Eric Histock, a world famous cruisers, stated that the pacific coast of north america was one of the most challenging crusing grounds in the world. He is not far from the truth; the coast is dominated with high rocky cliffs, long distances between safe ports and harbors, and winds and tides that make northbound voyages very difficult.
We had some friends commit, then back out. We also had 'policial' problems; some people did not associate with others, etc.. Eventually I gave up on my friends and instead mailed those appearing on the latitude crew list. I got alot of response, except that I had sent it out so late few could re-arrange their schedule. One guy committed but came down with something the day before we were leaving.
Another thing to arrange before departing was a life raft for the crew, better safe then sorry. This was much easier, as a company in San Francisco rents them out to yachties at a weekly rate.
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| The drive down |
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Finally at 0-dark-30 in the morning Michelle and I loaded into the rented minivan and started driving to southern california. After picking up Nick and Dominic in Orange county we headed to the haulout yard that had been tasked for doing work on her.
It was a very exciting moment to finally see the boat firsthand.
We arrived saturday afternoon to discover the vessel with a sign on the helm 'does not start'. We had made it clear to the yard we were leaving saturday afternoon and to have to wait till monday morning for someone to tell us what was wrong was just unacceptable. Luckly, me being a former diesel mechanic, and Nick being familiar with the boat's systems we determined that the yard had not bothered to bleed the diesel system after replacing the filters, hence the engine didn't start (they hadn't bothered to fix the transmission leak I paid them to fix either, more on that later). I suppose if there's any area you should dive in and figure out on any diesel powered boat (or truck) right off the bat it's how to bleed the fuel system. After the bleeding it started right up.
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| Scirocco at boat-yard |
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Going from a boat that weighed as much as a small car (1.5 tonnes) to a boat that weighed something closer to a house (12 tonnes) presented a steep learning curve for docking and departing. One could no longer just 'muscle' the boat around the dock by tugging it to and fro; with a boat this size it took careful planning, a knowledge of wind & tides, along with the ability to use lines and prop in conjunction to put the boat where it should be rather than where it'll damage itself or others.
crewing up, dinner, provisioning, San Diego bridge,
After Doug, the last of the crew, arrived we headed out for dinner and provisioning. -
We departed late saturday night, sometime between 10PM and midnight. What little breeze there was died by the time we reached the mouth of san diego bay. As we approached the entrance to the bay we were accompanied by several small navy patrol boats heading for the open ocean. A moderate swell greeted us as we entered the pacific.
At this time I left the driving to the first watch and got a few hours of sleep. This was my first time trying to sleep aboard a small boat in a moderate swell. A unique experience added to by the drone of the diesel engine. Our watch came up a few hours later; a fairly uneventful watch until the end.
The sea was empty except for the slow rolling swell and the wind was calm. Except for the shoreline in the far distance the sea and sky were completely empty and serene. Suddenly from the depths rose a yellow bouy with matching yellow strobe, appearing a scant 30 meters ahead of us. Although easily avoided it provided a curious object of speculation. I maintain to this day that it was a navy submarine on excercises which took the opprotunity of a sailboat with a loud engine to mask it's noise to come near the surface and raise it's anttena bouy. Our loud churning along the sea surface would surely hide the sub's surfacing noise from any listening sonar operator.
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| Doug at helm |
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Due to some miscommunication, at the end of the watch we were much closer to shore. I had steered the course given to me by Nick as he was going off watch but had assumed navigation was his problem, nor did I know where we wanted to end up (distance off shore) so my steering had gotten us much closer to shore then the rhumb line between Newport Beach and San Diego.
Just prior to the changing of the watch we noticed an occasional groaning sound. When nick came up he suspected that the transmission was leaking again (something I paid the yard to fix!) and indeed we were several quarts low of transmission oil. This problem would continue to hound us the entire trip.
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| North of San Diego |
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The sun was starting to rise, and with it the wind started coming up. Dominic, who's life dream was to buy a boat and sail away was having second thoughts. Matter of fact it would be fair to say he'd completely abandoned the idea of it, and thought that anyone in their right mind would never do it. He had been seasick from the gentle swell of the night and the higher and choppier swell that started to come made him worry for the safety of the boat.
Soon we were nearing Newport beach, which would be a good place to stop in, get some fuel for boat & crew and evaluate our options. Newport beach is a crouded recreational harbor. Boats of all types and sizes were anchored, tied up alongside the warfs, or moving too and fro. We located the fuel dock, near the center of activity and the ferry that crosses to an island. We had averaged a gallon an hour on the trip up.
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| Seal at Newport Beach |
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Dominic had decided he wasn't interesting in continuing beyond Longbeach, and Doug and Nick were apprehensive on trying the whole trip with such a small crew. We tenatively decided that we'd continue to Santa Barbara, at which point I'd look at either doing the rest another week with more crew, or getting a delivery skipper to take it past conception. and the rough coast to Monterey.
