Today's Open/Close Times based on tide predictions

DateClub TimelineSunsetLow Tide
Thu Jul 3 Noon to 8:06 PM8:36 PM2.0 @ 12:20 PM

red means the Club will be closed. Note that current low tides are around 0.2 feet higher than predictions.

Day Leader's WhiteBoard

Whiteboard

Unless whiteboard shows today's date, there is no Day Leader or they haven't signed in yet.

All things that are not categorized anywhere else (catchall category).

Foiler coming! Safety first, last, and damn they're fast!

There you are, plowing along on a dinghy or windsurf board, when a foiling windsurfer comes roaring up on a collision course* with you, coming from downwind of you, but on the same tack as you.

What to do?  Turns out, the foiler has right of way**, because they're downwind, and on the same tack.  Even though theyre going way faster than you are.

Best move is to head up sharply, to avoid the collision.  If you're lucky, once you head up you'll be on the same course as them, and you will then have right of way because they'll be overtaking you. 

In any event, always do what you can to avoid a collision, and try to forgive foilers for going so fast.

*always keep a careful eye out for anyone on a collision course with you.  Look for others who are getting closer while appearing to stay in the same place relative to objects that are far away (same compass course).

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Don't be afraid of the radio

Some radio advice for those that hope to start sailing the bay (or beyond).

It's required by Coast Guard that if you have a radio, you have to monitor channel 16.  There are good reasons for this.  But beyond talking to the dayleader for a radio check, we don't actually use the radio much.  On the keelboats, often times we get annoyed by all the chatter on 16 and just turn the radio down, which is understandable.  Usually if we're sailing, we're teaching, and the noise is a distraction.  Add to the fact that whenever we are monitoring, we hear a lot of official chatter that can make using it to hail another vessel, or the coast guard, seem like a big deal, which it isn't.  So spend some time listening to the radio.  Pay attention to how the coast guard talks.  If you're on a cruise or out in the bay near shipping channels, turn on channel 14 (vessel traffic).  You'll hear how the container ships and ferries talk to vessel traffic control about where they are and where they're headed.  That way if you do have to hail the coast guard it won't seem like an unfamiliar and big deal.

I had another opportunity to hail on the radio recently.  We were headed out of the gate and were between Angel Island and Alcatraz.  We had seen a container ship coming from Richmond that was now out of site, and could now see a container ship outside the gate, but couldn't tell which way it was going.  We were about to potentially be in the way of both of them, depending on where they were headed.  So I went to channel 14 and basically just asked 'hey where are these ships going?':

Me: Vessel traffic this is sailing vessel Mariya (not the name of my boat but it's not an easy, radio-friendly name, so I often make something up) on 14.  Do you copy?

VTS: *Hesitantly* Sailing vessel Mariya... this is vessel traffic?

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Wild Rover adventure Home

Maybe having bananas on the boat was a mistake, but Nick really likes bananas!  Morning of departure the goal was to take off by 9am but sail boats never depart on time and the boys dealt with some Y valve issues with the head all morning.  Nick’s mom came out to Anacortes to wish him farewell and stock up on provisions for two weeks - we were definitely never hungry and ate quite well on the trip.  Thank you Chris!  

Wild Rover departed from Cap Sante Marina on Saturday September 5th.  At the marina Nick’s neighbor, Rubicon III, was doing the same trip down to Berkeley Marina which was nice to know a friend heading in the same direction.  Rod (owner of Rubicon III) paid Commander’s Weather Corporation to put together a detailed forecast for the sail down - which was very on point and made specific recommendations for the sail down.  Getting out of the Salish Sea the water was glossy so we motored most of the way - trying to avoid debris, birds and kelp forests.  The coast line included many coves to explore and forests.  The crew included Graeme, Ryan, Mariya and Nick for the first half of the trip.  We were all excited and stayed up chatting/taking pictures all day as Graeme worked and re-worked the watch schedule for 24 hour sailing he eventually realized there was 00 and 24 hour - so the math did not add up.  During the day we did 3 hour solo watches and after sunset each individual only had 1 hour by themseelves, and 2 hours of overlap with the person before then after.  So if Ryan was on watch 8pm - 11pm then 8-9pm he overlapped with Mariya and 10-11pm he overlapped with Nick to minimize desire to fall asleep and have extra hands for wind changes/sail changes etc. 

