Nathan's Sailing Blog/Notes

A friend, Bridgitt Ahern, has just been concluding some coastal navigation classes at Club Nautique. As a final exam, they run a cruise up to Drake's Bay or down to Half Moon Bay with an instructor boat and a few student boats following. Bridgitt recruited some sailing friends as her crew for the exercise. Unfortunately, we wound up unable to use the trip as her exam but did the cruise and exercises anyway. It was a really fun group with diverse backgrounds: Bridgitt, a veteran cruiser, someone just back from the Clipper round the world race (Sarah Lloyd), and me.

The conditions were light enough that we steamed or motor-sailed significant portions of each leg. Still, we got in some good sailing in conditions which topped out at around 10 kts of breeze except inside Pt. Bonita. We had tight reach conditions for most of the trips there and back with occasional beating. Our particular group was of three boats total though there was another group doing the same thing from a different branch of Club Nautique. With more than one boat on the trip, of course we were racing: in spite of having less waterline than the instructor boat and significantly inferior sails versus the other student boat, we managed to be faster on all points of sail. Trim matters!

The conditions in Half Moon Bay for our overnight were beautiful: calm and warm. It took us two tries to set the hook properly; our first attempt was under sail and we didn't have enough force to dig it in. After that, we had a great dinner and good night of sleep. The trip back was equally enjoyable and the breeze picked up as we got closer to the gate. Back on the bay, as usual there was more than enough.

Full size picures