So the new company I'm working for gives everyone Good Friday, I took advantage of the time to get down to the boat for an overnight, since ACYC was having their Spring Series race #1 on Saturday followed by the monthly board meeting (which I had to attend anyway).
I was hoping to get down to the boat Thursday afternoon but because life tends to get in the way of sailing, that didn't happen. I was able to make it down on Friday mid morning, do some projects at the clubhouse and sailboat one of them was getting the outboard back on the boat and testing it, this time it worked great.
The wind was light, and weather was overcast but by 2pm the wind was building.
I got the boat out on the San Joaquin around 2:45, and headed down river towards Antioch, it's been a while since I've sailed there just for the hell of it.
The wind was blowing straight out of the west at about 15-20 mph I was running my 110 jib and new (to me) main off of the pearson 26. the boat was doing great I was able to make it from our marina on 7 mile slough to the entrance to 3 mile slough in 3 tacks it is usually a 5 or 6 tack trip, unfortunately the trip between False river and the Antioch bridge wasn't as easy but it was a fun sail with the boat leaning past 45^ several times and of course everything ending up on the cabin floor. I was getting boat speeds of 7 knots pretty regularly and having a fun time by myself. by about 5pm I finally crossed under the Antioch bridge turned around and headed back on a downwind run. This was nice but I also had a following sea of about 2' causing the boat to pitch like a drunken sailor, meaning I had to spend even more time at the tiller to keep the sails filled.
It took me a 1/2 hour to sail downwind the distance it took me over 1 hour to sail while tacking. Once I had arrived at False river I was able to get below and clean up the mess, I found that my refrigerator had shifted around and had been open for most of the trip, something I will have to work on to correct in the future.
I decided to not return to 7 mile slough the way I had come, but to take false river around the other side of Bradford Island and Webb Tract. While sailing back to the marina I saw an interesting site on the San Joaquin, apparently while moving a very large houseboat/boat house, actually it looked like a small two story apartment complex on floats, the tug operator lost control of the beast, which then got caught up on a shoal, and partially sank. So here is this large two story building listing at about a 30^ angle with the entire first floor on one side under water, with pumps spraying a steady stream of water out of the windows on the other side. The delta never fails to amaze me, in one way or the other.
I made it back to the marina about 7:30 where I hooked up with a sailing friend who had come down for the races the following day. Had something to eat and watched a movie with Larry, Jim and Allyson in the clubhouse till after 9, then headed to bed, big day on Saturday.