So it looks like I'm finally getting some sailing in!

Last Weekend Memorial Day, we were still pretty much recovering from the scorching weekend before and while Pegirae (my wife) had started out with wanting to spend the entire weekend out on the boat, we ended up just going down Saturday and doing some small projects. I finally rigged the Reefing lines on the Mainsail and put in the Mast Gates that I had purchased at Catalina Direct a couple of weeks ago. Also my friend Bill had given me an old Horse Shoe style throwable PFD and rack that I rigged up to the stern railing. I finally changed out the old rusty Honda 3 gallon gas tank for a new plastic 6 gallon tank and new fuel line and priming bulb. Toward the end of the day Pegi decided that she was ok with going out, she had spent the day keeping me company and reading down in the cabin. So I rigged up the 80% storm jib, put a reef in the main and motored out. The wind was blowing at about 30+ mph and Pegi is still recovering from the head injury I gave her back in April so the Dr's have told her they don't want her sailing because of the way the boat will heel. So I try to keep the boat flat while she is on board. Well the wind was blowing so hard and we picked up about 1000lbs of sea grass with the keel on the way out that when I tried to tack the boat went into Irons then jibed around. I just couldn't keep enough forward momentum to complete a tack. So after several failed attempts I turned and ran with the wind so that I could figure out how to clear the keel in the high winds without being blown aground while I was raising and lowering the keel. While I was trying to get a grip on the situation the boat had several accidental jibes one that about swept me over the side. I decided that it was just to wild to be out there pretty much single handing, so I dropped the sails and motored back into the marina. Praise God the motor seems to be working reliably now and that the P.O. ran all of the lines back to the cockpit.

So Sunday came with no time on the water, just relaxing at home. My friend Mike called and said he was moving his Chris Craft Commander (35' sport fisher) back from Glenn Cove marina down at the Carquinez straights to Sacramento. He asked if I wanted to come and help.
I told him sure but we had plans to meet up with Bill and the other guys in my "Brotherhood" (a church men's group that meets at my house every week) at the sailboats in Isleton at 3pm to spend the afternoon evening sailing. He assured me that the trip would only take about 4 hours (actually took a little over 7). So we met up at 8am, then drove down to the Vallejo. We got the boat out of his slip at 10am at the bottom of low tide, we were actually dragging the boat across the mud bottom on the way out. Once out in the strait's we headed upstream through Suisun bay, and up the Sacramento river, we finally got into Sacramento at around 5pm. The guys had been calling me throughout the day to make sure we were still on for sailing, I finally told them to meet at my house and carpool down and that Mike and I would head down as soon as we got to Sacramento.


Mike on the Bow of the "River Otter"


A shot of the "Robert E Lee" a paddle wheeler that the owner has been trying to restore for the last few years, looks like he sank at the dock. The had pumps going trying to refloat the boat.
We finally made it to Isleton about 6pm, and had the boat out on the water in about 20 minutes a new record.
Bill had 3 other guys out on his Ericson 36 and was headed back to the Marina to meet us when we caught up with him. The wind was blowing around 25mph and Mike and I had the Catalina smoking, however once bill and the guys turned around and got their Jib up, the passed us like we were anchored. We spent the next hour chasing them back down to Fisherman's cut where they had dropped anchor, we rafted up next to them, then while tying lines between the boats one of them caught on my winch handle, pulled it out of the winch and into about 15 feet of water - crap. Oh well the sea grass was too thick and the water to deep to try and swim for it, so I wrote it off and just another sacrifice to the River. We had a great time hanging out, made dinner then split back up and headed back to the marina. Once we found the marina in the dark (no moon) and put everything away, I had to drive Mike back to Vallejo to get his car, I finally got home about 1:30 Tuesday morning.

This Last weekend I didn't even try to get down to the boat, just kind of chilled for the weekend, but I finished up a big project Monday and my job for today canceled so I called my employee John and asked him if he wanted to take the day off and go sailing. He enthusiastically agreed (he had been sailing with us the prior Monday for the first time) and brought his younger brother along. We took off to the boat and got on the water about noon, the winds were sweet, at about 25-30mph. I put up the 110% working jib and the main with no reef. The boat was heeling pretty well, got the rail wet a few times but it was a lot of fun, running at between 5-6 knots.

John leaning over and running his hand in the water, the water line is usually a good 3' below the rail, gives you an idea of how far we were heeling.


Johns Brother Alex, enjoying the amenities of a cruising sailboat. even if it is only 25' long!

John relaxing as we were enjoying the day.

John and Alex at the helm with the Antioch Bridge in the background, the winds were starting to kick up over 30mph at this point.


A ferry that we were chasing down as it moved between the islands.


Yours truly at the helm on our way back into the marina.

A great shot of John as we sailed into Owl Harbor after 5 hours of sailing and almost 26 miles logged.

We worked our way down river toward Antioch as we got closer to Antioch the wind and waves got bigger, finally about 3:30 with the bridge in sight we turned around and headed back. The wind was on the beam so we were on a nice broad run the boat was still heeling pretty far, so I got up and put a reef in the main. I really like the way the rigging for this is run, I can pull both ends of the sail down to the boom from the gooseneck at the mast. we were almost pulling 7 knots on the way back, what a ride!

We decided to go down False river instead of heading back up the San Joaquin, then up Fisherman's Cut. We had a great sail day, and I'm totally sun burnt, just to exciting to slow down and put the sun screen on:)

Here are some pic's from the day.



Technical notes:

The outboard is running great, changing the tank out and rebuilding the carburetor seems to have done the trick.

At one point today the boat was heeling so far over that there was water about an inch up the cabin windows!

about that time I noticed water coming from my newly rebuild faucet! Apparently the boat was leaning so far over that the water tank (on the starboard side) was actually above the sink and faucet and was pushing water out the faucet into the sink where I had stored our wallets and other items we wanted to keep dry, thankfully we didn't have our cell phones there.

Only a couple of things ended up on the cabin floor this trip I think I'm finally getting the hang of where to store stuff so that it doesn't fly all over the cabin when sailing in decent winds.