Trip Statistics

Date: 8/3 - 8/4/2002

Cruising area: San Francisco Bay

Chart: 18652

Distance: ???

Time: 16 hours (Spread over two days)

Sailing Lessons on SF Bay

We took our sailing lessons from the Olympic Circle Sailing Club on San Francisco Bay.  Normally, they provide lessons on their own fleet of vessels (J/24's).  As we wanted to learn to sail offline, we elected to bring our own boat and launch at the Berkeley Marina, adjacent to the club. 

Our instructor, Graham, had actually been aboard a MacGregor before, but it had been years.  At least he had a basic familiarity with the boat.  I had to reacquaint him with some of the features, and in exchange, he taught Brenda and I how to sail.

Once again, I thought I had pictures, but as I recall their wouldn't have been too many.  We were spending most of our time learning, and were a bit busy to play photographer.  If I find any pertinent photos, I'll post them here.

We turned in on Friday night around midnight.  When we woke early Saturday morning, we discovered we were in the middle of a major bass fishing tournament.  This was to create some hard feelings later, but we were excited to be getting on the water for our lessons.

Stepping the mast took a bit longer than it should have, but it was only the second time I'd done it by myself, and I'm much faster now.

Launching at the Berkeley Marina is very easy.  The ramp has long floating fingers that allow you to "Walk" the boat on and off the trailer.  That plus the cost ($5 per launch/recovery), makes this an attractive base of operations for any trailer sailors heading to San Francisco Bay.  There is plenty of parking for your tow vehicle and trailer.  Berkeley Marina deserves a look.

That first day, the wind was running 15-20 kts and we spent most of the day heeled over to 20-25º, even with the main reefed, with the seas running 3-4 feet.  Fortunately, the wave period was long, so the ride was not overly uncomfortable.  Even so, Brenda was a nervous wreck.  She worries anyway, and in the unfamiliar environment of being under sail, she was a white-knuckle sailor.  Even so, she learned a bit, and I got confirmation of what I'd picked up from friends.

The winds were much lighter, only 10-15 kts, and the seas were almost flat.  We recapped the previous day's lessons, and learned how to recover a man overboard while under sail using the "Figure-eight" method.  We practiced the maneuver a couple of times, and threw our "BOB" over board.  

BOB stands for "Bottle Over Board".  Our BOB was a pair of gallon orange juice bottles, half-filled with water, and tied together with heavy polypropylene line.  It took us a while to get back to BOB the first time (I'm glad he's patient), but we got better.  As before, we traded off, and Brenda got a chance to work both the helm and the sails.

The last BOB recovery was a "Surprise".  We were sailing along and Graham threw BOB overboard without any warning at all.  I'm proud to announce that we were able to recover BOB on the first try, and "He" was only in the water for about 3 minutes.  It made me feel good that I know knew how to get an errant crewmember back aboard, even under sail.

I thoroughly enjoyed our lessons at OCSC, expensive though they were.  I learned a lot (or at least confirmed a lot of what I knew), and Brenda became much more comfortable with being onboard and under sail.  All we need now is a bit of on-the-water practice.