Welcome aboard Caim, my 1969 Cal 34! I’m the skipper, Kevin, and joining me on this adventure are my crew: first mate German, trimmer James, helmsman Mark, and bowman Robby. Together, we sail the high seas of the Santa Barbara Channel every Wednesday, chasing the dream of winning one of the local yacht club’s Wet Wednesday races.
Setting Sail with the Crew
I love cruising, but with my pregnant wife at home, it’s tough to get away for a weekend. Plus, due to some risk factors, I don’t want to be hours away. So, I’ve decided to spend this year assembling a crew and getting “good” at sailing. Today started off great. We arrived at the dock, and Robby was already practicing setting the spinnaker pole. We’ve flown the spinnaker twice before, but the last time it took us 30 minutes and two tries to set it. A main goal for us is to get better at using the spinnaker. With Robby practicing and feeling confident, we decided to fly the spinnaker today and do a couple of man-overboard drills.
With that out of the way, we moved on to the important stuff: paddling around the harbor on a paddleboard. I went for a quick paddle, and James thought, “I could do that.”
After watching James take a spill on the paddleboard, it was time to set sail. As we headed out, we realized the wind was more to the north than usual and blowing a little harder than forecasted. The East Santa Barbara Channel buoy read 13-15 knots, gusting to 17.5. We hoisted the mainsail, headed out to sea, and unfurled the headsail. On our way out, we passed another boat coming in, so I snapped a picture of it.
You can see here how the ocean is churned up by the wind. In these conditions, we were more likely to lose a cushion than successfully complete a figure-eight and pick it up. The ocean was blue, the cushion was blue, and the water was choppy, so we abandoned that plan. Mark nervously asked, “We’re going to fly the spinnaker in this?” I responded, “Yup!”
Data Gathering and Hauling Ass
Sensing the crew’s discomfort, I decided we would record some performance data about the boat on various points of sail. We were close-hauled on a starboard tack, so it was a good time to take a reading. I handed James a notepad and started calling out numbers.
- Apparent windspeed: 11 knots
- Speed over ground: 5.25 knots
- Heading: 205 degrees
- Wind direction: 50 degrees starboard
James wrote it all down, and I calculated the true wind at 8.6 knots WxN.
We then set off on a data-gathering mission to understand how my new boat sails. At one point, while on a beam reach, I saw 9 knots speed over ground on the chart plotter, which is pretty impressive considering my hull speed is 6.8 knots. We couldn’t have been surfing a wave because they were on our beam, so I’m not exactly sure how we got going that fast. On that point of sail, we averaged about 8 knots, and I measured the true wind to be WNW at 11.3 knots. That was the highest reading I took, though I think we might have gone a little faster at times.
We tacked a couple of times, executing all tacks perfectly, thanks to all the practice we’ve been doing. Suddenly, while sailing on a starboard tack, we were drenched, and the cockpit filled with a few inches of water. We had been hit directly on the beam by a large wave. Though I didn’t see it, to crash over the side like that and put that much water in the cockpit, it must have been about 6 feet high. A wave coming from the wrong direction, about twice the height of the surrounding waves – could it have been a rogue wave? It wasn’t the 100-foot monsters you usually hear about, but it seemed to meet the technical definition.
We continued pounding through the waves, trimming our sails to keep the heel just right.
Instead of flying the spinnaker, we decided to sail on a beam reach and gybe back in. We started the first gybe, and I noticed the traveler line was loose. I shouted to James to pull in the slack, but he didn’t hear me or understand what I was asking. I left my station on the mainsheet, dove to the other side of the boat, and pulled in all the slack just in time. I then dove back across the boat to sheet in the main as the boom came across the cockpit as gently as if we were in 4 knots of breeze. Despite the wind and a near dismasting, we executed the gybe perfectly, and I couldn’t be more proud of my crew.
Thanks for joining us on this thrilling ride! Stay tuned for more adventures from the high seas.