July 29, 2003
new caps
bret sent up a couple of hats, emblazoned on the back with our names in old english lettering. needless to say, these hats will look much better aboard the boate.
boate movie
ming took a little quicktime movie while we were out yesterday. plans are to take the dv with us on the next trip. check out the white caps.
July 28, 2003
monday sailing
there is no better way to get the work week started than to load up the boate and set sail. after a few last minute cancellations of crew, (and one seriously belated no-show), the core crew got underway around noon, captains steen and eric, chief jib trimmer ming. crap i don't have the ship's chart here to plot our course. we headed out of berkeley marina and made a couple tacks back and forth before taking a nice brisk paced heading for angel island. on the lee side of the island we hit some dead wind, but given the 75 degree or so temperature in the calm air, it was a welcome break from the sailing work. as she came into wind, we did some quick tacks up raccoon strait up past belvedere and tiburon, and then caught the wind and swells from the golden gate as we did some serious surfing all the way across the bay to berkeley. the gusts were approaching 20 knots, we had to drop the jib and considered reefing the main. but the boate handled the bay beautifully. all in all, an even better sail than saturday's. check out the photos over here.
July 27, 2003
yesterday's cruise
here's a rough guesstimate of our course from yesterday. and of course, this is more of a generalized route, we did a hell of a lot more tacking off this course, especially getting out of the berkeley marina. and working upwind between treasure island and the city. i just got back from the store, looking at gps units in order to plot these things more tastefully. they are a bit pricey, but i'm thinking the boate might need to have one. besides, witht the gps unit, she won't really need a knotmeter.
maiden voyage
yesterday was the first excursion onto the waters of the bay. aboard were captains steene and eric, and jib trimmer ming. the weather was outstanding, the wind was strong, and all in all it was a highly successful day. we sailed out to clipper cove on treasure island and dropped anchor, where we had a bunch of tasty snacks. then we sailed off of anchor, and in the process brought aboard a huge amount of thick bay silt, which proceeded to get all over the boate, including some rather unsightly stains on the jib.
we sailed out of clipper cove, under the bay bridge, and into the doldrums on the lee side of treasure island. luckily, it was a fairly short-lived period of no wind, and soon we were back underway with a good wind headed back under the bridge and around treasure island. as we came out of the lee of san francisco, we caught some serious gusts and rolling swells that made for an exciting run back into the berkeley marina.
photos of the day can be seen here.
July 23, 2003
the first entry
well, today the captain's log begins, although it won't officially begin until the rechristening of the boate formerly known as alpha. we went out for a brief half hour sail with the now former owners, out past the breakwater and to about the end of walking part of the berkeley pier. there was a good breeze out, the bay was a bit choppy, and all in all the sail left me wanting more. in fact, i may have called captain steen a big pussy for not wanting to take her back out after we had paid for and received title. actually, today's voyage began earlier, with the spontaneous naming and subsequent purchase of the domain name theboate.com....yes, we had to check to for the domain name before we could settle finally on the vessel's name. (that's a typo, the "check to for the....", but it seems to work in a nautical context. salty language usually has a number of superfluous prepositions peppering the verbs). ok, now for some pictures.
captain steen uses his vhf instincts to determine that the weather is inclement for an additional sunset cruise.
arrrrrrrggggghhhh! no sunset cruise! sit around the marina drinking virgin rum grog! arrrgggghhhh!