We kept strict rules that anyone leaving the cockpit had to be tethered in - and nobody was allowed to go up if they were the only ones on watch.  Day 2 we woke up to a foggy morning, swell was pretty tall and kept building up as the sun came out and wind came up.  A shark passed by us - Jaw soundtrack. The first day included a lot of motoring so the boys refilled the fuel, spilled some diesel on the boat (which we carefully cleaned up with the diapers and buckets) and fixed the head.  Off to a productive start - the winds picked up and we had a lovely sailing evening.  In the evening the wind picked up pretty quickly - within minutes we would be adjusting sail from the 135 full genoa … to reef the genoa, to one reef on main sail, well lets put in a second reef, and time for storm jib.  After getting the second reef in on day 2 - we actually never un-reefed the rest of the trip.  

Day 3 was a beautiful day!  We saw a dolphin swim alongside the boat - showing us how blue and transparent the water is.  Nick was concerned about the shrimp/crab pots so we stayed further offshore - we were about 20 miles away from the coast cruising over 5000 feet of water at times.  The sun was out and the winds were steady, towards the evening the winds again started to pick up quickly from the East so we reacted fast and were prepared with the storm jib (which we ended up keeping packed up on the bow and already attached to the halyard) and double reef learned our lesson from the night before how quickly the wind may come up.  

The swell and winds continued to build. At this point Ryan is puking overboard, Nick is happily eating a grilled sandwich, Graeme looks concerned and Mariya is taking pictures and upset she cannot get a great shot of the sunset because Ryan keeps being in the picture.   Then the wind came up even more and we took down the mainsail and sailed storm jib alone.  Now the sun is down and the wind is coming up.  Eventually we end up taking the storm jib down (bare poles) and trying to motor against the wind to get us closer to shore - this was a strong east wind.  Then Nick says, “wouldn’t it suc.k if the motor dies.”  Whelp, a few minutes later the motor dies.  Bare poles, large swell, very very windy - Nick is steering, eventually finds he has the wheel hard over and the boat feels pretty stable.  He tells Graeme he is off shift and can go under - ties down the wheel and stays in the cockpit to observe how the boat handles. 

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Tire Bouchon, à plus tard!

Two of our fellow CSC members have casted off on an adventure many of us dream of! If you are interested in following their adventure, check out Team Bouchon. 

Yalcin (“Turkish guy”) and Marie (“Frenchick”) met here at CSC! For Yalcin his first time on a sailboat was after high school, when he took a keelboat trip in Turkey: “during this trip, we learnt the basics of sailing, how to tie knots, docking, anchoring, basic navigation etc. I got a basic crew certificate, I don't remember which yachting association issued it. I loved it so much! From then on, I always felt like if I ever had a chance to sail my boat full time, I was going to do it.”  Yalcin kept sailing while in the Mediterranean, but when he arrived in the USA as a graduate student his dream started to fade as he had not sailed in three years.  But then, he found a job in the bay area and started calculating how many years he’d need to work “to get a boat and save some money to sail her for a couple of years. I think I can say that as soon as I found the financial path, I started actively preparing for a trip. I, of course, had no idea what it would look like.” 

Marie also had some sailing experience on optimists as a kid, then Hobbie - and she also dreamt of one day sailing the world!  These two crossed paths at Cal Sailing Club and started to dream together.  At first by racing JY dinghies in our own south sailing basin, then “on the Bay on Ricochet, a Santana 22, and finally on Yalcin’s first keelboat, the beautiful lady Avocet, a Canadian Sailcraft 30 who taught the couple a lot about avoiding crab pods, make pizzas while grounded at the entrance of a cove, chinese gibes, raftups and dipping outside the protective Bay for a couple of days here and there…” They each got their junior skipper dinghy rating at CSC and at some point worked towards senior skipper, but became distracted with their own boat.

They spent lots of time picking out an appropriate boat for them.  Finally they purchased Tire-bouchon, an Ericson 38, which they brought from San Diego to Berkeley with our cruising skipper and friend Nick G and started to prepare the boat for an adventure one day, which was a challenge in a foreign country.  “Because I didn't know how to find a good service or source some parts. I have some boat building experience, I have curiosity to learn the sailboat systems so I read a lot. Information is excessively available thanks to the internet. But I always had a hard time finding a place that will do the job. Marine stores charge an arm and a leg for any service they offer. The small shops that would do a one off just for fun, some small talk and a small fee simply wasn't available to me in the US” (Yalcin).  

“In Turkey, I remember going to a shop that cut large plastic neon letters for store signs and getting them to cut marine plywood for us. We had to bring the right digital format and even the appropriate cutting bit for plywood but they let us use their machine for a few hours for a small charge. I remember helping them with their computer issues during the cuts. There were so many times I needed a tool or a custom job and I knew exactly where I could have gotten it done the way I wanted to if I was in Turkey; but I had to find a workaround because I didn't know any better. CSC was definitely a big resource for all my questions.” 

