S’agapo Goes Cruising
Day 1 - Santa Cruz to Sausalito - 80 miles - After months of re-painting, re-varnishing, re-rigging, re-wiring, re-whatevering it was finally time for S’agapo to go cruising. After all, I’d promised The Admiral that S’agapo would do a “great job” as a cruising boat for us and now it was time to deliver. The 3Di sails went back into storage, and the cruising sails were bent on. Food, water, fuel, cloths, pots, pans, silverware, coffee bean grinder, french press, kettle, a BIG ice chest, bedding, a sun umbrella, awning, and 4 rolls of paper towels were stuffed into the previously empty hull. I couldn’t see the waterline go lower, but it must have!
At 0430 in a dark wet fog and no wind S’agapo and I dropped the lines and started out of Santa Cruz Harbor along with a line of fishing boats who had the courtesy to light up great glowing balls of fog with all their deck and working lights, leaving me convinced that there was no way they’d ever see my running lights. I was pleased to get a hail from out of the fog: “Have a great ride up to the City, Beau.” from a buddy who works a Salmon fishing boat.
By dawn we were powering NW about 2 miles off of Davenport into a 5’ swell with 6 knots of wind from abeam, the mainsail helping our little 18hp engine move us along at about 6 knots. This would be the first “long” trip which required the use of the engine and I watched carefully. It’s not clear that watching actually helps much.... the belts go around, the engine rocks a little on its mounts.... it’s noisy.... there’s not much else to report. Still, I opened the engine room to insure that Pokey (Named for Gumby’s horse) was still in there banging away in his two cylinder samba. Yup, there is was, dancing around on those soft Yanmar motor mounts. Poketa-poketa-poketa....
After a week of watching it blow 20-25 from the northwest, here I was motor sailing in 6-8 knots from the west; I was a happy guy!!
Having no idea what Pokey’s fuel consumption really is, and not trusting the fuel gauge at all, I decided to take a break and pull into Half Moon Bay, 55 miles up the coast, to re-fuel. Of course I had to re-learn that going too fast with the fuel causes the vent to burp fuel. Why do I have to continuously re-learn somethings? After washing up, and with a well topped up fuel tank, S’agapo and I headed out again into 8k of head wind and continued our motor sail.
Rounding Land’s End on the south side of the entrance to San Francisco around 1600, the wind finally began to build. A few hours earlier I’d hoisted the #2 and managed to get the boat speed up to 6.5k. Now on a broad reach in 15k we were moving nicely at 8 knots and headed towards one of my favorite bridges. Of course, as we got within half a mile of the Golden Gate the wind speed went to 20 and then 25 and finally 28 knots, but it was all good with S’agapo bopping along nicely at 12 knots.
The VHF had squawked earlier that: “Unit 53 will transit Deepwater Channel at 1530 headed outbound from Oakland.” so I knew that a big ship would be going the other way out the Golden Gate just as S’agapo and I headed in. We reached up to the north side of the channel and got out of the way. It was pretty windy over near the North Tower and by now the breeze was a steady 27-29. I was enjoying watching the big ship come at me when I realized that he was already moving REALLY fast and throwing a BIG bow wave. OK, no problem, I sail with all the hatches shut and dogged anyway, I have my tether on.... but it is going to get really wet.
S’agapo lifted over the first swelling of the bow wave and pretty much flew off of it, I guess I was going a little too fast. She dove down into the trough and I realized that there was NO chance she’d lift over that second steep bow wave swell. “OK”, I said to myself, “this is going to REALLY wet.” as S’agapo’s bow disappeared into the oncoming wave about 4’ below its top. “Shit! This is going to be....” BLAM the wave came down the deck and parted at the mast. “Hey, my mast has a bow wave!” I was thinking as I heard a big BANG noise and the boom swung up to about a 45 degree angle. A quick check showed that something in the vang had blown up.
There was nothing to do for it. We were between the north shore, which is steep, deep and rocky, and the hull of the freighter heading out. Just have to keep going straight and not spin out. That turned out to be interesting as the lifting of the boom allowed the leach of the sail to wrap around the shrouds and start pushing the masthead to windward. Fortunately, S’agapo doesn’t develop much helm when she heels, so other than looking really dorky we just kept sailing dead down wind between the shore and the ship while I pulled the main sheet in to get the sail off the spreaders.
