| January 31, 2010- Richmond, California |
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Warrior's Wish has finally made it to California, but not without some more serious drama. The boat is in the water now, and I am beginning my training and shakedown sailing of the boat for this year's Singlehanded Transpac. Definitely super duper excited to be on the boat, in California, sailing, and just surrounded by general awesomeness. The real fun is beginning right now. It's on.
First sail on Warrior's Wish. This is sailing on a close reach just north of the Bay Bridge in about 6-10 knots of breeze, with boat speeds of about 7 knots. I'm absolutely ecstatic to be able to begin sailing the boat. On this point of sail, I had no problem rolling a J-105, so i'm pretty impressed with the performance thus far. This was my first time sailing on San Francisco Bay. Freaking awesome experience.
Rest of road trip West While stuck in New Mexico, we ordered parts and got the truck fixed. After $1,500 and 3 days, things were supposedly as good as new. So we fired the old girl up and headed west. Things went great for 3 hours...
Until we broke down on the side of the road in Arizona... FORD: Found. On. Road. Dead
So after a $250 tow truck ride, we got the truck fixed by a very very good Ford technician at the local dealership in Holbrook, Arizona. The part that broke was RIGHT next to the part that got fixed the day before. Coincidence? I don't know, but either way, the repairs weren't cheap. On the plus side, the truck runs like it's supposed to and had no issues for the rest of the trip. The trailer on the other hand....
A wheel just completely ripped off of the trailer about 100 miles from San Francisco. Huh. We had been pretty careful, checking lug nuts, tire pressure and the heat of the wheel bearings/ hubs at every stop. We had noticed no problems at all, but apparently the whole drum felt it was necessary to break into a million pieces and take the wheel with it. We limped the last 100 miles at a very very conservative pace.
Fortunately, though, we did indeed make it to California so that we could start getting the boat ready to launch. This is Warrior's Wish at Bay Marine Boatworks in Richmond. Thanks Bay Marine Boatworks! Bay Marine supported us and was a huuuuge help in helping this program become a reality. Massive amount of thanks to them. Great boat yard and I would highly recommend them if you are in the Bay Area. Kim is a great guy to work with and can be reached at 1-800-900-6646.
Masthead all prepped and ready to go.
Don guiding the mast into place so that we could step the rig.
Wet sanding the bottom so that we could roll on a new coat of bottom paint on Day #2 at the yard.
Fresh coat of bottom paint. We used Interlux Baltoplate race paint. Thanks Interlux!
Ready to splash the boat. A rainy Friday afternoon in Richmond...
Going up the rig to fix some masthead wind instrument wiring problems. It took us two days to properly diagnose and fix the problem, but we got it down and everything works now. The autopilot uses information from the masthead (wind speed and angle) to work properly. Really neat autopilot and instrumentation set up on this boat. And the views from up the rig are amazing! I went up today in Alameda and got to see all of Downtown Oakland.
Breeze starting to taper off in the early evening on a beautiful afternoon of sailing on San Francisco Bay. Pretty special place up here.
Approaching the Bay Bridge in the evening. There were a lot of other boats on the water from the day's "3 Bridge Fiasco". 360+ boats in the race... Being out here in San Francisco is awesome. My new friend Gary and his wife have been absolutely huge in helping Don and I out while we've been here. They let us crash in the guest rooms, and have been awesome hosts; getting me hooked up with the boat yard, the Richmond Yacht Club, having nice meals and wine at his house, and making the transition to San Francisco really nice and enjoyable. The first sail on the boat was, uh, interesting. So, after having a road trip from hell, we splashed the boat only to find out that the masthead wind instruments (and therefore, the autopilot) weren't working. The autopilot is a pretty huge part of this boat, so that's a very big deal. We also realized that some of the batten cars on the main sail were messed up and needed repair. Combining all of this with the fact that he was running 5 days late in returning home, Don was very frustrated and said "let's just motor to Alameda", and fired off the diesel. We hadn't even put everything away and were going to do that en route to Alameda. He passed me the helm and said "you're the Captain, back us out and take us to Alameda". "Okay." So I backed off the dock and got us under way. Then the motor dies. And we're being blown back towards docks and boats, by wind and current. We very very briefly discuss dropping anchor, and decide to bring up the jib sail (since the main was messed up). Time was definitely of the essence during this whole situation, so we were very rushed in doing things. I maintained the helm while Don hanked on the jib and 1 sheet. We raised sail and began making progress, albeit slowly. I tied on the other jib sheet and then re-took the helm. Don went below to figure out why the engine died. No fuel. After changing the fuel filter and bleeding the system, there was still a small air lock that killed the system. After a few minutes of purging the system, the motor ran fine. So with the motor running, we shut it back off and continued sailing. I continued on at the helm while Don made some small repairs to the batten cars on the main. With the main hoisted, we could really begin sailing and having some fun. When the boat heeled over in the breeze for the first time, all of my frustrations from boat work and crappy road trips was replaced with the absolute happiness and joy that only sailboats bring. Damn, i've missed being on the water. Don smiled and started acting like himself again. I played around with J-105's and Olson's until we reached the channel to the Oakland Estuary and could motor to Alameda. With sails down, we motored next to one of Don's friends, Rob on Tiger Beetle, from the 2008 Singlehanded Transpac. We talked for a few minutes and then proceeded to get totally lost in finding our marina, from the 11 billion docks in Alameda. Don was there for a week 2 years ago, and I had never been there in my life. Combine our local knowledge with the fact that it's completely dark and all bets were off. After about 4 passes back and forth, we decided that we HAD to be at the right marina, and in fact were, so we tied up at the guest dock and climbed around the gate to get out, since it was after 7 pm and the gates were locked unless you had a key. This entire afternoon was an exercise in poor seamanship and a lack of preparedness and planning. That kind of stuff can come back to bite you, even on a day sail in 6 knots of breeze, let alone a solo ocean race. I need to shift gears and get my head in the game as of this moment. Don is about to head back to North Carolina tomorrow. So that's where i'm at right now. I'm in California with a disgustingly cool race boat, i'm alone, i'm focused on what I need to do, and the race starts on June 19. The next few months should be a hell of an adventure... end  7 Comments
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February 01, 2010
216.166.43.194
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