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Lessons learned during a missing POB search

On the way back into the Berkeley marina on a Sunday afternoon, we heard a panicked 'maydaymayday, I'm in the water just off the Berkeley pier'.   

I had been watching a Santana 22 near the gap luffing it's main and bobbing around and was wondering what they were doing, so we knew about where the person must be.  There were 3 other sailboats nearby that must have had the same thought.  Everyone got their sails down and motors started ASAP and headed over to the boat.  We didn't see the person so we all went different directions in search.  The Coast Guard started talking to a couple of the boats about search efforts.
 
I'll give my timeline of events as we saw them.
 
It took about 15 minutes for the first CG boat to show up.  Another 15 for the helicopter.
 
In the meantime, one of the other sailboats went over to the adrift Santana, which was slowly sailing itself away from the pier (thankfully).  Someone hopped on and they started heading to the marina.
 
We kept running sweeps until the helicopter showed up and started circling.  Figuring they were going to see a person long before we could, we headed in, in very poor spirits.  After 30 minutes of not hearing the guy on the radio, and CG still searching, we were pretty sure we'd just heard someone's last words over the radio.  I thought 'I hope this isn't yet another story we hear too much that ends with "if they'd just been wearing a PFD...."'.
 
We'd been anchored out for the weekend, so we made a stop at the pump-out dock on the way in, and saw that the adrift boat had been brought there and tied up by it's rescuer, so we talked to the people that brought it in.  In a pleasant turn of news, apparently one of the other sailboat's found the guy early on and got him out of the water, but never radioed on 16.  So all of us, including Coast Guard, were out there searching for quite a while before anyone knew.  Later, the CG pulled up to us near the rescued boat and asked us to throw some of the gentleman's things inside, who had been taken to the hospital for hypothermia, but was otherwise fine.  I was glad to see one of the items was an auto-inflated PFD with radio attached.
 
Things I learned from the experience:
 
1)  Coast Guard response time is not always as fast as you would want it to be, especially if you're the one in the water.  Thankfully there were multiple boats right there.
 
2)  PFD and radio are crucial.  If he hadn't been able to call that mayday, even though there were boats nearby, who knows if anyone would have happened to notice him any time soon.
 
3)  Monitor 16.  The reason he got rescued quickly was because every boat in the area was listening on 16.  It's legally required to monitor, yes, but also you could literally save someone's life.  Think about if you're the one in distress calling a mayday.  I was very proud of the response by the sailors.  
 
4)  I haven't talked to the skipper, so I can't say what happened, but it was the end of the day and everyone was coming in, pulling down sails.  The jib was down on the foredeck and main still up, so it's likely he was out of the cockpit prepping to come into the marina, and fell off.  Remember the rule, one hand for yourself, one for the boat.  Always have a hold of something, especially when you're by yourself.  
 
Thankfully he did the big things right.  He had a PFD with a radio attached, which no doubt saved his life.  In sailing, things go wrong FAST when they decide to go wrong.  There is no 'oh I'm going to do this thing real quick, I don't need to put a PFD on.'  Which is why at the club we require a PFD at all times, and a radio when out of sight of the dayleader.
 
Stay safe out there, always.

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Can You Slow Sail?

MOB
Saturday Docking
J Dock PP
J Dock Daisy

Slow sailing is a technique we teach for getting to a fixed point in space at a stop. The fixed point could be a dock, a buoy, a MOB, etc. The idea is to come in on a close reach approach course, where you have an accelerator and a brake. The accelerator is the main, pulling in on the fall, and the brake is the wind against the hull when you depower the main. The technique works for dinghies and for keelboats, although of course each boat responds differently, and each time you do it the dynamics of the wind and sea against the boat are different.

So my question is "Can you slow sail?" I'm not asking whether you can perform the basic technique – let's assume that. When you get on your final approach course for your target, can the boat slow sail to the target? Are you on a close reach? The reason I ask this question is that it is the most common problem I see teaching MOB and docking. I'll go through the cases below, but the take-away is that you should ask yourself this question when you start on your final approach and again if the wind shifts. If the answer is Yes, Bob's your uncle, so just slow sail to your target. If the answer is No, you have to do something, like adjust your course or abort the maneuver.

