Shake out

Chatting with Zeus

San Francisco Skyline

The hero of the day. No surrender in sight.

The color-coordinated crew. Remember, Elise is a stylish boat.

Yesterday, Dayne, Stephanie, Nathan and I went out on Elise. It was just the perfect day. Low clouds, a twilight kind of haze throughout the day.

...and WIND.

We put up one of the sails that we hadn't tried before which turned out to be a #2 and France proudly represented the frogs. Still a little issue with the outhaul and we need to replace the turning block which Svensen's apparently removed before next Saturday.

Elise sailed extremely well. Light as usual, she was on a roll upwind and just took off downwind. We covered a lot of ground in just 3 hours of sailing. All the way down to the Bay Bridge, up toward the tip of Angel Island, up Racoon Straits, then onto the city front, a little bit of Fort Mason and back home. Dayne and Stephanie are both considering becoming Beethovens and I was so afraid that there would be absolutely no wind and that we'd have to say "OK, so here, imagine a spinnaker, a triangular kind of sail with a nice curve. And when she helms a little bit it would feel like that, and this is the backstay that you can use to depower the main on any other day but today really, etc..."

It was Dayne and Stephanie's first time on Elise. I am going to quote them...

Dayne: "it really feels like sailing, not like some of these bigger boats when you have to wait for 5 minutes before you think you can notice the effect of the change you've just made"

Stephanie: "I love this boat. The helm is so nice, she's gentle, responds so well and yet feels very stable."

I am NOT biased. Elise is a great small boat with offshore capabilities. She's stable like a keelboat and drives like a dinghy :)