BYYB Forums

Greetings all!!!

I hope everyone's had a good winter and gearing up for a good summer. I discovered an excellent wooden boat school down in Sausalito a few months ago and thought I would look into taking Saturday classes there, but it would mean a 6 month commitment. I figured it was high time I started spending more time on the water for now. My wife and I have been taking some excellent classes with the Coast Guard and I bought some sailing lessons with a school down on the bay for my wife. A friend recently bought a used 27' Ericsson that she keeps on the bay and my wife and I are usually either sailing on the weekender or with our friend down on the bay. This is starting to look like a very very good summer.

This past weekend we took the boat up to Clearlake, which I believe is the largest lake in California. It was our first time up there and we were totally blown away at what a great place it is. It's in a neighboring county and has a less than sparkling reputation as they are plagued by the scourge of Meth a bit more than most of us around here. The park we camped at was one of the best we have ever seen; totally affordable and with a marina to tie up the boat where we could either stay aboard or camp. It was very affordable, people were great and we had an exquisite dinner just a few miles down the road.

On Saturday, we went out about at about two o'clock where we had a very leisurely run of it, pretty much on a port beam reach, then headed down in a dead run, running wing and wing. This can be very deceiving as it is hard to judge how strong the winds might be. I could see the sails had wind in them, but it never felt like it was building. However, as we tacked to a starboard beam reach, the winds were very much stronger and it got the heart pounding a bit. I took her up to a close haul and started heading back. It was about that time that we realized how far out we had gone. The winds were building and so was the chop, picking up some spray as the hull slapped the chop a bit. In hindsight, I think the waves were approximately 2' at the most and we were beginning to see whitecaps. I'm guessing we had about 10 knots. There was no way of knowing how much the winds would build and we decided to reef. That wasn't easy and it was the first time we had done it together and under less than ideal conditions. I can see that I need very much to set up a downhaul for both the jib and the main that I can control from the cockpit. Hiking out there in a wind is no fun! Although the boat was handling well under a full sail and reefed we could see that we were going to be some time getting back to the park, so we doused the sails and fired up the Honda 4 stroke 2 1/2 horse to get us back. We were very happy with our outing. I think everything went well. I know of some mods I need to make, we had a bit of excitement, the boat handled well, and dinner......well, that was just sublime!

This Sunday we'll be down on the Ericsson. That is a very enjoyable boat and San Francisco bay is quite the playground. Indeed, life is good.

Great story, sounds like a wonderful time.

what do you know about sailing to catalina?  i am thinking that instead of the florida beer cruise that we have one ourselves to the island once i am comfortable in my pearson.

Bill, how about heading south of the boarder to the Sea of Cortez?  Be a shorter drive for you and less expensive in a lot of different ways.


Another cool place to cruise would be one of the desert lakes like Powell.

Bill, I don't know much about the area around Catalina, as that is way down the coast around San Diego and LA. I'm north of San Francisco by about 50 miles. I've been down to that area a couple of times and I think it's a popular cruise from places like Huntington Beach. My guess is that if your boat is a good solid ocean worthy vessel, the run to Catalina would be fantastic. My guess is that the seas there aren't any more difficult than what we have up here. My Friend's Ericcson, I understand, is a capable cruiser outside the Golden Gate and my guess is that she'll probably take a run down the coast within a year or two. For us, a run south is great....It's getting back that's the hard part. You're beating against the wind all the way up.

mexico scares me in more ways than one anymore.  and i would need to get a passport and all kinds of other stuff to make it successful.  Catalina all i need to do is catch the bouy to moore.

think about it tom and let me know what you think... mess about to and around the island sounds kind of fun to me