How to ask yourself the question

It's very simple, just see whether you have an accelerator and a brake when the boat is pointing toward the target. Pull in on the fall and see if the boat powers up without any luff in the sail. Let the sail out all the way and look for a big luff in the sail. If both of these happen, you can slow sail. If one of them does not, you can't. I can't emphasize enough that the boat must be pointed in the direction you want to slow sail when you do this.

The cases

I'll discuss MOB, dinghy docking in the South Basin, and West wind keelboat dockings at J-Dock. I will present only a cursory description of each procedure. The intent is to show you when you should ask yourself the question or a variant of it.

MOB

A basic technique we teach is broad reach away from the MOB and tack around to close reach back. This is not the only possible technique, and in keelboats you have more choices than in dinghies. The technique is described in more detail here and is illustrated below:

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Pan Pan

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“PAN PAN, PAN PAN, PAN PAN pan. There is a dismasted sailing dinghy in the vicinity of the St. Francis Yacht Club. Three sailors aboard all wearing PFDs.”

The sound of Ryan’s voice issuing the mariners warning, one level below a MAYDAY, was a comfort. I was being watched over.   As I struggled to get the sails back in the boat, I could see the other boats nearby.

We had left Berkeley the day before, 4 Ventures, two club keel boats and a couple of private boats tagging along. All bound for the kayak beach at Angel Island. We had a lovely and uneventful upwind sail to the beach. We anchored the keelboats and ferried the sailors, gear and supplies to the beach. After humping everything up the hill to the campsite we had a feast, sausage, peppers & onions, salad, cheeses, charcuterie, beer, wine and on and on. Some of us went to bed early, while others hiked to the top of the island. Ah, youth.

We woke the next morning to heavy fog both in the air and some heads. Tiburon, which we could see the night before, had disappeared. We made radio contact with Carolyn on one of the keelboats, and started making a leisurely breakfast while we waited for the fog to lift. By 11 AM we had broken camp, gotten everything loaded up and got off the beach. As we sailed out of Racoon Strait, the Golden Gate Bridge came into view and with it the fog. Carolyn had found a tear in Daisy’s main sail and made the decision to head for home. The rest of us continued on towards the gate. We got a little far apart, so the lead boats tucked into Horseshoe Cove and waited for the rest of us to catch up. There was a short discussion over the radio, and the decision was made to go under the bridge and then head for home. Because of the remaining fog we would maintain a close formation, do a radio check for vessel traffic and stay close to the North tower where there is less large ship traffic.

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Volunteer spotlight: Ryan Alder

 
You may know Ryan Alder from the dinghy repair clinics that he started with Memo a couple of weeks ago, or because you bought one of his cool CSC T-shirts, hats or sweaters. You may know Ryan from a dinghy lesson, from open house, from a blog post even, or simply because he is one of the familiar faces that is often at the club. It is sometimes brought up that it is not always easy to be a new member of our CSC community: you arrive at the club, you don't know anyone and most of the time, not much about sailing nor how the club works. We all remember those dark days... But some members make a point to recognize newbies and to be encouraging from one week of lessons to the other. When I started sailing at CSC three years ago, Ryan was one of those members. That helped me know when I could consider getting tested for junior. Since then, he became a senior skipper and has helped many others to get at these difficult tests.
 
On top of that, Ryan is also Third-Vice Commodore at the club executive committee. This means that in addition to numerous meetings, he is in charge of our fleet of six keelboats, which he recently update with a J80 keelboat, a performant racer that could very well take the club keelboat practice to the next level!
 
Ryan grew up on motor boats in the Midwest and started sailing CSC six years ago. He now lives on his 30 footer, Kakelekele, in the Berkeley marina. Another excuse to be at (or at least stop by) CSC almost every day!
 
What made you start sailing?
"Having grown up on/near water I got sick of looking at this beautiful bay and started trying to figure out a way to get out on it and enjoy it. Most options were cost-prohibative until I finally found CSC."
 
What do you like about sailing in general and the club in particular?
"I fell in love with sailing because it is both a physical and mental challenge, and there is always more to learn. Whatever stage you're at, there is something new to strive towards or improve upon."
"And I love the club because there are so many people that care about and give so much to the club. We make some of the best sailors in the bay, which is one of the most challenging places to sail in the world, and we do it all at virtually no cost to anyone. Because we all share and believe in what we do. I heard tale of someone writing a paper on the club for a sociology or economics class, and the teacher didn't believe them and thought they made it up because 'there's no way that would work in the real world'. But here we are after 50-80 years (depending on who you talk to), still doing it."
 
What's your best memory at the club?

