. You have to give him credit for that.
The docks and moorings at Ayala Cove were completely insane. Several of the docks were out of commission for repairs, and the moorings were several boats deep, with rafting. After executing a brilliant flip-turn that involved threading through a dizzying number of obstacles, Patrick got us safely ashore to the comfort of flush toilets and a quick break in warm sunshine.
As we departed, this sight made me laugh. The picture looks like two boats cruising. What it actually was was boats circling for parking spaces. I’m not even joking; it was as bad as a mall parking lot at Christmas. People would charge into the cove, circle the front side of the docks and back, and then go out and circle, waiting for some boat movement, to pounce. I saw three other boats jockeying for position for our dinky little 15-minute limit spot. I guess the bathrooms there are popular.
Our attempt at locating docking being totally unsuccessful, we decided to have lunch while hove-to out on the other side of the Island. Good plan, right? Steady breeze would blow us back in the general direction of home, and we were outside the shipping lanes, so that wasn’t a problem, right?
Wrong wrong wrong wrong. No sooner had Patrick’s mouthwatering lunch bits hit the plates, then we see a humongous container vessel. Sailors new to the Bay often make the mistake of thinking that since these ships are huge, they must also be slow. Totally wrong. It’s terrifying how fast these ships move. And it’s Turning. Right. At. Us. But we weren’t in the shipping lanes. So we were OK, right? Nope. It was at the split second that the vessel completed its turn, and we were staring at it dead-center on, that I remembered that to radar, a J/24 is completely invisible. And there were no people on that deck.
We grabbed tiller, and rocketed out of there. The container ship plowed right over where we had been just moments before. Once our adrenaline calmed down a bit, Missy commented, “you know, we would have just been matchsticks under that.” and I opined, in case anyone missed it, “that was not a kayak.” Looks like Patrick has a new nemesis on the Bay.
Due to our mobile circumstance, lunch didn’t get the focus it truly deserved; Patrick had made chicken with this awesome rum coating, and grilled marinated veggies, Missy brought loaves of awesome french bread and some cheese that was completely deadly (called Prima Donna; If you get the chance, try it.) Dessert was little fudgy bricks of brownie, washed down with bites of fresh strawberry. Fantastic.
The rest of lunch, and our return back to OCSC’s docks, was totally uneventful, thank goodness. I find the post-sail putting to bed of the boat to be a really soothing ritual; there’s something about folding the sails, making everything tidy, and washing down, that puts a glow of satisfaction across the whole event. We exchanged greetings with the other boats that were back at dock, ran into some old friends, and just generally felt good. I overheard Bruce, one of the OCSC Instructors, telling his students how to tell a sea story (this being a critical skill to becoming a good sailor). It made me smile, because I remember that lecture from my Basic Keelboat class, which I took with Bruce. I didn’t start this sea story the right way, but since here we are at the ending…
…And she went down like a greased refrigerator.
Cargo containers in the Puget Sound always bring to mind a paraphrased quote from Pirates:
“The [chart] is more what you’d call “guidelines” than actual rules.” - Captain Barbossa
Yeah those Cargo ships can be scary how fast they are not there, then over there, then THERE!