Around the Rocks - heading back to the Club

Heading back to the Club, it was blowing 30. I had a reefing line in the boom but I would have to do acrobatics to attach it to the main sail so I decided to try to do this with main and jib, depowered to the max.

It was a good time to try the NKE autopilot in heavy weather as overpowering the boat would be the same as more wind with a smaller sail area. It never stopped moving around, fun to watch. Wasn't sure if I would have enough power despite 52W worth of solar panel because a) angle to the sun had decreased as it was late in the day, and fog was coming in) so I drove most of the way. 

I added my jacket back on, tacked out of the way of three ships (rush hour or what!!) and headed straight for the channel to get max ebb going for me.

Steady 27 knots and gusting 30, even more choppy, particularly around point blunt which is shallower waters. No problem at all but everything that was outside the boat got completely wet and the main got sprayed well above its lower 1/3. The boom was dripping.

At some point I became very overpowered with the jib up and the chop was such that I couldn't pinch in order to depower as I would nearly stall the boat. So I decided to drop the jib and to a very tight reach under main only as I was helped by the ebb.

The trouble with the main and a limited play with the autopilot ram to one side is that one tack was OK but the other was an issue (the jib helps tack the bow very effectively but without it you need to a) have more speed on the other tack and then b) be more assertive with the tiller to get the bow across the wind. And that tiller couldn't be as loud as it ought to be as its play it limited to one side by the AP ram when connected. So I had a couple of interesting tacks where I had to travel all the way up to get the main to catch the wind early and tack the boat, then traveler down and sheet out really quickly to avoid pinning the boat down.

I also tried the bungee (just to compare with the autopilot upwind) and it only worked in the heavier winds because the power in the sails is so big that it can easily get into a nice balance mode. Less than 8 knots of wind was really tough as wind too light. Even in the 30 knots, upwind, the bungee worked great!! Just set it up to foot and the sails will bring the boat back up. Definitely not the same nice line an AP would offer, but at least, the boat didn't turn hard to one side :) - I had the bungee drive while I went down below to get some food. It even managed to drive under main only.

What a wild ride! So much fun though!

Short tacking up the channel. Wind there was about 11 knots. Completely drenched! Another nice foggy day on San Francisco when it was sunny for most of the race course!

Back at the club, I am told that we actually had to hoist the boat so even though I am now absolutely drenched I have to clean up :) Serge was at the dock (and took these pictures) so I got a ton of help and got him dinner as a thank you gesture.

Long day!!! Very tired when I got back to the dock.

And it doesn't stop there. On the Sunday, we had to rinse everything off.

Rinsing 'Mike' the spinnaker that I used during the race.