Happy Birthday Tori

Sunday we celebrated Nathan's and Tori's birthday - and Elise's late Christmas I guess :)

First, Serge gave Elise some pillows and a flood light for cruising. Elise also got a small solar panel at the boat show to keep her batteries topped off. We'd be looking for this for a while, the big solar panel draws a lot more amps, but is only used for long distance racing. We were missing some parts to hook it up but it's promising!

On Sunday morning, Nathan and Nat came down to the boat to do some work. We understood what was causing a small leak for the forward hatch, removed the broken part and we will take it to a shop to see if we can get a replacement. We also replaced the fuse holder that was broken for the instruments with plenty of electrical grease and replaced a connector that popped out for the main autopilot.

We were very puzzled in that we lost a switch. Not kidding...we couldn't find the switch for the 2nd autopilot. Where it used to be is now a simple connection...which seems to indicate that the switch went somewhere else...but we couldn't find it! It is connected to the battery, but there doesn't seem to be power going to the spare autopilot so there has got to be a switch somewhere along the circuit...and it was obviously off :) Mystery of mystery!!

Remember...a boat needs constant maintenance. Elise more than other boats as she sails often and will suffer more wear and tear on parts and sails than other boats. This is why Elise's crew is contributing to her care, in return for enjoying her more often!

We also picked up a replacement Man Overboard Pole for the long distance ocean races and a new chart book...only to find the old chart book in a place it's not normally stowed in. Never mind...Elise will have a replacement ready to go...

Then, we were ready to go sailing!

Elise was taking Tori out for a birthday sail and Nat took Tori out for a birthday brunch beforehand.

Preparation before the event - Tori is setting out the table cloth. Just kidding, we are flaking the genoa as we weren't going to be using it on that day, given that it was blowing 25 to 30 on the city front and 15 close to Point Bonita.

We took Elise's #4, which is really a tiny number 4. It actually qualifies as a storm jib per its dimensions and as you can see it is a tiny little piece of cloth...We didn't reef the main so the boat wasn't perfectly balanced upwind. We just wanted to fly that sail as we know that we will be doing offshore races and we like to identify work that needs to be done on sails we don't often use on the Bay early on :) It just needs a little bit of re-rigging on the tack, but other than that, was fine.

We first went upwind, under the Golden Gate, right past the South Tower, helped by the strong ebb - we sailed by Mile Rock, then tacked over to stay close to Seal Rock on the South Bar. This was by design, we wanted to catch some of the good waves over there so that we could surf home. We saw a gust at 30 knots near the bridge, but other than that, 27-28 - it mellowed out after we passed the bridge to about 15 true.

We then bore away and set the kite with the national colors - Elise uses her old sails on cruises since we don't care as much about sail shape as we do during races and since sails do not like UVs...So we keep our nice sails for when we need them, unless we are practicing sail trim or something like that. So we flew her old mainsail (it did Pac Cup) and the most beaten up kite that she has! It's a reacher, and a light cloth. It does the job though!

We caught a couple of waves to surf on, so pretty cool. The wind was a bit weak before the gate and the waves weren't as big near the gate when the wind picked up, so it wasn't the perfect offshore experience but I think that Elise put on a pretty good show

Tori being a Californian and Nat driving to the kite down a wave. We flew by under the gate as the wind picked up. Really nice bow waves, it was awesome. Clean spinnaker work. Nathan did the set, Nat gybed the kite forward and took it down on a reach. Everything went smoothly. Nice practice for double-handed work, we didn't lose much throughout the winter which is always good...since we didn't get to set the kyte at the double-handed farallones race.

We were flying the kite a little low and kept the bow a little too deep in the water - but fast overall

Elise heading back to her berth after a great afternoon on the Bay. We sailed by Angel Island and west of Alcatraz.

Serge's artistic effect to give us a vintage photo...

Tori asked for a birthday sail. she is a sailor herself - she got

• a lunch at the yacht club
• a day entirely under sail, eg. with no engine (it's actually pretty usual on Elise - unless there is absolutely no wind, we never take the engine out, it's a real pain to do so! so usually, between March and October, we only sail in and out of the harbor)
• a very wet upwind ride to past Point Bonita and under the Golden Gate
• a nice representative afternoon of a summer day on the Bay (it blows between 20 and 35 every afternoon near the Golden Gate bridge in summer)
• Some cool mini-surfing
• Some cool downwind acceleration
• Some cool Bay pictures
• typical sailors' talk. Eg past sailing stories. For some reasons, sailors seem to have an unending supply of those...and forget everything land-related when they are in the presence of a comrade

Photos courtesy of Nathan and Serge