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 […]

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 […]

Change Changed Newport

Busking was salvaged from the dictionary some years back and put to work again as a term describing street performing. I visited Newport, Rhode Island and while strolling the waterfront walked past this joint. Not that busking would go down very well in Newport. I make it my business to know about where buskers play […]

Lyle Hess’s Tribute to Change

What you are looking at is one of the finest ocean going yachts in the world. Handmade by a New Zealander I met in 2005. The boat is about twelve years old now and has been circumnavigated. At present it is in San Rafael. Chris and his wife Helen depart for Mexico, Hawaii and a […]

People Who Change Us

The changes in the lagoons and estuaries of Redwood Citystir the mood. The breathless still air of morning brings tranquility. The near afternoon gales that strafe through here bring tension. My 36 foot sloop was pressed against the visitors dock by the late afternoon prevailing winds. I had to use additional lines to secure her […]

Scenes from a Changed Way of Life

In San Francisco just south of the ballpark stands this artifact from the cities past. Here is where railway cars were loaded for transit across the bay. The Bay View Boat Club sits on the bank adjacent to this pier. Along the waterfront are a wide range of now obsolete wharfs, piers, and docks. I […]

AC 45’s Game Changerizer’s

I’d anchored out near the bullpin where these incredibly powerful racing machines are stabled. I woke up in the morning and after lifting anchor before the legendary Bay View Boat Club witnessed this thoroughbred trotting out onto the track. If you haven’t been on San Francisco Bay the organizing reality to grasp is that the […]