Schooner Martha Adventures: The Great San Francisco Schooner Cup

Tuesday, Sept 2^nd – lazy morning around the boat. We took the bus into Sausalito to visit the Bay Model by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers. We ate lunch at a place called “Fish” and then went to the Bay Model. The Bay Model is a small scale model (sort-of, it does take up an entire building) of the entire bay area. It was originally designed to let engineers see how water moved throughout the bay and see how dredging here or there effected the flow/movement of water. There are many dynamics that go into play. After that we headed back to the boat, stopping at the grocery store along the way. We also found the library today!! They have great books for sale, free wifi and guest cards so that we can rent books/movies while we are here!

Wednesday, Sept 3^rd – after a morning of cleaning the boat inside and out, we moved further into the harbor for the evening/night of the presentation. Mary, Holly, Anne, and I spent the afternoon in the library working on different things. After an early dinner, we opened the boat for tours before the presentation. Robert gave an excellent talk about Martha’s history, restoration, present and future work.

When Martha came under the care of Robert and others, she was in need of a lot of work. Just to give you an idea of some of the work needed, her bottom needed to be replaced and re-planked, the entire sternpost was rotted out and her keel needed to be re-built. All of this work ended up taking 15 years to complete, but Martha was, and still is, worth it. With all the work that was done, Martha was able to push harder and expand the work that she was doing, including this offshore year.

Thursday, Sept 4^th – The crew went out for sail around the bay to practice setting and striking sail in preparation for Saturdays race. We had the intent of setting our light air sails, and we did! However, we blew up on of our spinnakers. Oops! Don’t worry it is fixable. The wind was a little bit stronger than we were hoping for. We set our other spinnaker for a minute or two but decided it was best to probably strike it and set the job instead. With only the reefed main and the jib, we were easily doing 8 knots. Talk about wind ripping through the bay. After the exciting day sail, I spent the afternoon hauling little Mary up the masts to wax the tracks and putting whippings on our new three-strand line we got today!

Friday, Sept 5^th – With the race course in hand and our crew plus day sailers on board, we set out to sail the course and see what it was like! We had a blast playing around in the bay. What a blast, again! I just can’t seem to get over how much sailing in the bay is! We set one of spinnakers only to have it blow up(shred right down a seam), but we rallied and pulled it down quick! We set our second one (which we call the chicken chute) for a couple minutes but decided the wind was just a tad to strong! We already have a sewing machine lined up to fix the spin and get back out there!

Saturday, Sept 6^th – RACE DAY! With the whole race crew on board, we had an excellent breakfast and then motored out to set sail and practice around the start line until it was our turn. The great San Francisco Schooner Cup uses a staggered start with slow boats first and two divisions, Gaff and Marconi. The winds were between 15-20 knots the whole afternoon, with a strong ebb flowing out of the bay. Fabulous sailing all day and a strong showing of the Bay schooners. Martha started 35 minutes after the first boat. There were 10 schooners overall and an honorary schooner/ketch chasing everyone.
We started catching other boats by the windward mark and were able to reel in the fleet by the bottom of the course and were able to pass Elizabeth Muir while we all started climbing back to weather (between Alcatraz and the city water front.) Local knowledge prevailed on the beautiful schooner Elizabeth Muir and they nipped us by 3 seconds with an exciting gybing duel at the finish. My competitive side definitely started to come out during the last couple minutes as we made our way to the finish. After the race we dropped sail and headed into the harbor for the barbeque party after the race. With a short and sweet awards ceremony we sat down with burgers and chicken and chowed! We were hungry.

PHOTOS:

http://campsherman.smugmug.com/Schooner-Race/n-LpXvv/

Password is: Martha (case sensitive)

Sunday, Sept 7^th – After a week of being in a fish bowl, we were ready for some relaxation somewhere else. We headed to Angel Island to find a spot to spend the night which involved poking around 2 coves, checking not only tides, but currents and then finding a spot deep enough to hang for the night without grounding ourselves at low tide. We eventually decided on Ayala Cove and anchored the bow out and then stern tied to the outer mooring. After the very eventful afternoon of finding our spot, we watched a swimmer get himself stuck in the strong currents of the point and slowly start to fade behind the corner and we caught a glimpse of a frantic hand waving. Holly and I went out in kayaks to try and help, turns out he was picked up by a boater going by and they dropped him in near shore. We then hiked up to the summit of Mt. Livermore for a 360 view of bay! SO COOL. At some point during the night we were all jolted awake by a loud sound of some sort and ran up on deck to see if we had pulled the anchor our and were sitting on the rocks, but we were all good. Something hitting us (no scratches, dents, etc. though) and we all tried to fall back asleep without worrying to much about all the little noises the boat was making as the current swooshed past.