Archive for January, 2008

505 “Top 5”

Sunday, January 27th, 2008

Apparently, selling the 5-0 affected me more than I thought. It’s a bummer to be the guy who sells a boat because you are just not using it. Screw “hard to rig”, the boat was a blast. My favorite 505 moments:

  1. Nailing our first wire-to-wire tack in San Pablo bay. Like big wall climbing on El Cap, it’s a “who the hell is this guy I am” moment.
  2. Hoisting the ratty old kite on 5567 (“Tall Mad”) for the first time and grinning ’til it shredded. Which wasn’t that long.
  3. Passing $150K J/Boats west of Alcatraz in 18kts with the full abdominal stretch-out in effect off the wire. Don’t forget to wave.
  4. Paddling a swamped 5567 back into SFYC through Racoon Straits by moonlight after being out for far too long in a maintenance-deferred high-performance dinghy.
  5. Waving off would-be rescuers in 7886 (thanks, though) on our way to our 3-crash practice limit

Goodbye 7886

Sunday, January 27th, 2008

Sold my 505 today. Mixed emotions.

Aaron R. from Santa Cruz bought for use as a fleet loaner or some such. Nice guy and active in the fleet. It turns out the previous owner, Dan, was a friend of his. When I showed up at TISC, he was already packing up the boat. I gave him a few bags of sails, he handed me a check. I sort of felt I had borrowed their boat for a few years and they were picking it back up.

I put a lot of imagination into the idea of sailing 505s, and never ended up sailing either one I owned that much. But I think I had a couple of my best-ever days on the water on the wire of a 5-0. I found the boat hard to rig, fragile in our heavy weather, and the fleet a bit advanced and impenetrable. But who knows, maybe I’ll sail one again someday.

Previous owner in 7886

Down to 1 sailboat. Better buy a Laser.

Three Bridges: Racing again finally

Saturday, January 26th, 2008

Joined the San Francisco Single-handed sailing society with the intention of racing their interesting season as opposed to the OYRA or HDA season.

First race of ’08: The (in)famous Three Bridge Fiasco:

The 3bridge is a pursuit race, where you can choose your own course around three marks (Blackaller, Red Rock, and TI). Pursuit is fun: You can tell how you are doing by how many boats are left in front of you.

Garth and I thrashed Abba Zabba and ourselves in this double-handed all-day moving mishap of a Race in ’06 (sorry about your boat, Charlie). We had a much better day on the water this year. Unfortunately, we chose the wrong direction, and even sailing at our best, there were a lot of boats heading home as we headed to the finish. And the finish put the fiasco in the Fiasco. Way ahead of our fleet, we pulled an all-ego spinnaker hoist for the last 400 yards, missed the mark, then got swept west by the ebb. 20 minutes later, we made the line. I hope it entertained the RC on the deck.

We didn’t do that well.

Quote of the day: “How is that f*ing Moore and that f*ing Calatalina coming up on us from behind?” Answer: “They are anchored, and we are moving backwards at 2 knots”.

Good clean fun.