by Tom and Sue Fowle
Tom:
In preparation for the Labor Day weekend "SBYC" sail-in to the Petaluma marina, and a 10:00Am Saturday leaving time to catch the flood tide up the river, we went to South Beach harbor Friday night planning to sail in the Friday night race with Laurence Kornfield and then to spend the night on Legal Specs (a 30 foot Seidelman sailboat BAADS is able to borrow through the kindness of Dick Eachus of Youth with a Mission). Laurence was starting a cold so decided to forego the race to save his energy for the trip.
Laurence recommended us to Mary Lindsay, the highly regarded skipper of "Red Fox" and she kindly accepted us as crew to assist a regular crewman. This was our first experience with the "all together now" start of the Friday night race, and with Mary it was a real thrill. She deserves all and more of her reputation as both a winning skipper and a knowledgeable and delightful teacher. She talked us through our assigned tasks and through her race decisions while showing amazing judgment about boat position in tight spots and race tactics. If racing is being able to crew for a great skipper, we may have to start racing.
Sue: Tom and I successfully completed the first Spinnaker/BAADS sailing class in January 1994 and had been out several times as both crew and skippers, but had not yet sailed as a pair alone.
Tom: Laurence had prepared both Endless Time ("ET") and Legal Specs for the trip, but had not found a chart of the Petaluma river area, although he had sailed that route before. Friday evening, just before he went home to crash, he showed us briefly the planned route as far as the San Rafael Bridge and said we could follow him for the rest of the trip.
After a comfortable night in the clean and luxurious Legal Specs, we moved to good old familiar ET Saturday morning, took on a last can of gas, giving us a "nearly full" tank, started changing to the bigger jib at Laurence's suggestion, and met Laurence's crew of 4 as we picked up our crew.
For the trip up, this consisted of Marty Ergas a recent immigrant from the Miami "Shake-A-Leg" program, and his friends Sarah, Mark, and Jamie. Although Marty has been sailing for a couple of years, the others claimed little experience and less knowledge of ET or the bay, so it was up to Sue and me to keep things upright or heeled and dry while still managing to keep the speedy "Specs" in view. We found out that morning that we would have our crew only for the trip up and would be sailing back by ourselves -- well we had been saying it was time for our first big duo, so here it came ready or not.
Laurence was very hoarse that morning and we would have been sympathetic if he had decided not to go, but that would have meant canceling the trip as we are certainly not ready to explore "uncharted" waters where "everybody goes aground at least once". We like lots of water under and around our keel, and familiar territory.
We motored ahead of Specs out of Pier 40 and to the SF North Point area where we encountered a nice warm 10 to 15 knots of good air from our port beam. We raised sails, including ET's 120% jib and had a wonderful sail varying from close reach to down wind all the way up past Red Rock and into San Pablo Bay.
As we crossed the familiar central bay, Laurence in the much faster "Specs" kept behind us, we think so as to be sure we didn't get lost in his wake, and to push us just a bit towards independence and responsibility--yikes--eep-- thanks Laurence.--no, we really mean it. Good old Cap'n L Matthew treated us!, the slightly chicken neophytes! as equals the whole trip. It was a bit scary, and a real honor. And--(whew)--we got away with it! Laurence also gave the excuse that he wanted to watch ET's speed with her newly cleaned bottom. Once we entered San Pablo Bay, we insisted by radio that Cap'n L take the lead as we had only the vaguest idea where we were going.
Sue had the helm most of the trip while I took care of sail handling. Our crew was eager to help and Mark took a brief stint at the tiller as we headed toward Red Rock and the San Rafael Bridge. Sue was a little reluctant, with good reason, to let us wander too far from course so didn't give the inexperienced helmsman as much of a chance at the helm as we'd have liked to do in more familiar circumstances. Jamie and Sarah both took the helm later when we were under power.
Sue: All of our passengers were eager to help where they could, and made easier many procedures such as setting radio frequencies, reading fuel gauge and depth sounder, setting the whisker pole. Tom directed them as necessary in helping with sail handling. Laurence suggested we run wing and wing in San Pablo Bay. We used the new whisker pole which proved to be tricky to adjust, but when set did a nice job of stabilizing that big jib.
One picture will remain fondly in my mind: one of our crew, in preparing the lazy jib sheet for an upcoming tack, wrapped its entire length neatly and artistically around the winch. I regretted having to remove multiple turns and layers, it looked so carefully done. Perhaps we should have demonstrated such techniques while we were motoring, but we really had no idea how experienced our crew was.