"Hmm this is a hard one, there are so many. The one that stands out right now is from this past summer. James led a dinghy camping cruise to Angel Island, which is a logistical feat in itself, and everyone had a blast. The next day we all made a gate run before heading back. The fog came in pretty thick on the way and there was some discussion on if we were still going to do it. After careful consideration we decided to go for it and make sure to stay in close visual contact. After crossing under the bridge (which we could barely see in the fog) and turning back downwind, we all hoisted the gennekers. Seeing absolutely nothing except fog and all 4 ventures in close proximity flying kites downwind will be one of the most beautiful and awesome experiences I'll ever have."

More about this adventure in Pan Pan from Seamus.
 
Any sailing dreams?
"My ultimate dream is to sail the Carribean or the Meditteranean.  Good wind, beautiful weather, warm water.  Although if I do I'm pretty sure I'll never come back."
 
What advice/recommendation would you give to a new club member?

"Talk to people. Ask sailing and windsurfing questions. This is, even more than sailing, a social club. Progress gets much easier when you start to get to know some people. Come hang out even if you don't intend to go sailing, especially on a weekend when the clubhouse deck is full of bench sailors. Beyond that: sail, sail, sail. Don't worry about specific skills. It's all about time at the tiller in increasingly challenging conditions. When you start just having fun in higher and higher winds, all the other stuff gets easy."

 
Could you give us more detail about your role as Third Vice Commodore of our club?

"As 3rd vice I'm in charge of the keelboat fleet. We have a small handful of amazing people that handle most of the maintenance of the boats, namely Greg and Sheldon (and Peter for the motors). So honestly, thanks to them, my role is fairly easy. I mostly manage the keelboat budget and try to make sure they have the resources and support to do what they do best."

 

Thanks to Ryan and all the CSC volunteers that make our club the way it is, a fantastic place to learn sailing and windsurfing and an amazing community.

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The "Mystery Ring" on a Venture, or how to avoid a dismasting

Ring
Ring Hidden

I described a rig failure due to a missing or failed cotter ring on a Venture a year and a quarter ago:

https://cal-sailing.org/blogfrontpage/recent-blog-posts/entry/rig-failure-on-a-cruise-to-treasure-island

Cotter rings and some other trivial pieces of hardware are what hold the boat together. When you have two parts of the boat coming together, like a shroud and the deck fitting, there's usually a pin doing the job and something like a cotter ring preventing the pin from coming out. It could be a shackle or a lock-tight nut, but it's usually a cotter ring or Cotter pin.

It's hard to over-emphasize inspecting these pins before you take the boat out, as failure on the water can ruin your day (see above). I don't think many of our Junior skippers or even, dare I say it, all of our Senior skippers would have been able to get control of the dismasting situation and sail the boat home.

When I teach boat inspection, I talk about this and tell the students to find all of the cotter rings or other things and determine whether they're sound, and I explain how they fail and what to look for.But on the RS Venture, there's what I now call the Mystery Ring, which is what failed in the cruise I referenced above. If you don't know it's there, you'd never check it. That's how it happened on my cruise.

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Planning a cruise around Alameda, and an old navigation technique

Alameda Circumnavigation Cruise San Leandro Channel
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Tacking up the Estuary
Alameda Circumnavigation Cruise JLS Docks

This is about how to plan a particular cruse, circumnavigating Alameda Island. I'm doing it for two reasons. One is to document the specifics for other cruising skippers who might want to do it. The other is to give members an idea of what's involved in planning a cruise.

Circumnavigating Alameda Island is a wonderful experience. I've done it in a kayak and later in a sailboat on a CSC cruise. Part of the wonder is the diversity of it. You have Jack London Square, the Port of Oakland, the closed Naval Air Station, the aircraft carrier Hornet, an incredible beach facing San Francisco, a marsh with a lot of birds at the south end, and some post-industrial stuff along the estuary. The estuary is much improved since the time I kayaked it. The run-down houseboats are gone, and some of the bleck on land has been replaced with parks.

There is also the Coast Guard Island in the middle of the estuary, and if you're lucky the 418 foot ocean patrolling cutters are in. They go out for 90 days in the Pacific.

And then the drawbridges, 5 or 6 depending on how you count. The website is here. 5 of them are very active, and one is a bicycle/pedestrian bridge, right next to a car bridge that goes from Alameda to Bay Farm Island, and it's is the longest drawbridge in Alameda County. It's an incredible experience seeing them open just for you, a little sailboat.

The question in planning this is which direction, clockwise or counter-clockwise. There are a couple of factors to consider. One is that all of the drawbridges are staffed into the evening except for the Bay Farm Island bridge, which has limited hours (usually until 5:30 PM). Also, the bridges will not open during peak commuter hours.

