Prideful Mariner and the Wooden Sloop that Could

What is it about sailing that you don’t get? The years I devoted to Maestro had more to do with my learning how to show up and do something. The relationship between the sleek wooden sloop and my character expanded me. I became a more complete sailor. I learned that I could handle a lot […]

Total Displacement of Your Fate

I sailed into an unexpected robust 29 knot steady wind Saturday in San Francisco. By October the autumn pattern has taken hold and with it lighter winds. My wife and I sailed with another couple departing from the Sausalito Yacht Club. The gentleman owns a Hinkley 43. It displaces 25,000 lbs according to the numbers […]

Water Wonder Dog World

Lacey is a good dog. I tell her that. I say, “Lacey you are a good dog.” She’s deaf now. Can’t hear me, didn’t listen when she could unless I said, “Where’s the ball?” Then she heard me! She’s 14 years old now and sinks like a stone. She doesn’t have the energy to […]

Under the Spell of a Golden Gate Wooden sloop, Hull #18 Maestro

Indian summer ignites my passions. I don’t mind a hot summer day, don’t care for a cold winter night, but those last gasps of balm that slather my skin as the Northern hemisphere inevitably marches toward winter stir some deeper part of my yearnings. Because fitting out a wooden sloop is so time intense they […]

Sail Home, Be There, Happy

The canal in San Rafael, California terminates near downtown just east of Highway 101. A bit further eastward sits the San Rafael Yacht Harbor. I worked on my wooden sloop- Maestro, a Golden Gate hull #18 in this boatyard. I worked on the boat for a few years and then by way of a thousand […]

Going Up the Mast

I have tried a few times now to go to the top of my mast. It is 45 feet off the deck of the boat. I needed to go up and have a closer look around. It wasn’t like I made this up. It is what a prudent sailor needs to do. The locking […]

Plymouth 2 San Diego The Ship

The container ship HR Constitution has left Plymouth and I’ve got her position by way of AIS (automatic identification system via Marinetraffic) just passing south of the British Virgin Islands. Ship is making 14 knots toward Panama some 450 miles to the west. Ship will be there in 100 hours. Then the vessel will transit the […]

Beaufort Scale from Las Trampas Peak

Early this morning atop Las Trampas Peak in the EastBay hills here in San Francisco Bay Area a storm approached off the Pacific. The storm produced wind gusts to Force 10 on the Beaufort scale. Quoting from the scale, “Very high waves (20-30 ft) with overhanging crests, sea white with densely blown foam, heavy rolling, lowered […]

Sailing is Fungible

Sailing a boat is just the start of the thing. Some people see a sailboat and see a race and some people see as a way to travel. Sailing is fungible. You can race, cruise, live-aboard and never even pretend that you are ever going to use the sailing portion of what the boat you […]

Spaghetti Western meets Waterworld!

John Craig just back from Europe had much to say about setting up the Oracle Racing Teams 110 shipping container command center for the first time in Portugal and then a second go at it in Plymouth, England. Seems like a lot of equipment to support a A/C 45 that weighs something south of 2000 […]