As we left newport beach, the wind and swell had piped up and we were taking us on the nose. Scirocco rose up to meet each wave then dived down the backside. I steered around the largest of the waves, the swell made helming an interesting job instead of the former dull excercise of following the compass. Dominic on the other hand was not having fun. He swore we were on the verge of foundering; Michelle had enough and stated that not only were we not sinking, but that if we did there's nothing that can be done about it and to stop worrying about it untill were all knee-deep in water.
After our wild ride out of Newport Beach we approached the LA breakwaters. Nick picked out a marina with a guest slip available and we tied up for the night.
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| Long Beach Marina |
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Long Beach, day one.
Although the weather forcast was deteriorating we decided to stick our
nose out and see how it really was blowing. We motored out to the inside
of the breakwaters and faced a stiff breeze.
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| Container ship dwarves Light |
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Long Beach/ San Pedro day two.
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| A resident of San Pedro |
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We departed for Santa Barbara on a beautiful morning with a light breeze. We ducked out of the serene harbor and into the bay heading northwest. The weather forcast predicted winds climbing to 15-25 knots in the afternoon. It was enough wind that we had a comfortable sail across Santa Monica bay heading to round Point Dume and on to Santa Barbara.
As we approached Point Dume the wind really picked up and things got uncomfortable. Point Dume, anyone else see the irony?? We put the first reef in the main as the wind continued to build. The seas build in unison, short steep seas. I had never seen waves this big, thats no small statement from someone who surfed the North-Shore of oahu. As the boat hobby-horsed over the waves Michelle and Doug got good spots of sea-sickness and retired to be miserable on bunks below. That left Nick and myself on deck. The sea action made the transmission work, and leak, extra hard. As I was steering Nick went below to replenish it's supply. He came back up a bit later looking a bit green but the fresh air helped him recover.
We traded and he steered for awhile, then the wind really built. Nick was steering to go straight over the waves, the result was that the jib would flog and rub against the radar dome. One of those things it's nice to know, but not fun to learn about first hand is where your anemometer (wind gauge) tops out.. In our case it's 50 knots, and by this time it was reading that consistantly. Then the jib had enough of the chafe and ripped from leach to luff; it had to come down.
 The first reef
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Nick didn't like the idea of sending someone out on the foredeck when the bow of the boat was regularly submerging in the oncoming seas.. But the jib had to come down. I clipped on and crawled forward, hanging on for all it was worth. I loosed the halyard and moved forward to tackle the jib which was flogging madly. I looked up to see a rapidly approaching set of huge waves which would surely sweep the foredeck with several feet of water! I dived down and hugged the jib boom (part of the self-tacking rig). I felt the water sweep over the deck and rig, trying to pull everything on deck into the sea. Then I got up and with renewed determination dragged the jib down and tied it off to the jib boom. On the way back Nick signaled me to also put another reef in the mainsail.
By the time I collapsed into the cockpit the transmission started to groan again. At least on the foredeck you've got fresh air and can see the horizion! The cramped engine room smells of oil, is sickly warm, and has an engine running at 2000RPM waiting to maul an errant body-part. Meanwhile I've got to pour more foul-smelling liquid at a target about the size of a quarter; then take this whole scenerio and shake it violently side-to-side, up-and-down.. and you get the picture. I came back up on deck very green.. I'm thinking 'I can hold it together' 'fresh air and the horizon and I'll be fixed right up'. Fifteen seconds later I watched whatever water and crackers there were in my stomach wash over the rail.
Darkness was rapidly approaching and the crew was cold, wet, and tired. We had had it. We aimed for the first safe harbor we could find, which also happened to be a Navy base completely restricted to civilian personel. The mainsail came down and as we entered a launch with armed MP's came out to greet us. They told us to turn around and leave now.. Did they have any idea what it was blowing out there? We declared an emergency and begged them to give us 15 minutes to get ourselves together before setting off back into the rough seas. Luckily for us they agreed. As we approached the pier they directed us to there was a loud 'CLANG' and the boat heeled over to starboard. It righted itself, then another loud 'CLANG', 'CLANG'. There was nothing in the water around us! Then we looked up. The top foot of our mast was striking a crane that hung over the water! We had to work quickly, if the rigging got caught up in the crane it would take the mast down for sure. We rapidly reversed to starboard and cleared the crane. We tossed our dock lines to more waiting MP's along the pier and tied up.
Michelle and Doug appeared from below. We all took our 15 minutes to drink some water, eat a few crackers, and look at what our options were. Channel Islands harbor was a short motor away, but had an entrance that looked difficult in heavy weather. We made our plan of approach which would hopefully keep us out of the pounding surf near the entrance to the breakwater. We waved goodby to our guards and motored for all we had to get into channel islands. It was dicey getting into the breakwater in the dark with waves breaking onto the beach seeming only yards away but we managed to get though and tie up at the fuel dock. Thirty minutes later the boat was safely tied up at the guest docks and we all collapsed for the evening.
