Above the Salish Sea II 2016

[David Patterson]

More festival. First, ADVENTURESS catches the morning light. Second, cockpits in line. Third, the cockpit of LA VIE EN ROSE, a Paul Gartside 45' yawl. Stunningly built and kept.

[David Patterson]

To add to my onslaught of posts, here are a few photos of the festival-ending "sail-by," in which my participation was as crew aboard a home-built 29' fiberglass-over-wood cutter. To my absolute delight, two of the schooners were flying gollywobblers, those trapezoidal sails rigged between the two masts. What I hadn't known is that gollywobblers must be dropped and re-raised on each tack. Obviously, they are beam-reach sails, oddly like small spinnakers for winds on the beam. Each of the schooners in the first two photos are flying one. In the third photo, look up the mainmast. You can see a crew member up there, having climbed the ratlines to do something essential before the schooner could douse the main. The sail-by was a spectacular gathering of sail in perfect conditions.

[David Patterson]

A final posting on the 40th Annual Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival, unless an unlikely question is posted. One last photo of a gollywobbler is shown, seen from the bow. I think those two crew are on the ratlines just out of sheer exuberance. One sailor told me another term for a gollywobbler is "the captain's handkerchief." An array of sail is next, showing a portion of the wooden boats under sail. The larger schooner (#8) is 160' LOA, ZODIAC of San Francisco, a former pilot boat for that port. She had accommodations for 10 pilots, and would spend her watch off the port, putting pilots aboard incoming ships, dealing with whatever the Pacific dished out to her. Last is big schooner under full sail. No captain's handkerchief up though. She looks impressive under all of that beautiful sail, evocative, and really lovely. For anyone interested in unusual sails, there is also an odd schooner sail called a gollyker (spelling?). Or something like that, large and surely unwieldy. Worth googling.

[Skeep]

Gorgeous as usual!

[David Patterson]

Thanks, Skeep. And good luck with the A30 project. Would that I had been sailing all my life as you have. I'd likely be a better version of myself if so.
***With the six hour tides here, tidal-current planning for a longer passage takes more thought. For a 32 mile, 9 hour passage, from Port Townsend back into the San Juans, I chose to leave at first light, even though it meant both leaving Admiralty Inlet (no problem) at the height of the ebb, and transiting Cattle Pass at the height of the flood (definite problems). Ad Inlet requires not being pulled into the rips by Point Wilson, and slipping across the traffic lanes between commercial vessels. The first photo is a screen shot of the Marine Traffic app. The open vessel description shows one moving at 13 knots. Some approach 20. CATHERINE QUIGG turned out to be a bobtail tug (no tow) but could have easily been a giant cruise ship out of an urban port, for example. My course was just west of the ferry track shown. The second photo shows me just out of the traffic lane. Think simple vectors. My modest vessel speed of about 3.5 knots motor-sailing is straight ahead. The current speed (of something meaningful) is abeam to port. The resultant vector you see, at 6.5 knots. Notice the difference between my course and my heading. My hull speed is nominally only 5.4 kts. Fast currents. A fast ebb flow west out of Ad Inlet, a brief slack, then a building flood flowing north helped me turn the corner at Smith Island, as is customary. Winds were negligible in the strait, just before a front. I hit Cattle Pass at the height of the strong flood. The third photo shows my ordinary-looking track, which obscures if not falsifies the actuality. Picture the entire right half of the passage in whitecaps from tide rips. Off the photo's lower edge are the tide rip warnings below Whale Rocks. As I transited, my SOG reached as high as 7.4 knots, but I promise you I was not attending to the knot meter. To keep from being drawn onto Whale Rocks in the NE currents, and later onto Deadman Island, I was motoring fast directly west, at 90* to my track! Little CLOUDIE made the transit while mostly beam onto the current, which may have actually helped the current push against the keel to shoot me through. She must have looked odd from shore. A very lively transit. One more high-current moment occurred still later, up between Turn Island and the marked reef there. Again, over 7 knots, as the boat popped out like a wet grapefruit seed when pressed between thumb and finger. A fast passage. Had I left Port Townsend the day before, after a front instead of before one, I'd have had a Force 3 to 4 headwind to deal with. My choice worked out, though I was just a motor-boat-with-a-stick for the whole day. Only once in several sailing passages on that route have I made the slack in Cattle Pass exactly on time. Difficult to do under sail alone. For me, anyway. While I expected basically what I got, this time through, I definitely prefer a slack-tide passage.
***9/16/16: In response to a question, would I ever transit Cattle Pass at high flood current speed again? Absolutely not! Go thru under sail alone near slack? Sure. But while I'm hoping to have a little fun before I die, I'm not eager to die just to have some fun. Good to have experienced; good to never try again. One hiccup with the engine and I would have been wrecked.

