Video of the passage from Portland to San Francisco

Chris did a great little video of our passage from Portland to the Bay Area. Check it out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aWVPuHT8aI

Is my stern fat?

It's not required by the Pacific Cup, but I decided that if I'm going to do this, I might as well go all the way and get a certified downwind rating. That involves weighing the boat. Besides, I was curious what the boat weighed.

The rating rules require that the boat be weighed "empty," and they mean empty. Everything comes off: sails, anchors, most running rigging, dishes, clothes, lifejackets, ... everything. As an out of town boat, we wondered, "Where are we going to put all this stuff?" So, we rented a U-Haul truck for the day.

First, everything had to go into a box. That took us a long day.

Preparing for the weigh-in. Everything had to go in a box.

After offloading a few hundred pounds of equipment, Velocity sat a lot higher in the water!

Then, all the boxes, as well as the sails, anchors, liferaft, etc., had to go into the truck

This is what it takes to race to Hawaii. The back of the 15' U-Haul truck.

Then it was time to go to the weigh-in site at the Berkeley Marine Center. Out of prudent seamanship, we left a few things on the boat for the trip over to Berkeley: 3 lifejackets, a toolbag, one anchor, and some water bottles. It was a beautiful day, with a nice breeze blowing in off the ocean, but without a single sail on board, we had to motor the whole 9 miles.

On our way to Berkeley, motoring. The boat looked forlorn without her sails.

When we got there, we were second in line, so we tied up to the fuel dock and offloaded the few remaining items then waited for our turn. 

First, the boat had to be inspected to make sure that everything was truly off, and we hadn't left a few gold bricks down in the bilge.

Then it was time for the weighing! We had to back down a long, skinny channel lined with expensive looking boats, then squeeze into the tight fitting ways that the Travelift used.

The load cell sits in its own frame, slung under the normal Travelift frame, so there was not a lot of room underneath it. It took some careful maneuvering to slip the radar pole under the frame and out of the way, but the crew manning the lift were skilled and took great care.

Velocity hanging in the slings. The load cell is the strap-like thing with a wire sticking out of it, a few feet above the boom.

A minute or two later, and boat was hanging in mid-air, supported at a single point, where the load cell was located. And, we had our answer:

18,340 pounds

That's nearly a 1,000 lbs less than any other J/42 I've heard of. I'm not quite sure why, but it may be because the boat is still pretty simple: no arch, no watermaker, no genset, etc.

As part of the process, the team also measured the waterline length and overhangs.

My thanks to the great volunteer team that handled the weighing. They were fast, efficient, and careful with the boat.

And, a special thanks to Bjorn and Jeff from the Velocity crew for taking the time off to fly down and help me with this chore!

Under the Bridge

Sailed under the Bridge in 30 knots of breeze and a 3 knot favourable tide at 4:40pm.  Speed over ground about 10 knots.

Update 6/11/16. Forgot to mention, that just as we went under the Bridge, Chris called out from the bow, "There's a whale in front of us!!" Sure enough, 100 feet in front of the boat, was a surfacing Humpback, oblivious to our presence in all that turbulence. I couldn't turn right without gybing the boat, so I turned hard left, in the same direction as the whale and, holding my breath, hoped for the best. 

Fortunately for both the whale and us, we narrowly missed a collision.

Dawn at Point Reyes

Making great time. After motoring all day Wednesday and Thursday morning, we finally hit the breeze. It's been blowing 20+ since, occasionally 30+.

We've been eating well, thanks to chef Mark.

200 nm days, and holed up in Coos Bay

The good news is that we had a awesome sail through Monday and into Tuesday morning. Winds were consistently 20+ knots, gusting to 30, right over the transom. So, we flew down the coast, averaging 8+ knots, for a 200+ nm day --- my first.

But, then we started getting disturbing weather forecasts from farther down the coast. A low had broken off the California thermal trough, and was sitting in our path. Unless we are willing to go 100 nm offshore, it will be generating 30+ knot winds from the South. I love 30 knots over the stern, 30 knots right on the nose? Ummm,... not so much.

So, we decided to put into Coos Bay.

We'll be stuck here until the winds abate, probably tomorrow (Wednesday) early afternoon.

Gives us plenty of time to catch up on our sleep (we had to hand-steer the whole way) and do a few boat chores (what's that funny sound coming out of the engine???).

Dawn at Astoria

Beautiful morning for a sail. We will go out on the last of the ebb, crossing the bar at the slack, about 10AM.

Looks like terrific winds for the first day and a half --- 20 knots over the transom.

-tk

Fat-fingered from my Android

Sea-trialing the new emergency rudder

Welding up the stainless steel version of the emergency rudder frame went surprisingly smoothly. Allen and I (mostly Allen) had it done by early afternoon!

So, the next day I took it in to the boat, and with the help of Mike, Carl, and Bjorn, mounted it on the boat and took it for a spin.

Here's a video of it in action.

The rudder has a "reverse tiller." That is, unlike a regular tiller, which points forward, this one points backwards. To turn it, we used long control lines that led forward and, ultimately, tied to a boat hook stuck in a socket in the cockpit sole. The boat hook acted as a kind of "joy stick." The lines crossed along the way so when you pushed the stick starboard, the boat went starboard, and vice-versa.

We didn't have a lot of wind (maybe 8-10 knots), and only had the main up, but it worked great. It was a lot of fun to play with. I hope we never have to use it, but, if we do, I'm confident it will work.

View looking down on the new e-rudder.