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Advanced (and basic) Hoist Usage

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There often isn't enough communication around how to use the hoist properly.  In this post we're going to talk about safety, efficiency, and some tips on dropping and pulling a boat single-handed.

Personal and Boat Safety

The two big rules of using the hoist are:

  • Never ever EVER be under the boat while it's in the air.
  • Don't hit the shrouds or spreaders on the hoist arm.

The first issue most comonly happens when the centerboard falls down and someone reaches under the boat to push it back up.  Or if there's a long line of boats waiting to come out of the water and as soon as one boat starts to go up into the air the next person walks their boat down towards the sea wall.  Then when the boat in the air swings out, it's over the other boat.

Both of these are huge no-no's.  The sling/hoist does break.  This happened recently with a Venture in the air that ended up falling 5 feet back into the water.  The boat and everyone around was ok, but If there had been another boat underneath, waiting their turn, it'd be two broken boats instead of zero.  If there had been someone on that boat waiting to attach the sling, as there often is, it would have been way, way worse.  Always beware of where the boat is, and never get underneath it, and please say something if you see someone about to.

For the shrouds and spreaders, this is the most likely way to damage the boat while on the hoist.  Always keep an eye on the mast and shrouds to make sure the boat isn't going to spin into the hoist arm.  This is why someone should have control of the boat at all times.  The person on the sea wall doesn't let go of the stern until the person on the dock is pulling on the bow line so the boat can't spin.  Same with coming out of the water.  The person on the dock doesn't let go of the line until the person on land has their hand on the stern.

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More on Low Tide Docking

Low Tide Docking Course

I wrote a blog a while back on low tide dinghy dockings, and this was focused on the really low tide screnario - absolutely no centerboard and minimal rudder, and how to get the boat to the dock in those conditions. You can't slow sail without a centerboard, so you need to do something different.

But that's the extreme case. Often, it's not quite that low, and so you have a few more options.

But let's take a quick detour (a parenthesis in Italian) and talk about tides. We use tide tables and graphs all of the time, including predicting when the Club will be closed because the water is too low for the rescue skiff to run.

Tides are extremely complex as they depend on a huge number of factors. The major factors are the gravitational effects of the sun and the moon, and so tide tables are based on observations over a period of time (maybe as much as 19 years) to see these effects in all of their combinations. Tide predictions are based primarily on these large scale astronomical forces, and they do not include significant yearly, monthly, and daily factors such as rainfall, runoff from rivers, even barometric pressure on a given day.

Tide tables give you an approximation only,but we do have information about how predictions are matching reality. The closest station which reports both predictions and reality is the Richmond Inner Harbor, and our website monitors it and reports the current difference between predicted and actual both in when the Club will be closed and in the Club Status (which you can click on in the Cal Sailing home page).

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Keelboat Docking - Part 3 - Planning a Bail-Out

Berkeley Marina
Berkeley Marina CSC Slips
Berkeley Marina CSC Slips Bail Out

Docking our keelboats under sail is one of the most difficult skills required for the Senior Rating.  This series of blogs is intended to give you a conceptual framework for doing it. With that framework and a lot of practice, you'll acquire this important skill.

For simplicity, we're talking about a "normal" upwind docking into a CSC slip, where the true wind is out of the West or South-West, but not too far South.

Here is a map of the Marina with the standard docking approach:

And here's the blow-up of the turning basin and our docks, assuming a normal West or South-West wind:

Important Note: I will be showing some sample course lines in the blog to illustrate the main points. These particular course lines are for a very specific wind condition, which is indicated in the diagrams. It is a big mistake to think of your docking course lines in terms of geography (e.g., turn up as you pass the stern of the Red Boat). These course lines will change with the wind, and you should always be thinking in terms of the wind.

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Launching and docking in an East wind

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Winter is a time of interesting and fun winds.  We're pretty spoiled most of the year with wind pretty consistently out of the West/South-West.  In the Winter an East wind is fairly common.  When the wind is out of the East you cannot dock on the normal side of the dock with your main up, as it is now a downwind docking and you'll just run into it full speed (yes, skippers do this surprisingly often). 

For your first Winter sailing, this will be a new and unique experience.  Here are some tips for when the wind is blowing from the East:
 
For departure, after putting the boat in the water like normal, walk it all the way down the dock and push it around to the other side (by the pilings).
 
