Awaiting Departure Opportunity

This is Monday the 11th of January which means that Arnold and I have been here at the marina in Richmond for one week. During the first few days after our return I looked enviously at the favorable winds and good weather which we were not able to exploit for our trip to San Diego because we were not ready for departure. Now the wind prospects are not good but it looks like there may perhaps be a 36-hour window for a departure in Wednesday morning. At end of that 36 hours (Thursday evening) the prediction is that we will have light winds and find ourselves drifting, but by then we should be perhaps 150 miles toward our goal. We know that the farther into the future a wind prediction is the less reliable. Arnold and I have decided prepare the boat for departure within 24 hours should an opportunity present itself sooner than expected. To that end we will finish provisioning the boat today and do our laundry if possible. Incidentally, our sailing weather problems are much different from those we had on our trip from Neah Bay to San Francisco. The the problem then was heavy weather (which we got in spades). The problem for this leg is light and unfavorable winds. So far we have seen no danger of seriously heavy weather.

On Friday Rob Nikzad visited from San Francisco with his friend Bill. You may recall that I had become acquainted with Rob at Ala Wai boat harbor in Honolulu when he arrived as part of the crew of the Princess TaiPing. We had lunch at the BoilerHouse restaurant at the nearby ex Ford assembly plant building. After lunch we went to Pachuca where I gave Bill a tour of the boat and then we settled down for some good conversation.

In the evening we visited Joyce and Barry for dinner on their boat. Joyce presented us with a tasty main course of real wild deer shot by one of her relatives, and you can't get much more American than that. Joyce and Barry are very interested in cruising one day and Arnold and I passed on our experiences and opinions, for what they are worth. We like to think that we helped them with our advice.

On Saturday morning Arnold and I boarded the no. 74 bus for a visit to the Hilltop mall. We wound up purchasing only minor items that we could have found closer to the marina, but Arnold agreed that the bus ride was worth the time and effort because it gave him a chance to see more of Richmond. That night we searched through my modest DVD library and watched Denzel Washington's Man on Fire, a film of the blood 'n guts genre which included an RPG incinerating a car full of men, fingers cut off to make someone talk, and worse things too gruesome to put into this blog. (I wonder why the fairer sex generally finds these movies objectionable, tee hee.)

On Sunday (yesterday) morning Arnold gave me a hand to tighten the 22 large bolts that secure the chain plates (to which all of the mast side stays are attached) to the hull of the boat. Neil from a nearby boat had alerted Arnold to the indication of loose bolts during a visit to Pachuca and he turned out to be correct.

Then Arnold and I went topside to check out the rigging. I looked at the side of the boat from the side, across about 4 empty slips and tried to assess the rake of the mast by aligning a carpenter's square with the mast and what I thought was the horizontal line of the boat. The mast appeared to be close enough to perpendicular with perhaps a very slight rake to the stern, which is OK. I then used a plumb line and the mast looked vertical, with a slight bend to aft beginning where the inner forestay is attached. For the record, Pachuca has a masthead cutter rig (i.e. the forestay is attached to the top of the mast, and there is a second, inner forestay upon which a heavy weather staysail is hanked.) The book states that the rake for a masthead rig should be in the 1-3 degree range, with a 0.5-1 degree range for a non-racing boat. The more rake the better upwind performance with an increase in weather helm.

We then looked at the shrouds (i.e. side stays), bearing in mind advice that I had obtained from a rigger at the Richmond yacht club that it is better to overtighten a rig than to have it too loose. I tightened the D1's (inner stays that terminate at the base of the first spreader) 1/3 of a turn. The thinner D2's (intermediate stays terminating at the base of the second spreader) which had been replaced in Hawaii seemed loose so I tightened them 1/2 turn. The outer (cap) shrouds seemed OK. Along the way I lubricated everything with WD40 and compared the length of exposed turnbuckle threads of the left with their partners on the right, and they were remarkably close. The starboard D1 and D2 spreaders are about 3mm longer than the port ones. The cap shrouds are spot on. I then checked the forestay tension, a very sensitive issue because it was my sailing with a loose headstay that led to its destruction by the time we reached Honolulu. (We are lucky that we did not lose the mast.) Gauging the forestay tension is difficult when a heavy heasdsail is wrapped around it. But it felt OK and I will have another look at it when the headstay is fully rolled out in light airs. When it comes to increasing the headstay tension Dan at Port Townsend Rigging advised to make the first tightening at the forestay rather than the backstay. I have already done this once. I'll try to do the second one at the headstay, and "save" the backstay for when I must do the tensioning at sea. Tightening the backstay is a trivial operation, but using solely the backstay to tension the headstay will result in increased mast rake. On the other hand, tensioning the headstay is for me a real pain since there is a great risk of dropping critical bits overboard. I'll reserve this operation for quiet days at the marina. I left the inner forestay snug but not very tight lest it cause more bend in the mast.

In the end I felt that I had a tight and balanced rig ready for the next leg at sea.

In the afternoon we had a second visit from Bill with his partner Christine, and their three-legged Australia Cattle Dog "Olema". They presented Arnold and myself with a very generous gift of provisions for our cruise: a bottle of Argentine wine, a bag of mixed nuts, a box of organic tea, a large wedge of Jarlsberg Swiss Cheese, and big bar of dark chocolate. These are wonderful items that will give great comfort to Arnold and myself during our sail to San Diego, but I wish that they had not gone to the expense. The way I see it, I am a cashed up old fart doing his late life thing and they are the 30-somethings who are still grappling to find their place in the world and must conserve their resources. But one must accept such generosity in the spirit that it is given and for me, think of the good Karma that will come to them from it.

Anyway, we spent a pleasant hour in the cockpit over beer, white wine, and nibblies. I put out a bowl of water for Olena if for nothing else than to prevent her feeling left out. Then we went below out of the chill for more conversation where Arnold and I described some of our experiences in this sailing adventure. Not long before dark it was time to say good bye and I thanked Bill for the enormous interest that he's had in this blog since Hawaii. It had been good to finally meet each other.

The first photo is of Rob, Bill, and Arnold during our lunch on Friday. The next one is of myself, Bill holding Olena, and Christine in the cockpit. Arnold took that photo of me in the cabin. And finally there is Olena overseeing the proceedings.

Bill, a professional photographer, and Christine took plenty of photos on Christine's industrial grade camera that puts my 7.3 megapixel toy to shame. I will publish any that they send to me.

Jessica Watson the 16-year old circumnavigator was 270 nm from the Horn in calm water last time I checked. In the previous blog she complained about being becalmed. Let's hope that rounding the Horn turns out to be non-heroic this time of the year. Before we departed Eden on the east coast of Australia I said several times that I was more apprehensive about crossing the Tasman Sea in winter than I was about rounding the Horn in summer. Let's hope that the assessment turns out to be justified.