The next morning I was the first one up so I wandered over to the small area of shops nearby to purchase breakfast for everyone. That morning it was pretty clear that this leg of the journey was over. The weather was predicted to be bad for the rest of the week and all hands had enough of boats in general and scirocco in particular at this point. We saw Doug and Nick off at the oxnard airport then I took the greyhound down to San Diego to retrieve the Van while Michelle cleaned up the boat.
It was clear that Scirocco needed some repairs before continuing any further, so Michelle and I decided we would return to San Jose and I would come down weekends to make what repairs I could before going any farther.
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| Scirocco in Oxnard |
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Repairs - weekend one
Oxnard is a strange place. None of the electronic or automotive places seem to be open weekends, and the ones that are open seem to close 30 minutes before you realize you need a part now. My work routine days whent something like this. Work on broken item 5 minutes, search for parts 2 hours, work 5 minutes, search 2 hours, repeat ad-nauseum. The one saving grace of Oxnard is that there's a baker's square across the street from the marina. This was pretty much where I 'et my dinners and where I discovered my absolute favorate desert, carmel pecan silk supreme pie.
By the end of the first week I had gotten the autopilot repaired. The unit must have been 20 years old and had relays and transistors inside instead of the more modern ones which are big chip-covered blocks. This was actually a blessing, because with an electronics book and a solder gun from Radio Shack I was able to replace the components damaged by water incursion and troubleshoot the burnt-out power transistor. Total cost of parts, ~$10. A newer model would have set me back hundreds of dollars and weeks of time waiting on a factory repair. I was also able to replace the shore-power recepticle which had been damaged by water incursion in the course of the storm. But I had a week job so I headed back north while the transmission waited for my return.
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| Funky fishing boat |
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Repairs - weekend two
I returned to tackle the transmission. I unbolted then ripped open the control valve assembly on the top of the transmission where presurized fluid flowed freely whenever the engine was running. What I found inside suprised me, as all the o-rings had deteriorated and been damaged inside the assembly and had to be replaced. I spent a good many hours going from automotive store to automotive store untill mix-and-matching the right assortment of o-rings. Back to the boat; I replaced the o-rings, made a gasket, smeared on silicon sealant and bolted the whole thing back together. After it cured I fired up the engine and the seal worked fine! This was great, as it meant I could depart early sunday morning for Santa Barbara.
What a great feeling to be skippering my boat out of Channel Islands harbor. She was finally ready and I felt like I had to get her out of Oxnard or be stuck there forever. The harbor was a beehive of activity, but the trusty autopilot steered a straight course through the harbor channel while I was forward raising the mains'l. The humming of the engine while it pushed my boat through the water was music to my ears, and the opprotunity to singlehand such a heavy vessel was thrilling.
Slipping out of the harbor I set a course and went forward to bend on the Yankee (I probably should have gone with the genoa). There was little or no wind, and if the wind came it would be dead ahead, so I motorsailed for awhile with the jib up but eventually took it down. It was such a beautiful and calm day, I felt like everything was right with the world. -
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| Greg at helm |
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I studied the chart for Santa Barbara extensively and took down the mainsail before begining my approach. I knew that with just myself as crew I'd have but one shot to get this heavy boat safely into the marina and tied up. I went up the channel to approach the fuel dock and slowed to a dead crawl. Once I was along side I leaped off with the stern line in hand. The boat was drifting forward nearing the stearn of a steel fishing boat as I tried to get the rapidly receeding dockline around the cleat! Finally I got a good wrap on the cleat and held tension as the boat strained against the nylon then settled to a stop.
I handled the formalities to get a guest slip and was off on my own again to move the boat into the slip. An out-island has a beam of 13'10", but apparently the slip was 13'6" wide. A fellow boater helped pull her into the slip and I tied her up and left her ready for the next leg of the journey.
As I returned home I knew that the hardest strech of coastline lay ahead
between Santa Barbara and Monterey, and that scaring up crew and getting
lucky with the weather with everyone having day-jobs was a
near-imposibility. I opted for the other option, Hire a delivery skipper
who could wait for optimal weather to take scirocco up to Monterey then
do the easy strech from monterey to Redwood City over a weekend.
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| A foul day at Big Sur |
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I started calling around and got a delivery skipper to agree to take my delivery. Unfortunately we were communicating by Email, and he was new to this medium, so we ended up with two weeks of mis-communication while slip fees in Santa Barbara mounted. The weekend of the delivery came and the skipper became ill and was unable to do the delivery. A complete run of bad luck for me. He pointed me to a friend of his who was able to do the delivery; this second skipper was much better prepared than the first and got the boat to monterey with nary a hitch. He and his crew had perfect weather for the trip up and called me mid-way to let me know everything was going smoothly. He left the boat in Monterey for us to pick up the following weekend.