 
 
You'll have to use your foot a lot to keep it from banging/scraping as the wind wants to push it into the dock.  Once it's around the other side you'll need to take the bow painter in your left hand and hug each piling so you can hand it off to your right hand so you can get the boat around them.  Tie the boat off and from there everything is normal, including the push-off/backwards sailing away from the dock.
 
For returning, if you're coming towards the dock and you're on a starboard tack, you won't be able to depower if you try to dock on the normal side, but you should be able to slow sail up to the pilings side.
 
 
Check your slow sailing course and take a couple passes if you need to.  It's a new docking experience so nothing wrong with circling around a couple times until you feel like you've got it.  Bailing out of a docking when something doesn't feel right is a good show of seamanship, and if anyone on the bench makes fun of you for taking 3 tries to successfully dock feel free to throw them over the sea wall.
 
The other option for docking is to sail upwind, which would be past the Cal Adventures dock, towards the 3rd dock, drop the main, and sail jib alone back downwind.  Furl or blow the jib early to give the boat time to slow down (it will take longer to slow than you think when going downwind, even with no sails out) and you should easily and gently reach the dock.
 
Another option, if you get between the docks and realize the wind is wrong, is to dock on the West side of the Cal Adventures dock, drop your sails, and bare poles or go jib-alone over to our dock.  When single handing this may be easier than trying to drop the main while sailing.
 
As a general rule, regardless of the way the wind is blowing: If your main isn't luffing, abort the docking attempt and reevaluate the conditions.  Do not dock!

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Keelboat Docking - Part 2 - Space is Time

Berkeley Marina CSC Slips
Berkeley Marina Close Reach
Berkeley Marina CSC Slips Close Reach
Berkeley Marina Stay High
Berkeley Marina CSC Slips Stay High
Berkeley Marina Space is Time
Berkeley Marina CSC Slips Space is Time

Docking our keelboats under sail is one of the most difficult skills required for the Senior Rating. This series of blogs is intended to give you a conceptual framework for doing it. With that framework and a lot of practice, you'll acquire this important skill.

For simplicity, we're talking about a "normal" upwind docking into a CSC slip, where the true wind is out of the West or South-West, but not too far South.

Here is a map of the south-east part of the Berkeley Marina, where J-Dock is, assuming a normal West or South-West wind:

And here's the blow-up of the turning basin and our docks:

 

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Keelboat Docking - Part 1 - Planning and Preparation

Introduction to the Blog Series

Docking our keelboats under sail is one of the most difficult skills required for the Senior Rating. You have to be able to do it in all wind directions and in several boat types that handle very differently. It takes a huge time investment and a lot of commitment and practice to make the grade.

Everything you've learned on dinghies applies to keelboats, and on dinghies you establish a solid basis of sailing skills. This is why we require a Junior rating to take keelboat lessons, and why it's important to get your Senior Dinghy test passed before getting serious on keelboats.

But the transition from a dinghy to a Pearson Commander is not easy, as the latter has a large mass and a full keel, so it handles very differently from a dinghy. It does everything slowly, including stopping, but also powering up. If you get below the critical speed for steering it, it can take 8 or 9 seconds for the keel to power up, and in that period you're being pushed sideways. You could end up pressed against a downwind piling or boat.

Our keelboat slips are faced approximately west, so normally into the wind, just like our dinghy dock in the South Sailing Basin. So in a "normal" west or south-west wind, you dock pretty much the same way. Slow sail on a close reach into the dock/slip. But the boats are very different, so the procedure becomes more challenging on a keelboat, not to mention the damage you can do if you screw up.

This is the first in a series of blogs on keelboat docking to help you understand the differences between dinghy and keelboat and the additional factors that become important with the latter. I will assume a "normal" west or south-west wind, as this is what you'll be dealing with 80% of the time, at least. And initially, I'll be assuming relatively constant wind, although later in the series I'll talk about wind shifts and how to deal with them. I'm also assuming that you're planning to go into one of CSC's docks with a reasonable amount of time to prepare and plan. As you get more advanced, you will be required to do very quick impromptu dockings, but that comes much later.

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Docking Like a Pro

angle of approach

There are a couple ways to come into the dock. The method new skippers gravitate towards at first, because it's easier, is to come in with plenty of speed and do a final turn up into the wind at the end to avoid banging into the dock. Or they don't even do the turn and just bang into the dock... I guess this would be a 3rd way, but highly undesirable.

The preferred method more properly utilizes slow sailing. Docking and COB are the main reasons we teach slow sailing. When you have a firm grasp on slow sailing, you will be able to come to a stop 1" from the dock as your crew casually steps off the bow.

