We depart the harbor armed with radar, ship identifying AIS and computerized nautical charts that follow the boat’s position. There are a lot of aids available. But 8 of us sat for dinner on Round Midnight after a slow but beautiful sail up the coast 30 miles to Drakes Bay. Carlos talked about how brave those people were, sailing their little ships without engines, charts, lights and so many things we take for granted. I couldn’t believe I’ve sailed around here for 45 years and hadn’t anchored at Drakes before. Go, if you can. But beware of the weather.
Ravenswing shadowed the 30+ boat race fleet (I was too busy to enter and we’re not in the season series anyway) and our performance was fine. She’s not going to light the race course on fire, but we held our own in the 3-5kt wind. At least we didn’t let Round Midnight horizon-job us :). Big thanks to Rick for getting us out there and offering such a nice dinner on his boat. We rafted the Explorer 44, Farrier 36 and Truls’ F27 for 9 hulls. Whales were feeding and a couple of them came very close Saturday, about 80 feet off the boat. Looked like juvenile humpbacks to me. Also with this morning’s flat water the schools of anchovies were amazing to watch as they shimmered the surface. A few miles later at Duxbury Reef there were at least 100 fishing boats out for salmon. Sailing race course and salmon trolling in the same patch of ocean led to some nasty radio chatter. (Ex., “Sailboat, turn NOW!”).
Dan and Chris enjoyed their first Ravenswing overnights and each will be on the boat for trips this fall. We finally got decent wind today in the Bonita Channel and on home to Richmond. 
It was heavy overcast on the ocean and bright sun over the bay. Summer in SF!
Jeanne finished the rehab on the consignment shop $35 find Forespar man overboard pole. Now we’re proper. 
Before Drakes run, I tackled the anchor bridle prep. My new eye splice wasn’t perfect but we’ll test that it properly sets/holds. 
We’re also finally moving in to the galley, working to keep it light. The fridge is under here
It got its freezer / cooler separation wall. Freezer side on the left, up against the cold plate. 
That 1/2″‘foam and 1/4″ ply laminate is overkill, but it was fast and free, being a recycled tabletop from the old travel trailer we sold. Still need some air flow tweaking, but our fridge stuff was nice and the freezer was doing its job this weekend. And speaking of keeping it light, these plastic cups from Target make nice stuff racks. 
Plenty more to do this week. Thx again, Rick, Chris and Dan for a great weekend!
From the dinghy we asked locals for a dinner spot. Turns out she’s the membership director of HMB yacht club. 
I’m riding in from the dinghy dock on a cable barge. Great getting drinks with these folks. After returning to Richmond, we then set off to China Camp (inside SF Bay) to find Drew’s family, the F27 Papillon crew. Weather was amazing and much fun was had with the dinghys (we have matching Takacats).
Anton drove over to join Ravenswing and Charlie sailed F24 Stingray over. 
Ravenswing’s first dinner party was a hit. 
Yes, the Bimini top was great to have at anchor. So of course there was a sewing flurry before Jim came to visit. 
the blue one was part of the used unit we picked up for $120. Just kept cutting and reseweing it until it was a usable pattern for our shape. 
Next we built a new jib bag, as the crew will tell you the first one sucked (too tight). 
But not to waste anything, the first jib bag was easily modified to become the new stay-on-deck roller Reacher bag. Thx to Round Midnight for that idea!
We’ve also been quite focused on safety gear. The 
jack lines got fitted. They install easily and get put away when not needed.
It sailed great in the snot to Half Moon Bay.
Fridge unit is working fine again and right now we’re creating the divider to separate freezer from cooler/refer side.
Very interesting to look at the retrofit foiling gear on this ocean-crossing racer.
Reefed main, no jib, Autopilot and a light breeze made for the perfect mellow day for granddad/grandkid. The siblings enjoyed catching up too. Some day, Westley, I’m sure you’ll be shaking out the reefs and calling for the big Ravenswing spinnaker!
We’ll sail it this way to see if the boom clearance will work.
It was supposed to be sexy exposed carbon weave, but the square tube shape was tricky to mold and there were various little wrinkles and gaps, so they needed fairing then paint like everything else. This all got started last June visiting Skateaway when Keith impressed on me the problems with leaving heavily loaded halyards in the teeth of rope clutches during ocean passages. So now the sails will be raised and trimmed with the help of the clutches, but once underway the lines get cleated on these new pins then the clutches eased off.
This monitor is fed by the little red wires (yes Anton I fused each one) strapped along the battery-holder braces.
We bought this fancy chartplotter system and I’m old enough to freak out that it didn’t come with a manual. The online version didn’t make it clear that the charts seem to require the microSD card to stay in the unit in order to be used. So again, to those of you who sailed with this thing, I figured out today we DID have the detailed charts in there. Just needed to switch the viewing source. 
I think we’ll step up to the Navionics charts that we’ve come to really like on the iPad/phone.
Here’s the view from their front patio. 
We visited all the primary guest marinas, and I’m leaning towards the vibe at LaCruz / Punta Mita. There’s also a very good free anchorage with easy town access. Ravenswing got ‘cleared’ to enter the MexOrc races next March. Hopefully in a different class from the MOD70 tris!
