6/17/2012

First Practice Completed!

Trying to schedule a practice session for 6 to 7 crew 5 weeks before the PacCup was quite the challenge, but we managed to pull it off. The general idea was to leave Friday night on June 15 , get out on the Pacific do some practices and be back before dinner on Saturday.

We left Fortman Marina around 10:45 pm and basically drifted on the ebb tide down the Alameda-Oakland Estuary. We figured out the watches (sort of) and everyone except Nathan and I hit the sack, or berth as the case may be, at midnight. The wind picked up around 0100 hours and we sailed under the Bay Bridge, past Alcatraz up near Horseshoe cove for a final tack out under the Golden Gate. It was a clear night and needless to say the City by the Bay is spectacular at night!

Sometime after 0200 I swapped places with David R. and headed below for some shut eye. Luckily I brought a sleeping bag 'cause it was a bit chilly in the cabin. I woke up around 0700 the next morning to a super bright day: note to self bring heavy duty eyeshades to block out daylight and continue sleeping when off watch. The breeze was pretty much nonexistent and we had only made it out about 6 miles from the Gate. Oh well. At least the current was pushing us back to SF.

Whilst drifting around a couple of miles west of the gate there was a bunch of commotion on deck. I was just about to go up the companionway when I looked up and saw a big ass pelican staring me in the face! This pirate pelican had flown on board and was looking for some booty! Arrgh! It was a bit of a standoff but we finally got it off Spellbound.

Sometime around noonish the wind picked up as it usually does this time of year so we were back in the Bay and ready to have some fun. A couple of the requirements of the Pac Cup is to attest to having practiced a Man Over Board drill as well as install and steer with an emergency rudder both upwind and downwind. We practiced a downwind MOB and David C. got a chance to learn how to drive Spellbound backwards while trying to get back to the MOB. Guess what? It's not easy to steer 40' yacht without a jib up. Anyway, we recovered the buoy and then set up for the emergency rudder. I had done it with Bob at the dock for the race inspector so I volunteered to do it again while under way. It was a bit of a challenge and definitely called for clipping in the safety harness but not too bad. Even still, I don't want to think about what it might be like trying to install it with 5 miles of ocean blue underneath me.

After all that excitement it was time to head back to the dock on the sunny Alameda Riviera. Hopefully we can get in another 1 or 2 practices before the race.


Javier