Here are the steps for docking like a pro:
(Credit where credit is due, I've had this best explained to me by Robert O. Come work the keelboat dock during open house sometime and watch Robert dock a keelboat singlehanded to get an idea of the ideal you're shooting for.)

- When you're coming in to the docks watch the wind socks to get an idea of the wind direction at the dock, which may be different than it was when you were out sailing.  

- Pick an exact spot on the dock. This is where you're going to try to end up. You don't have to tell anyone else the exact spot. If you don't hit it exactly, and are a foot off, no one else will be the wiser, it will still just look like a really good docking to them.

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Small Circles - the Gybe

I did a blog a while ago on Small Circles and how to teach it.

I think doing Small Circles is an important skill and rightly a required Junior maneuver, not so much for the circles, but for other things. However, as Nathan has pointed out in the blog comments, doing circles quickly is important in racing, if you're bad.

In Small Circles, there's a lot going on in a short amount of time, so it's a stress test of your sailing skills, your boat control, your weight balance, and your crew communication. Sailing a circle flawlessly (of whatever radius, but constant) is a challenge. One very good Club racer told me that one of the best racing exercise is doing lots of circles in a row, maybe 100.

But really tight circles is a different beast. It has all of the challenges above, but it requires some rudderless techniques to make the turns really fast and tight. My blog of a couple of years ago missed an important thing.

In the blog, I talked about how you do fast upwind and downwind turns, which to me is the real value of learning this. You might have to do either near the dock, combined with a tack or a gybe. But I glossed over the gybe itself, which is an important part of it.

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Rig Failure on a Cruise to Treasure Island

When we're going for Senior, in both dinghy and keelboat, we're quizzed on how we would deal with rig failure, a shroud or even worse a forestay. We know the answers, and we carry line and maybe shackles to jerry-rig something, and we think about the extra lines we can use, especially on the keelboats where there are multiple halyards, topping lifts, and the rest.

But it's one thing to "know" how to deal with it, and completely another to deal with it when it happens.

I was doing a dinghy qualifying cruise to Treasure Island under Mark Playsted's supervision. Not a difficult cruise, beat out, run back. It was blowing pretty hard, gusts into the twenties, forecast for higher. We had two Ventures with 3 people in each, which worked out well with one person on the wire a lot of the time going out. 

We were almost to Treasure Island when it happened. I saw Mark on the wire in the other boat go into the water, then I saw the mast at maybe 20 degrees off the vertical. It was clear that they had lost their forestay, and I thought the mast was next. But it wasn't. They were holding the mast up by hand and getting the mainsail down. Within about 15 minutes, Mark had rigged the auxiliary stay to the bow and the boat could sail. They made it back under main and gennaker, and BTW the gennaker took a lot of the load that the missing forestay would have.

It could have been my boat, and I don't think it would have come out so well if it had been. I'm thinking dismasted here. It was great to see how this could be handled, if you do all of the right things quickly.

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Dry Capsize on a Quest

Dry capsize is a very useful skill. It means not going into the water on a capsize and getting into the boat as it comes up. The first part is relatively easy, but the second can be difficult, especially in a Quest.

I went out in some seriously high wind the other day, and I wasn't happy with my dry capsize skills. I hadn't capsized in quite a while, so I was a bit rusty on it. I could get the boat up, but not me in it as it came up. So it was time to practice, which I did.

If you're single-handing or with one crew in high winds, it's important to get someone into the boat when it comes up to get it under control, prevent a re-capsize and prevent it sailing away from you. That said, if you're out with a group of students or inexperienced crew, you shouldn't do it. You want everyone in the water after the capsize, especially if the crew is new to the situation. If they see you climbing up over the hull, they'll all want to do it, which will make your job righting the boat that much harder. Better to get everyone in the water and comfortable and go from there.

So let's assume you're single-handing and you capsize. Getting up on the hull as the boat goes over is no problem, as it happens pretty slowly. You can climb up using the mast as a step or even the hiking straps. When I practice, I find that it's pretty hard to capsize the boat without going into the water. I just have to keep pushing weight to leeward and then climb up when it's past the point of no return.

So you're on the hull and drop down to the centerboard. You should have thought how you're going to lever the boat up. There are several options, depending on how large you are. As yet, there are no righting lines on the Quest (coming, maybe). If you're large, you can just pull on the gunwhale to bring the boat up (I can't do that). The next option is to pull on the jib sheet against the fairlead, NOT against the sail (this works for me, 147 lb. male). That doesn't work for smaller people, so bringing the bow painter around the mast and using it allows you to get far out on the centerboard to bring the boat up.

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