[sailor]

Sorry I wasn't able finally run into you this season. I made the trip up from Portland Oregon,leaving may 31 and got almost to la push Washington on about june 4 but was forced back with 20 miles to go when hit by gale force winds and 8 foot seas. Ended up sitting it out in Westport for 5 days before continuing to Victoria on june 10. Wife was supposed to meet me in Anacortes the next week but had back problem so I ended up taking train back to Oregon to tend to her. That started a round of trips back and for eventually ending by my putting my boat in a permanent slip down in Olympia. Wife was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer july 12. So now doing some maintenance on boat as time allows and hoping cancer can be controlled for at least awhile. Boat handled beautifully offshore. Better than I had even hoped. I have it listed for sale currently with Emerald Yacht Sales in Gig Harbor but not that eager to part with her. Will have to wait to see what the future brings.

[David Patterson]

Kudos on the coastal passage. It's a lee shore for the North Pacific, after all. I wonder when/if I'll get out there. Not in my current boat, for sure. Good luck with the health complexities. And I'm certain I would have enjoyed sharing an anchorage at some point. Persevere. David

[David Patterson]

Back in "the Juans" (as one Port Townsend sailor called the San Juan Islands), I ended my cruise in Friday Harbor for provisions, before ducking into a different anchorage, one more protected from the moderate southerly wind-event to come. The conventional tourist season now past, more unique boats were in harbor. A fine schooner from Port Townsend's festival was passing through, making the harbor look old-timey. My binoculars showed those bags in the rigging, above the square yards, to likely be the square-sails themselves. Up and down channels and inlets, square sails make sense in the Salish Sea, for the winds are channeled too. Sailing vessels do a lot of running here. Notice the paddle board astern. The burly captain was out in only half-trousers, tentatively learning how to use it, stiffly. I imagined him to be determined not to become too much of an anachronism. ALLEGRA is a wooden palace, in the second photo, proclaiming power and comfort. She is stilled dressed for the recent PT festival. Where couldn't you go in ease and style aboard her, aside from constricted waters? Last is a fine old wooden boat, MARDO, nicely designed and built for even some tough coastal waters. Probably sea-kindly and capable, her owner and I exchanged pleasantries while I ghosted by to leave the harbor. We liked each other's boats, saying so overtly across the waters. A Canadian craft, I think, she also evoked a former era for me.

[David Patterson]

