2012 Farallones

The anticipation built throughout the week with an approaching storm and a changing and deteriorating forecast.  The race to the Farallones is no joke, its a 50 mile roundtrip in a not always friendly piece of ocean and with an approaching storm things could get ugly quickly.  Everybody was paying close attention to the forecast and talking amongst skippers before the race was of high volume.

Rob was racing with me for this one and was ready for battle.  I decided to give it a go.  Well, at least get up early in the morning (4:30), get to the start line and have a look at Pt. Bonita.  Well, at least that was the plan.  Things didn't quite worked out that way.

We should have known, we had a couple of omens along the way.  First our traditional fueling station wasn't open in time for us to have our pre-race breakfast.  Then, our trusted friend and fellow competitor onboard Outsider decided to haul out and keep himself and crew dry for the day.  Well, we had done too much and thought too much about it not to at least check it out.   So we set out towards the starting line.  It is a hour and a half delivery and we were already feeling the early tentacles on the storm in the Estuary.   With the Southerly breeze we were motorsailing with the jib up the Estuary to the start at GGYC.

Towards the end of the Estuary we started getting some strong gusts coming through.  Once we got to the mouth of the Estuary we could see the bay was lit up.  The fetch from SJ all the way to Oakland had picked up a huge chop and all the tops were whiting out.  It was possibly blowing close to 30 knots.  I decided to call it a day right then and there.  We went to furl the jib to turn around and this is when things went wrong.  In the strong breeze we didn't get a good furl and the top of the jib got unfurled.   We tried to unfurl the rest of the sail to try again but ended up with a twist on the jib.  These are fairly easy to undo (especially with our small jib) but it requires heading downwind to release the pressure on the sail.  Only problem was that just downwind of us was the breakwater.   We had no searoom to do that manouver.   Our only option was to try to power across the bay with the twisted jib until we could clear the Northern container ship terminal.  Our little Johnson did the trick, but in the process we shredded the unfurled top of the jib.  By now we were well in the bay in 6 foot chop and 25 - 30 knots.  Rob went up to the bow to try to untwist the jib, but it was only when we finally were able to turn downwind that we were able to get the twist off.    We furled what was left of the sail and turn to head back to calmness of the Estuary.    But with the ebb, 30 knots in the nose, and the huge chop we weren't making any headway and having a hard time keeping the propeller in the water.  

Plan B, we unfurled what was left of the jib and motor sailed across the Bay to the San Francisco side to find relief from the Southwesterly winds.   By now the rain was coming down in sheets.  We were aiming to the public dock just north of the Ferry Building.  We could regather ourselves and make a plan.    Once we got to the city side the seas calmed a bit and we got a lull on the breeze so we changed plans and started heading towards South Beach Harbor.  Just as we were about to go under the Bay Bridge the little engine just died.  Back out comes our tattered jib and Rob starts sailing us back towards the public dock as I work on the engine.  A few minutes later I get the engine running again.   We get to the public dock but the surge inside is huge.  The boat would get a thrashing if we tied up there in those conditions.  Since we had the engine working again we decided to give South Beach another go.

Needless to say it was a bit stressful.  Having lost some confidence on the outboard and still battling a building ebb, 20+ knots on the nose and a huge chop we were making very slow progress.  At best we were seeing about 3.5 knots over the water which with the ebb it was more like 1.5 knots over ground. But the engine eventually got us there.   We tied up at the guest dock, took our jib down and hit the Java House for some hot coffee, warming up and decide what to do next.

We made some phone calls, checked the local weather and could see a new band of rain coming into the area.  We were done being wet.  We waited a few hours for the rain to stop.  The winds calmed down and we motored back to Alameda around noon time under much better sea state.

Another wet and cold day with not much to show for other than a torn jib.  But it could have really gotten ugly for us earlier in the day at the mouth of the Estuary had we not being able to motor sail away from the lee shore.   Even though we didn't get tested going around the Farallones, we got a good test just getting out to the starting line.