6 Day Passage from Vancouver to San Francisco

We have now been in San Francisco for almost a week and I am finally updating the blog.  I am sitting at the computer station in St Francis Yacht Club and Greg is out searching for a zip car and boat parts.   We had a fast 6 day passage with fair to good wind conditions.  We had 3 extra crew - Gord (Greg's brother), Yian (one of our racing crew), and Emili (Yian's girlfriend).  We managed a watch schedule of 4 hours on and 6 hours off.  Even though conditions were relatively good, most of us suffered from a bit of sea sickness and little food was eaten the first few days.

The first 2 days we motored and were beginning to think we needed to fuel up along the Oregon coast.  The boat motion was unsteady and off watch time was spent in bunks.

On days 3 and 4, the wind improved and we were able to sail a steady 6 knots with the jib up.  The Hydrovane autohelm did a great job of steering in these conditions and it was nice not being tied to the helm.  We were more than 50 miles off the coast and passed many fish boats.  There was lots of wild life - whales, otters, sea birds, and a personal visit from a bird that landed on Greg's shoulder.   Greg caught a tuna almost immediately after throwing out the line.  He put up a good fight and we still have blood splats on the main sail.  The next day we fired up the BBQ and enjoyed tuna steaks.  As we were 50 miles off the coast of California we had a motor boat approach us at top speed.   Pirates?   Drug smugglers?   No, just the US Coast Guard checking us out.

On days 5 and 6 the wind shifted and built and we flew the spinnaker.  With the winds steady over 15 knots and gusting up to 30 knots we double reefed the main and were hand steering.   After an unfortunate wind gust we ended up with the spinnaker tightly wrapped around the roller furling jib.  It was an unpleasant 90 minutes and we hoisted Greg to the mast head and lowered him down the furled jib to release the mess.   An ugly job completed just as the sun set.

After an exhausting night we sailed under the Golden Gate bridge July 22nd at about 9:00 AM.  The fog lifted, the sun was shining, and we popped the champagne.