One thing on my bucket
list is do some long -term cruising. I have charted boats it BVI,
Belize, and Croatia and crewed on boats in Australia and Tonga. I
want to live the dream I have been reading about in Latitude 38 for
the past 37 years. So a few weeks ago I bought a Catalina 42 that
was berthed in San Diego.
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| Catalina 42 - new name "Hammer Time" |
I reserved a slip at Marina Bay in
Richmond at the same docks that Tradewinds Sailing School and Club
has their boats. I am a member of the club and really like the
location and the people who own and manage Tradewinds.
I posted on the Crew List
with Latitude 38 and on the Tradewinds website and found two nice
guys (both named Mike) to join me for the trip from San Diego to San
Francisco. I rented a car and we drove to San Diego on March 7th,
and started north on the morning of the 8th.
It was about 70 degrees off the Southern California coast and the
wind was almost on the bow. We were able to sail for a short time,
then furled in the jib and cranked on the iron genoa and left the
main up.
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| Leaving San Diego |
The first night I took the mid watch from 12 to 4 and
enjoyed the beauty and serenity of cruising at night with almost a
full moon. We pulled in to Santa Barbara the next day about 3 p.m.,
refueled, and headed out again. The forecast at Point Conception was
for 3 foot swells and wind waves of less than 2 feet. We had a 15
to 18 knot wind out of the north west when we left Santa
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| Santa Barbara |
Barbara and
we sailed south west for about an hour to get away from the coast so
we could clear Point Conception. It was a beautiful afternoon, followed by a gorgeous sunset.
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The seas starting growing as we
approached the point. I took the 8 to 12 watch and by midnight we
were about 8 miles south of the Point and it was blowing 20 knots on
the nose, with 8 to 10 foot swells and wind waves breaking over the
dodger. I stayed up and hunkered down under the dodger, while my
crew took the helm. About 2 a.m. there was loud bang and the dinghy
davit on the port side broke. At almost the same time, I heard
another bang on the bow. The anchor chain jumped out of the windlass
and the anchor fell about a foot, leaving it free to bang against the
hull. It was too rough for me to go on the bow to retrieve it and I
did not want to try to turn downwind, so we motored on with the
banging until we got out of the Point Conception confluence and the
seas settled so I could go on the bow and pull in the anchor. The
bow looks like hell, but the damage is not as bad as it looks. Both
the broken davit and the damaged bow are my own fault. When we
arrived in San Diego, I went through the usual pre-sail checklist,
but did not inspect the anchor. I just had the boat surveyed and
knew the windlass worked. I have sailed for many years and know not
to leave a harbor without a stopper on the anchor chain. Also, when
we went aboard in San Diego the dinghy was already hoisted in the
davits with the outboard attached. I know better than to go to sea
with the outboard on the dinghy, but I was too lazy and in too much
of a hurry to lower the dink and put the outboard on the rail.
We pulled into Moro Bay to
refuel, lower the dinghy, secure the outboard to the stern rail and
put the dink on the foredeck. We left Moro Bay at 3:30 p.m. and had
almost ideal conditions the rest of the way to San Francisco, with
southerly winds and small following seas.
We saw several whales, otters, dolphin, and schools of porpoise. The water that night was
luminescent for hundreds of yards behind the boat. It was what
cruising is all about.
I was feeling a little
emotional as we sailed under the Golden Gate at 3:30 p.m. at max
flood the following day. I am sure many sailors have experienced
this feeling of elation.
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| "Hammer Time" arriving at her new home |
Now it is my turn. I have renamed the boat
“Hammer Time.” The name has two meanings: My last name is
Hammer, and it is time for this phase of my life.
I may sail in the Baja
ha-ha to Cabo this year, but my plans for the next few months are to sail the
Bay and local waters until I can sail the boat with my eyes closed,
then go out the Gate and turn south for about a thousand miles, enjoy
Mexico for a few months, then sail west to the South Pacific.
*All photos by Michael Mayernick, crew.
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