We even made time to visit the embroidery shop, and they did a great job translating the boat’s graphics to crew-wear. 
This was only the second time we’ve had the Reacher up (big blue sail), and big thanks to ChrisH for slacking the halyard way off to curl the luff once we turned downwind. This thing makes a great chicken-chute that way! Here you go, framed up with The Rock (Alcatraz prison)
I didn’t drive that day, instead I roamed around the boat looking at new-to-me vantages. The best was the aft cabin – Rick is right, that’s going to be a nice spot on passages. 
The installation instructions did not warn about Bluetooth being dependent on line of sight. I put the unit in the middle of the masthead for strength, etc, but the crane on the aft portion, including a big steel sheave pin, is blocking our signal down in the cockpit area. Argh. So the SailTimer folks just sent us an offset arm so we’ll move the unit in to clear air about a foot aft of the main sail track. More on this topic later.
I made a slurry of epoxy thickened with bonding fibers, and syringed it in there. 
Keith, I kept the black plastic spacers because of how the metal shape fits the mast. Plus I think they help with shock absorption. But I did go another 1/2″ deeper than we talked about. We’ve sailed it once in light winds, and it worked fine. Time will tell. 
We also added this 3′ long leader to the reacher control sheets – this helps pull the sail around the forestay during tacks or jibes. I’ve known about this for spinnakers, but just realized we needed it for this sail too. 
And one more shot trying wide-angle to get more sense of the two sails working together…
This one is for John Franta at Colligo, and Keith at Skateaway Design, for showing how well our bowsprit hardware came together and makes this sail easy to manage. 
Now it will get a proper fitted sheave box:
the center one with the big cutout gets a ‘floating’ Lewmar opening port reinstalled next time I go down to the marina.
eyeball it. Here goes!
This is why Mark Twain said the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer in San Francisco. When that central valley convection machine revs up and the fog backfills, we head out in to COLD breeze. Charlie and I saddled up in warm jackets for a mid July afternoon.
Grey whales were in town; every day numerous boats headed for the Golden Gate Bridge area. We had 20+ sightings, some very near the boat over by Baker Beach, and some with big fluke flapping activity. Very humbling to be around the biggest of beasts.
With two great sailing days done, it was back to work on various upgrades. Thanks again to Darren for calling out the bogus sheave choice (it was a salvaged halyard exit box) that was galling aluminum on steel as the mainsail clew pulled the outhaul side to side. This led to a re-think on the boom-end sheaves and line-guiding. Much cleaner now…
At launch time last year, Dean rigged up some long skinny lines to turn the outboard when needed, and everyone who’s sailed the boat has hassled with them. I decided synchronous motor-with-rudder steering isn’t necessary, so we’ve skipped the complex solutions (ahem, Carlos & RickWS :). Kudos to Charlie for this very simple idea – turning blocks mounted inside the motor carrier box, and jam cleats up at deck level. Works perfectly as intended!
Another (potentially dangerous) annoyance has been the lead-angle of the mainsheets into their winches. The lines come in a bit high, and if we’re not careful it has caused override jams. A bit of staring and thinking realized the approach is all wrong, and let’s change the angles both vertically and horizontally. These cheek blocks are now installed, and will be test-sailed tomorrow:
So with the summer chill in the bay, we said a big YES to Jim’s crew call for the 2017 Southern Cascades Regatta at Howard Prairie Lake above Ashland, OR. Headed up I-5 past Redding, thanking the inventors of automobile air conditioning… (ignore the speedo please)
Look what we find on the road in Talent, OR – our never-fell-out-of-love Origami!!!
When Jim took her back home to OR from Sausalito three years ago, new sails and a number of cosmetic must-dos were diligently tackled. This F27 is doing great, 26 years after launch, in full fighting form.
The race committee put us in the Open Centerboard class, ironically making a well-sailed Lido 14 our primary competition for the weekend. We traded bullets through six races, and the final tally was a single point apart. Before we get to that, remember that mountain lake sailing often means waiting for the wind to fill. Trust me, there was only one boat in the regatta with portable cabin-top speakers blasting Crazy Train and Highway to Hell, trying to get the wind to blow. When that didn’t work, we buzzed the race comm, Ultimate 20 and Laser fleets with Kenny Rodgers karaoke. Apparently The Gambler was the ticket. 
After enough screwing around, we focused in on clean racing and managed to bring home a nice first place trophy for the skipper. It’d been a long road of “first to finish, but you lost” handicapping, so this regatta win was sweet. Thanks Eric and Jason for good times!
PS – I can hear you from here, singing “son, if you don’t mind me sayin’, I can see you’re out of aces. For a taste of your whiskey, I’ll give you some advice…”
the boat-builder made two more trips to South Africa for business (but did squeeze in an animal park visit one weekend :)
and headed back into the Sierra for board-member duties with our Trails Stewardship group in running the Lost & Found Gravel Grinder bike race, including perilous remote countryside stops for the sweep van driver.
That photo is the next day, back at home for touch up, interrupting work on the Nash (aka tinyhouse). A few days later, it was back to the boat, this time carried carefully.
Farrier F36/F39 Ravenswing - Trimaran Sailing 