We crossed San Pablo Bay and entered the marked channel, then the river, passing 2 swiveling bridges, farm country, and grasslike water plants. We started using our depth sounder, which reported depths from about 16 to 1.6 feet (hard to see decimal point). Laurence had us check fuel quantity near the start of the Petaluma River: about 3/4 tank at that point, and asked if we wanted to refuel then or wait till the return trip. No one felt a need to stop and I wanted to delay or avoid dockings where possible, as they are one of the most nerve-wracking aspects of boat handling for Tom and me. Wrong decision, as it turned out.
The wind died about half way up the River, after first changing direction, causing us to start to turn left. We ended up doing a full circle turn after starting the engine: it was easier than correcting right against the torque of the engine and the momentum of the turn. I considered telling Laurence we were heading back now while we faced back down the River, but there wasn't time.
We motored the last 5 miles, heard Laurence blast the hand-held air horn and saw a drawbridge raise for our 2 boats. Immediately after, we saw a small circular harbor, with a large ferry boat, the Petaluma Queen, docked on our right, a small power boat anchored in the middle of the water, and boats docked and rafted together ahead of us and to our left near an arched wooden bridge.
We started to follow Laurence to the rafted boats straight ahead, but he told us to wait while he got docking instructions. For the sake of our wheelchair user, we had to get to a real dock and could not raft up immediately. I feared we would not have sufficient control of the boat if we drifted, so I ended up circling at least 5 times around the anchored power boat until we finally got the word to change frequencies, only to have the drawbridge controller say docking location was up to us and docking in front of the Petaluma Queen was a possibility.
We finally did dock there, with 2 SBYC members helping with dock lines. Laurence handled the wheelchair transfer, using the ingenious pulley/sling arrangement he helped to devise. I asked him to handle the rafting operation also, as delicate maneuvering near other boats is one of his many skills. We were rafted as the 3rd boat out from the dock. Laurence's boat was behind us, the 5th boat out from the dock. We were able to relax and enjoy the SBYC potluck feast, then said good-bye to our 4 passengers, who rode home by car.
We slept on ET Saturday night and ran out of water aboard the next morning. Sitting idly in the cockpit, Tom asked if I would be able to un-raft and re-raft without help if the boat next to us were to leave. I imagined starting the engine, circling once more in the harbor's middle, then re-rafting: please, no.
We had brunch in Petaluma and returned to find a 4th boat rafted on our port side. The starboard boat we were rafted to had to leave, and Laurence very cleverly pulled ET over to Legal-Specs using dock lines, so we were briefly rafted 7 across. After our neighbor left, Laurence plus others used dock lines to tie Legal-Specs, ET and the boat on our port to the fishing boat where our neighbor had been rafted. We relaxed under the shade of a small spinnaker Laurence tied across 3 boats. We tried to borrow sufficient hoses to fill our water tank, but finally purchased an inexpensive 50 ft. hose: the sole faucet was nearly 150 ft away.
Later that Sunday afternoon all SBYC'ers were invited for drinks aboard Morris and Rachel Leader's 42 ft luxury power yacht, Challenger, and we enjoyed our choice of beverages along with Morris' home smoked salmon dip, and socializing before all going to dinner at a nearby restaurant. The South Beach members were as always warm and welcoming.
The drawbridge controllers announced they would only lift the bridge at 7, 8, 10, and 11:30 am on Monday, due to the holiday staffing. Tom and I awoke very early and discussed 2-person boat handling strategies. He would do most of the sail handling, I would be at the tiller. Laurence first thought 8 am would be early enough for best currents, but changed his mind next morning and we left at 7 am. As the drawbridge horn sounded, we saw a stream of boats flowing slowly toward the bridge. We cast off rafting lines and joined the stream, asking Laurence to precede us.
We motored slowly behind Laurence, and were passed by most of the 7 am fleet. Laurence finally explained he was worried whether we had enough fuel. There was no wind, and even though we had more than 1/2 tank, we didn't know if we would have to motor most of the way home, and whether we would find any marinas selling gas at that early hour.
We were briefly able to sail on the River and were passed by one of our fellow SBYC'ers who took the photo of us with all sails set.
