Sail to Live Another Day

The trees were already bent over by 8am. No worries, it's just a morning blow. Should ease up by mid-day. And no problem finding a place to park the trailer at the office complex I was visiting for my meeting Tuesday morning--a consequence of the recession, no doubt. Turns out the guys I was meeting with where sailors, too, and more than accommodating to move the dialog along quickly and allow me to get out on The Bay for a good practice session in Feraligatr. By one O'clock I was around the corner at the marina anticipating the thrill of punching through and surfing over the chop on the open bay. But wait, how come the wind is still howling? Shouldn't there be a little letting up before the afternoon fog comes back in? Whatever the cause, it was blowing hard through Richmond's Marina Bay. Do I go out and get some high wind practice? Learn to manage an already overpowered boat in overpowering conditions? Not via this marina, and not by myself. A quick mental zoom through at least four things that could go really wrong, given the wind strength/direction and the particulars of the marina layout, and leading to visions of damaged property and reputation, convinced me that this was not a good day to go sailing by myself.

So, I packed it in, and got back on the road for home. Disappointment and second guesses filling my brain, I cranked some Metallica to help sour my mood further. But then halfway up I-80 it occurred to me that a slight detour would have me presently in Benicia, another Bay Area micro climate. What the hey, let's go check it out.

And, it was perfect. Warm weather, moderate breeze, slack tide. OK, none of the waves I had hoped to get some practice on today, but perfect otherwise. Out I went. Just a few days before, I had finally installed my tactical compass and was looking forward to what it might tell me. Instead of the typical down the strait, today the wind was dropping in over the South bank hills making for very shifty conditions as each gust dropped to the water and decided which way to scatter. Recognizing that a shift has occurred is not hard to do in these conditions. Each seemingly random switch is a recipe for a capsize either to weather or to leeward. But with the compass, a repeatable pattern emerges. 3 3 3 3 6 -tack- 6 6 6 6 3 -tack- 3 3 3 3 6 -tack. (Yes, it really was shifting 30 degrees--not unusual when Benicia gets this Southerly wind.) After syncing up, it's easy to determine just which wind you are in at any given moment (and anticipate what is coming next and when.) Stay in phase, and the absolute tacking angles are only 60 degrees--a huge advantage on the way to a weather mark. Out of phase, and it's effectively 120 degrees. For you geometry buffs, in these big shifts, the out of phase boat sails 1.7 times as far as the in-phase boat. Wow.