Wednesday Evening Sail - April 9th, 2008

Wednesday Evening is the greatest day and time of the week to go sailing. The wind is strong, but usually fading. The sun isn't going down until after 8pm now, which leaves plenty of time to cruise the bay in a Nordic Folkboat. (please forgive the black spot... camera phones are not that slick)
Still really love this boat. Every time I go to work on some part of it I giggle inside knowing I now have a really good boat... and now, Cassandra is coming sailing more frequently! :)

But tonight was not a race and this was true because there were no other boats out on the bay! Crazy. It was like having a powder day all to yourself at Squaw Valley with no lift lines. We brought along some friends with beers, Brad and Carie. They wore their snowboarding gear to stay warm.
We had 15+ knots of wind, but it was gusty and shifty so I just travelled down a bit and tried not to constantly make micro adjustments and just enjoy the sail. I made the tiller extension out of carbon fiber fishing pole. I used a rubber ball I confiscated off a student of mine who was improperly bouncing it in the hallway. All I paid for was the universal joint to attach to the tiller. It's lighter than the brick of a tiller extension that was on their when I got the boat. It's for sale if you want it. :)
We reached over toward Sausalito to the edge of the wind line and turned around. Took the stern of a small tanker and headed over toward Crissy Field and Mark #16, the one we use for Wednesday evening races, then tacked and went under the bridge. I didn't bother to check the tide book, but realized we were in a pretty strong ebb, so we tacked and headed downwind and put up the recently fixed whisker pole that Per's barbarian crew destroyed during the SF Cup.
Took some pictures, had a beer...
I let Brad drive downwind...

Then before we went back to the slip, I had to do it... Chasing swimmers is just a hobby of mine, I can't help it.
The wind gusted as we entered Aquatic Park and we were flying across the water.
Took a peek to look for swimmers.
Looked again as we surged forward, but alas... no swimmers to be found. They must have seen us coming this time.
The only other boat out on the bay was the Adventure Cat. They decided to join us in the hunt for swimmers, but instead turned down the interior of the break water and returned to port. It's another way to see the bay in style if you don't have access to a folkboat. With no swimmers to chase and the sun going down, we returned to port ourselves and stowed the boat and went out to dinner. What a great way to break up the week. I highly recommend it.