After that, the last two miles of the trip was boring. It turned out that a small shackle is used to terminate the primary dyneema line for the vang and it simply wasn’t up to the task. It’s an easy fix, stronger shackle, but now I ponder what is the next weakest link. The Admiral was on the dock waiting for us when we tied up at 1615 hours and we had a lovely dinner at Le Garage; a terrific French restaurant at the Schoonmaker Pt. Marina in Sausalito.
Day 2 - Sausalito to Tinsley Island - 60 miles - With the full crew aboard now, we headed out and left Sausalito at 0900 hours.
Motor sailing in a 7 k following breeze through Raccoon Straits, so named because you can still see the little bandits swimming back and forth from Angel Island to the Tiberon Peninsula on calm mornings. I guess everyone has to commute to work, even raccoons.
With a 14 k south westerly showing up the engine went off and the #2 headsail went up. From then on it was 50 miles of lovely running in winds from 12 to 25 knots which are always from dead astern. Funny thing running up the San Joaquin River, the wind follows the river almost all the time, even though it’s not obvious why it should. Those who’ve sailed the Delta Ditch Run and raced this river will know what I’m talking about. Except for the bit just past False River, where you beam reach for a while, it’s all DDW in ever increasing heat, Heat and HEAT!
Just off Benica we saw a tractor tug headed our way, he was in a hurry. All tug boats make big bow waves when they rush around, and this one was making a particularly large one. I’d warned the Admiral that there was a big wave coming and as it got close she emerged from making lunch below. Before she could get the hatch closed the darn wake hit - this was not a good trip for wakes! About two feet of water went over the bow, over the cabin top and into the cockpit. The main companionway managed to swallow a few gallons and Stacey burst out laughing. “Wow, that was a LOT of water!” she exclaimed. Her first cruise was proving her to be a perfect sailor - they don’t melt when they get wet. I took a little while to sponge all the water out, but it was warm and brackish. We were fine. The tug skipper never looked back and if we’d been a small open boat we’d have been swamped.
We arrived at Tinsley at 1645 and managed to get our 6.5 foot draft over the bump that guards the entrance, just. I didn’t mention it to the Admiral but we did plow a little grove in the mud going in. With all the hatches open, it was now 98 degrees, and hoisting the new awning we bought from Trevor Baylis we popped open a nice Sonoma Cutrer Chardonnay and declared the trip officially over for the day.
Days 3 & 4 - Tinsley Beach Party - ‘Nuff said - it’s all a blur... Hopefully, I didn’t do anything too foolish....
(S’agapo in “cruise mode” tied to the Sail Dock at Tinsley Island.)
Day 5 - Tinsley Island to Benica - 36 miles - Getting back upwind in the River is a process of leaving early enough to get to windward through all the narrow bits, like Old River/False River and New York Slough, under power before the wind builds. If you sleep in it can be painful - hundreds of tacks. At 0800 we pulled out of Tinsley and headed downriver, which is up wind almost all the time in the summer. We had a nice calm ride in 4-5 knots of wind through all the narrow bits and right on schedule the wind built to 14-16 as we exited the northwest end of New York Slough and we set the full main and #2 jib.
There is a channel that my kids called the “Secret Passage” years ago which runs from just west of the northwest end of New York Slough to the north side of Suisun Bay. Its real name is Suisun Cutoff and it passes to leeward of Ryer Island. This allows you to hold a port tack in a lot of breeze, typical for Suisun Bay in the afternoon, without waves much higher than six inches - very cool. Exiting the Secret Passage you find that you’re under the lee of the north shore and there still aren’t any really big waves. By contrast, beating out the main river channel along the south (lee) shore of Suisun Bay is almost the definition of painful, especially in an ebb tide.
We gawked a bit at the Ghost Fleet, ships that the US Navy stores here in case they need them to re-fight World War II or some other ancient conflict, as we sailed by. Like everything else along this path we use the bulk of the old rusty ships to block the waves and give us a nice flat Bay to beat across. The wind had built to a typical 25 knots by this point and we were thankful for the protection.