We had the joy (read embarrassment) of running aground just before the entrance to a marina. We had forgotten to turn our depth sounder on and it doesn't take much to be out of those narrow channels. Tom said later he had no sensation of anything being wrong, and would have thought we were continuing to move normally. I noticed all of a sudden that ET was not turning in response to my tiller actions, and the scenery stopped flowing past, as if the movie were paused. I initially thought there was a tiller or engine malfunction, until it dawned on me after a few seconds what was wrong.
With embarrassment and a lot of concern we told Laurence by radio what had happened. We tried powering forward and back with our engine, a passing powerboat tried to create a wake to lift us free, but we seemed thoroughly stuck in the mud, and had to throw Laurence a line and he towed us free with little difficulty. We should have stayed more in the center of the channel and had our depth sounder on.
Tom: When we went aground, there was no apparent change in the movement of ET. We still rocked with the passing wakes, and there was still water noise. I suppose the only way I might have figured it out eventually would have been if I noticed that shore noises, of which there were few, stopped moving. One thinks of grounding as dramatic and frightening with immediate danger. In these circumstances, it is scary, but presents little immediate danger, the worst case is that one will have to wait for the next high tide to float off.
It was neat to crouch at the bow watching the tow line tauten as Specs pulled and watching the angle of the line swing as our bow came round to point at the source of pull. When Laurence cast off the tow line, I had to be very quick at gathering it in so as to avoid its fouling in our propeller. Don't they say that sailing is long periods of quiet with moments of panic?
Sue: Laurence looked at the entrances to refueling possibilities along the way and decided the tide was too far out for us to enter so we continued slow motoring. At the start of the channel markers, a line of them leads off to the right, and in the early morning haze it looked confusing, so we asked Laurence to continue leading.
We were passed by some boats from the 8 am group, one of which ran aground in the channel. We listened to the radio communications among the other boats who stopped to help, and it sounded like much more of an operation to free that boat than ours.
Past the channel markers, we discussed the continued lack of wind as we floated on glassy smooth water. Laurence presented choices of being towed for a while or taking our chances and probably having to be towed into Pier 40 or the SF gas dock. We chose towing across San Pablo Bay. We had 1 line on Legal-Specs' port stern cleat running to ET's port bow cleat. Laurence had said he was not feeling well, and we were sorry he had to worry about us as well. He told us to take down our sails and steer right behind. I had to watch carefully and correct quickly and precisely, but steering was otherwise not difficult. We didn't seem to move very fast, but Laurence later said he was going full speed. We felt occasional wind, but it was from directly ahead.
Near the San Rafael Bridge, we began to feel useful wind. Once past the bridge, Laurence motioned for us to start our engine, we thus slackened the tow line, and he cast off. Tom was ready at the bow and I yelled for him to gather the line quickly so we wouldn't foul it in our prop. He said later he didn't realize it was free and not just slack until I told him. The wind was probably 20 kts on a close reach by now (from calm to 20 -- what a contrast), and we waited till we were clear of a tug and other traffic before turning into the wind and hoisting our main.
The main alone wasn't enough, so we unfurled most of the big jib and enjoyed stiff winds (20-25 kts) until past Alcatraz when the wind gradually died. We changed the amount of sail several times along the way, thinking winds would be very strong once out of the relative lee of Angel Island (fortunately ET has jiffy reefing).
Tom handled all the sail trim from the cockpit, and I felt quite comfortable at the tiller. We gained a lot of knowledge of sail trim and general sail boat handling from the Spinnaker course, but encountered mainly winter's light winds during the class. Over the 2 years we've been with BAADS, Laurence has allowed me to be at the tiller in winds as strong as we experienced on this occasion, and for that reason we enjoyed the sail back. Laurence contacted us by radio (he was probably a mile or 2 ahead of us during the sail) and said we'd refuel some other time: it was too busy at the gas docks.
We started the engine near the Bay Bridge when the wind really died, Tom furled the sails, and got dock lines ready for both of us. I came in a bit too fast, but he handled the stern line, I grabbed the bow line and we docked as a pair for the first time. It'll be smoother next time.
We learned a great deal from this adventure, during which we very much relied on Laurence to determine the route (because a chart was unavailable), currents (although we did our best to figure these out for ourselves), fuel (we'll be sure to top off the tank when possible after this, especially during a holiday weekend), ungrounding (depth sounder for sure, next time), rafting (use lines, motoring may not be necessary). Thanks, Laurence, BAADS, Spinnaker, and SBYC for an unforgettable weekend!
Updated 2-18-1999 and 6-20-2005