Monterey..
Provisioning. sleeping aboard.
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| Coast in nice weather |
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Fog. Whale. no wind.
Passing Santa Cruz. square-rigger.
Half Moon Bay,
Suprisingly enough, the rough pacific seas have not steamrollered the reefs surrounding half moon bay, and one must be mindful of entering the bay through one of the reef passes. Thankfully the passes through the reef are clearly marked with bouys and lights.
The harbor was supprisingly busy when we approached, many vessels were entering and leaving through the narrow channel. Most were heading for the marina, while we headed for the anchorage dotted with a few cruising boats. It would be interesting, as this was the first time anchoring this boat, and it took two tries to get the hook to set in the grass covered mud bottom. I tried to pick a spot away from the other boats (in case I did a bad job and dragged), but I ended up near a mooring bouy I was sure was owned by a large dirty steel fishing boat. The boat never came, thankfully.
It took forever to try to get to sleep. It was the middle of the day and I wasn't tired! On top of that it was hot below, difficult conditions to sleep in. I sat in the cockpit for awhile under the bimini taking in the view and snacking on wine and cheesed crackers. Finally the serene view encouraged me to get to sleep
... only to have to awaken four hours later, to get ready for departure. Getting the boat ready took much longer than I expected. I figured we'd be up and ready in 15 minutes; we didn't leave the breakwater for an hour. The cold conspired with our lethargy to slow our departure. Once we were finally bundled up and the boat was ready we motored out of the harbor. We had planned our departure around midnight, to allow us to get a favorable flood tide for entering the gate. Get a flood tide and the boat'll do 12 knots entering, an ebb tide and you'll do only two, not to mention rough seas if the wind is up.
The channel through the reef is an interesting one; when you reach the
first green bouy about an 1/8 of a mile outside the channel you must then
make a 125% turn to starboard almost doubling back the way you came to
clear the reef northbound. It would certainly be difficult to descern the
channel without charts or in a high seaway. After reaching the end of the
channel we started northward, giving a wide berth to the reefs and rocks
of the shoreline. The florecents as we sailed were amazing; schools of
fish or other creatures moving about created large glowing 'globes' below
the surface of the water as we passed. It is not supprising after seeing
these how the mariners of days past saw sea monsters and mermaids in such
displays; they glowing made even me apprehensive.
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| Golden gate bridge |
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There was a lively swell that evening, nothing dangerous but enough to make the trip feel like a ride in a washing machine. You just gotta love an autopilot.. Set it and let it steer while you stay under the dodger and try to stay warm. The orange loom of the lights of San Francisco came up on us; it was amazing to look into the city and see the lights laid out in a perfect grid pattern. On our approach we stayed well off the southern bar, hearing many a horror story about breaking seas in that area. We neared the approach bouys to the golden gate, a pattern of four dots by two dots as seen from radar. Crossing into the channel we tured to enter below the golden gate. There was verry little ship traffic, it being a little before 4AM on a weekend. We had the whole gate to ourselves.
It is a magnificent sight to cross under the Golden Gate bridge on a small boat in the middle of the night. The entire huge structure is lighted and the light fog in the air only increased the feeling of awe of crossing under the engineering marvel. This was my first time crossing under it in either direction and it felt like a special moment.
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| Sea lion at Pier 39 |
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The central bay was flat as glass, and it seemed much smaller than before
after coming in from the open ocean. We had both stayed awake for the trip
from half moon bay to the golden gate. We were both very tired and we
decided that I would take a three hour watch then Michelle would take a
watch of three hours, and after that we would hopefully be near our
ultimate destination, our Redwood City marina.
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| Port of San Francisco |
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It seemed like an eternity to get from Central bay down to Redwood city; by then a new day had arrived in the usual overcast moist cold air way it usually does in San Francisco. There's something about early morning sailing in SF bay that makes it seem like your sailing in a muddy puddle.
We were both tired from the trip and the small size of the channel into the marina suprised us both. It seemed as if while motoring in we could reach out and touch the boats on both sides of the channel! Luckily the channel widened near our slip, but it was still barely wider than our boat's length. I think our tired minds were playing tricks on us, and we managed to get Scirocco shoehorned into the slip without incurring insurance claims or lawsuits. Scirocco was finally home, with the voyage that seemed like it'd never end finally complete.
Although the major leak was vanquished, a smaller leak, near the transmission output shaft was still present. It was repaired a few weeks after arriving in Redwood City.
Just to get my vessel documentation done took the documentation service that had several hundred of my dollars seven months of constant nagging to finish the paperwork.