Pulling into Benicia at around 1600 hours we hit the showers at the Marina and then had a short walk over to 1st Street and up to Venticello’s for a terrific Italian meal. For those of you who can stop by Benicia, it’s a great little village that was once the Capital of California. They have a Jazz festival and various other fun activities all summer long. The marina is new, safe and clean. A great stopping point about half way back to San Francisco from the Delta.
Dave 6 - Benicia to Sausalito - 28 miles - OK, clearly everything had been going too well. We were due for something to go wrong. When I stuck my head out the hatch in the morning could hear the wind blasting through the marina. Halyards slapping, masts moaning and S’agapo gentle heeling as the wind pushed against her rigging. The wind on deck was about 15 but the masthead instruments reported 25 to 30 up at altitude. This wasn’t going to be pretty, the tide was ebbing at a couple of knots through the straits and running opposite this breeze!
The Carquinez Strait, which Benica is right in the middle of, is the only outlet for all the water that falls on the California central valley and the west side of about 600 miles of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Also, there is a darn good tidal current running back and forth through this half mile wide opening between the Delta and the Sea. Above it is a slightly wider canyon that hosts all the cool marine air that is desperately trying to refill the air in the Central Valley that has lifted due to over heating. This was going to be a “Really Big Day” as my Dad used to say, satirizing Ed Sullivan.
We put the first reef into the main and left the jib on deck as we motored out and heeled to the brisk wind. It was pretty nutty, but not too bad, where we were. I set the jib. After sailing up to the bridge where we could get a look at what the San Pablo Bay had in store for us I was getting more and more dubious about today’s run. The current and wind were making a real mess of the Strait just beneath the bridge and S’agapo scooped up three or four big waves and sent them well aft across the cabin top. Finally, we managed to sail up to just off the mouth of the Napa River and I climbed up on the boom to have a look at what was ahead.
OK then.... this wasn’t nice....
I went back to the Admiral, who was steering our little bucking bronco up wind in this mess, and said: “I think we should go to the Vallejo YC and hang out.” Her reply was: “I’ve got a meeting tomorrow at the office and I have to be there.” (She may be an Admiral, but she’s not an experienced cruiser yet.) “Sweetheart, I’ll put you in a towncar from the Vallejo YC and you can make it to your meeting, but you don’t really want to do 20 miles to windward in to this mess.” About then I got some help from a particularly strong gust and a wave top that blew right off and smacked the Admiral in the face. “Well, maybe your right.” she said wiping the salt water out of her eyes. We turned around and hit 15 knots broad reaching into the Napa River.
As we mounted fenders and mooring lines while doing lazy circles in the Napa River just off of the Vallejo YC, a pair of sailors in a small boat motored out to tell us we were welcome to come in and could they give us a hand. Nice guys! Very typical of the Vallejo YC. We tied up at the guest dock, put the boat away and started looking for Admiral Approved transport back to Sausalito. After a call to her office, she decided that they could deal with the mess at work without her (YA!) and we wandered down to the Front Room for a nice lunch.
(Tied to the Vallejo YC guest dock - dawn on Day 6)
Day 5 Rev 2.0 (aka Day 6) - Vallejo YC to Sausalito - 26 miles - We got up early, to catch the last of the outgoing tide, only to discover that we were well stuck in the mud at the guest dock. The good news - the wind had quit. We did manage to get afloat by 0800, lost the ebb and fought a flood all the way across San Pablo Bay, oh well. It was a lovely sail with 8 to 14 knot winds, flat seas and patchy photogenic clouds. We had a great time.
As we sailed past the Brother’s Lighthouse the sun came out and we were treated to post card views of Angel Island and Marin. The beat up Raccoon Straits was picture perfect with blue skies, 15 knots of wind and only a little flood to fight with. A flock of Opti sailors rushed over to wave at us and examine S’agapo and we were snug at the dock back at Schoonmaker Marina in Sausalito by 1530 hours.
The Admiral hopped into her car and headed off to our house to get ready for the work world while I cleaned up the boat and then headed back over to Le Garage for a great dinner of French style steamed mussels and a good Pouilly Fuissé. Life was good, but..... there were a lot of little things that were bugging me about the way that S’agapo was working. While sucking down the the mussels and with the PF, I made a mental list. 1) the motor was starting reluctantly 2) there was something weird about the way the alternator was eating v-belts 3) we’d been bouncing around - algae in the fuel? I started developing a plan. It is ALWAYS a bad idea to develop a plan while drinking a bottle of Pouilly Fuissé - always. But, that’s what I did.
Day 7 - 1st Work Day - Sausalito - The first task was to diagnose the fuel and electrical issues, well the first thing after washing out all the wet cloths and gear from the previous few days. A quick sample from the bowl of the RACOR filter indicated algae in the fuel and a tiny bit of water, the filter could be clogged. The failing v-belt was another matter. About every 10 hours the belt would turn up too loose, I’d tighten it and 10 hours of powering later it’d be too loose again. As the King in The King and I would say: “It was a puzzlement.”
After more pondering, this time without the aid of good French wine, I was about to leave the boat for West Marine for more fuel filters when I saw a mechanic stepping off of the boat from Oregon side tied ahead of us. What arrested my attention was that he was wearing a white shirt - not a spec of oil or dirt on it - and he’d clearly just serviced the engine of the boat ahead of S’agapo. I had to meet this guy. Stopping him before he could leave, I dragged him back to S’agapo for a “quick look”, he was in a hurry to get to his next job. An hour later he left and I had found what I wanted - a REAL mechanic.
His theory, which I could test out, was that the batteries aboard were shot. As Bill said, of List Marine of Sausalito, when Gel Batteries go bad they become an “energy black hole” and a high-output alternator, like the Balmar on S’agapo just eats up belts trying to fill the “energy black hole”. A theory totally new to me. So, the failing v-belts and the difficulty starting might have the same cause, interesting. I got a battery load tester and gave it a shot - yup, the batteries were worthless. OK, I called ARC Batteries of Sausalito and three new batteries were scheduled for delivery the next day. Of course, no two batteries have exactly the same terminals, especially when the boat was built in the UK, had new batteries installed in France and I was now in the US. So, after a bit of effort putting new ends on cables and getting the sizes of stuff sorted out, the new batteries were in. Pokey started up first shot! Not only started, really REALLY started. Very Cool!
Now, onto the fuel issue. It was rather late in the day so all I did was pull another sample, run it though a paper towel and stare at the black guck that was trapped there. Yup, critters in the fuel, no doubt about it. Now, what to do about it.... Clearly, I needed more good French wind and mussels.
Day 8 - 2nd Work Day - Sausalito - After a great breakfast at Fred’s on Bridgeway, I rounded up the guy from List Marine. I got Hans this time and we headed down to S’agapo. It turns out that he has a 3 cylinder version of Pokey on his boat and knows the design cold. We went through all the filters and examined the guck in the clear bowl etc... Results, a little tiny bit of water and a pretty good shot of algae.
New v-belts installed, a couple of hours scrubbing the engine and engine room, and an afternoon ride to the fuel dock where the nice folks at Spaulding's Boat Works all trooped over to admire a “real wooden boat” and we were good to go home the next day. It’s always amazing how little work seems to get done when cruising and how long it takes to do that little bit.... oh well.
Day 9 - Sausalito to Santa Cruz - 80 miles - There was no wind on the water in Sausalito as S’agapo left the dock, but the fog bank roiling over the Marin Headlands indicated a little wind on the Ocean outside the Golden Gate. With Pokey banging away (When will those two cylinders agree on who’s going to fire when?) S’agapo and I set out towards the Golden Gate.
As always, there was more wind in the Gate than anywhere around, and after sailing in a lovely 15 knot westerly the wind faded to 8 to 10 knots from the south west as we made the turn at Land’s End. The weather forecasts and buoy reports all indicated that it was still blowing a nice 15 knots from the northwest ten miles off shore, so I put S’agapo on a tight reach and started to diverge from the calm shores of Pacifica and Montera.
By lunch time I was watching Otto steer and S’agapo slide along at a steady 7 to 8 knots in a beautiful 15 knot wind. The sky had cleared and the water was that deep blue that you get once you’re in really deep water. We’d worked our way west to a point about 10 miles off of Half Mood Bay and it was time to start planning the gybe to bring us into Santa Cruz without bumping into anything.
The topology of the mountains creates an interesting wind patten at various points along the California coast. The prevailing westerly winds rub up against the mountains and were they are particularly close to the shore those mountains cause a compression of the wind and the related increase in velocity. This occurs at Pt. Arena, Pigeon Pt., Pt. Sur and the biggest of ‘em all Pt. Conception. Approaching Pigeon Pt. just down the coast from Half Moon Bay we had worked our way out to approximately 12 miles off shore, far enough out to be away from the worst of the compression zone (in theory), and also far enough out to allow a single gybe to take us into Santa Cruz. Having raced down the coast previously, I didn’t want to be gybing in what could be 28 to 32 knots of wind single handedly while sailing near a lethal rocky coast.
Once Santa Cruz could be laid with an apparent wind angle of 140 degrees, it was time to gybe. The wind cooperated and was only blowing 18 knots when we gybed and everything was looking like it was going according to plan. It was simply an epic day for a downwind sail. I finished up the last of the lunch food, pounded down a bottle of water and got ready to start he “fun” part of the sail.
As S’agapo headed back in towards shore the compression zone made itself felt. The wind speed increased steadily from the high teens to the mid-twenties, then the low thirties and finally hit a recorded peak of 42 knots. That was plenty of wind - thank you. The swell, already running at about 12 feet high, was joined by the wind chop now and it began to get a little more sporty.
As the wind built, S’agapo started to move along briskly. There were extended periods of 12 to 14 knots of boat speed and she was easily riding the waves for multiple minutes. It was a BLAST!! Then, as the breeze kicked up to the mid-thirties, it got to be rather NUTTY aboard.
Poor stupid Otto (who really does need a brain transplant) was unable to steer the boat safely once the wind speed exceeded 25 knots, so I started to hand steer. Also, this was just Way Too Much Fun to let Otto steer. As each swell would lift S’agapo’s stern I’d turn down its face and start to surf. The apparent wind angel would move forward as our boat speed would accelerate from 10 to 14 or 15 knots and we’d start to fly along. It was Terrific!! For at least two hours we never got below 12 knots and there were extended periods of 14 and 15 knots.
The wind speed started to move into the low 40s and it was time to pay attention. By keeping S’agapo sailing deep she was upright and controllable. But she was going a bit nuts. When the large swells came along she would hop on them and just stay there, holding a the speed of the swell for many minutes at a time. It was impossible to see the instruments as there was water flying everywhere. Later, I’d discover that we’d hit a maximum boat speed of 17.7 and had covered 15 miles in the final hour - we were moving!
Four times we rounded up. Twice it was because I misjudged a wave and let it spin me too far out of the fall line and twice it was because the rudder found itself protruding from the upwind side of a particularly steep wave and unable to get traction. With each round up S’agapo and I got better at getting her back on her feet. It required a lot of mainsheet to be eased and then she’d carve back down the face of a wave and be off again. During one of these round-ups it dawned on me that it would be nice to have someone else aboard to ease the vang and sheet. We wouldn’t have rounded up as often.
Typically the wind starts to abate and back as one approaches Santa Cruz. Right on schedule as Davenport slipped behind us the gusts dropped from the low 40s to the low 30s, and then as we came up on Natural Bridges dropped again to the 20s. It felt benign at 25 knots - boring really. But the blisters on my right hand from the last three hours on the tiller told me that I’d probably really had enough for one day.
Just off of Pt. Santa Cruz, were the little memorial light house winks at you, I could see that the local sailors were feeling an easterly wind ahead and my wind died completely. I started Pokey and cleaned up the boat as I powered in. The day’s run was 82.6 miles with an average speed from dock-to-dock of 7.5, a peak speed of 17.7 knots and a peak wind speed of 42 knots. Nice sail!
S’agapo did her job extremely well. It was terrific to push her and see what she would do, something I wouldn’t have tried if I hadn’t sailed her sister ship Dido fully crewed on the Solent in similar conditions. Sean McMillan did a great job with her design - he built a downwind flyer tough enough to take a bit of breeze.