With my planned cruising done for the year --though I may return for some time in the Canadian Gulf Islands-- I'm appreciating my documented 1982 Cape Dory 25D, hull #85. This may be my last of 6 years with her, all but one here on, or near, the Salish Sea. I can think of few other small cruisers that might have served me as well. (While I may have a next boat lined up, I won't claim it is so until all is arranged.) I've been cruising on her about 9 months for each of the last 4 years. Cruising is my retirement activity. This year I got out late, kedging her from her slip just to see what that would be like, on March 28. Usually I'm out in late January or early February, back from family visiting. I did dock three times, so far, this year. Twice for customs, once for reprovisioning in a hurry. You can see in the foto that she is worn and a bit shabby from being cruised hard. Her spinnaker halyard and topping lift are secured on the pulpit. A rarely-used outboard and a never-used Portrunner bike are on the housetop. (No, they don't seem to affect her heel, for she is heavily loaded.) Her low rain/sun cockpit cover is that way to decrease swinging from windage when in use. Her boom and tiller off to starboard also dampen swing. Her outline is a little confused by a yellow moss-covered rock behind her. That blue line on deck is a rafting oar that is her sweep, in its ready position, freed by just a slipped reef knot. I actually use it, for example recently in Sansum Narrows. On a sail-only-just-to-see-if-I-could passage, it helped me stay off the rocks in strong current and little wind. A lighter wooden sweep would be preferable. Her three deck anchors are strategically arranged. Last year in Vancouver Bay of Jervis inlet, I used them all. This year her inboard diesel has been fully operational and valuable. She is simple, with a beautifully modified cabin. The finest item aboard is a two-burner Broadwater Marine stove with oven. I'd love to take it with me to a next boat, but won't. Her dinghy this year has been a Cape Dory 7' 7" Dink. It fit on the foredeck on a crossing of the Strait of Georgia under sail, nicely. Her cruising this year began with 2 1/2 months into the Discovery Islands/Desolation Sound area, and back. Plus, a two week circumnavigation of the Gulf Islands' Salt Spring Island, followed by a cruise crossing Juan de Fuca Strait for the Port Townsend festival, and back. Wandering about the central San Juans I'm not counting. I've covered those cruises in my postings this year. I'm CLOUD GIRL's third owner. Under her different names she has taught three novice owners in a row just what a real cruising boat is and can do. I like to think I've been a good learner. Carl Alberg did himself proud designing this little capable tough cruiser, brawnily built by Cape Dory. Who knows who she will train next.

[David Patterson]

After school terms begin, waters get roomier in the Salish Sea. Here is a morning calm photo of cruisers out enjoying the "off-season." Fog is hovering over the anchorage, after yesterday's 35 knot winds in the open channels. In the distance this morning is old ZODIAC. She anchored last evening, her spars gilded by the low late sun. The other photo is of the Alberg 29 NAVIGARE, for whom I have "set my cap." Considering my Salish Sea apprenticeship to now be over (after this year's demanding cruising and making some presentations at the Port Townsend festival regarding personal sailing challenges) I'm hoping for a next boat for 2017. To be seen.

[David Patterson]

A cruising pleasure is to study other boats. Incontrovertibly, the one shown below is a Lyle Hess design, a 24' Falmouth Channel Cutter I believe. Along with Alberg, Hess is one of my favorites. (Did Alberg ever do a design with an externally-hung rudder? I wonder.) As I gazed, I thought about the Pardeys' 55 day passage from Yokahama, Japan to Victoria BC aboard their SERYFFIN. One depression after another blew them across the North Pacific. The one pictured looks remarkably seaworthy for her size. Notice the self-steering-on-the-backstay hardware at the stern. A deadeye on dyneema countertensions the back stay at the boomkin. Dyneema stays support the bowsprit as well. More "modern" touches are the alloy mast, and the roller furler, plus the dodger. Plenty of fine bronze in evidence. Is that a manual ABI windlass? Inboard engine controls show in the footwell. Hard to call that small box a cockpit, by modern standards. I wonder where the older gentleman who owns her has taken this little craft. The canvas on the front of the house, vulnerable to ripping off in a seaway if a wave comes over the bow, suggests not into the North Pacific. But, she might be a really dry boat. An extra man line, about chest high, has been run port and starboard, which suggests work in rough waters. The last photo is of a beach scene where a tourist with an artistic bent has propped up some driftwood, to look like a figure sitting on a log. The tree beside it seems to me to be struggling against a watery fate as well. Rowing by, I did a double take the first time I saw the arrangement. It won't last the winter storms. Ephemeral, like us. Better get out cruising soon!

[David Patterson]

A somewhat random set of cruising photos: first is a grainy low-light capture of sunrise from my boat in port; second is a "mug shot" of a cruiser's creative anchor-float and line containment bag on a pulpit (by M. Kelsey); third is the topsail schooner SPIKE AFRICA under plain sail as we passed port-to-port recently. [The focal point of the first photo is skyward somewhere, to squeeze in that quarter moon, distorting the mast angles.]

[David Patterson]

Mega-yachts. If they aren't bearing down on you with no one on watch, or throwing 3' wake waves at you, they are interesting. Not always attractive, even so. First is one at the Friday Harbor customs dock, looking very military. Private, though. But, any boater who has seen a pirate flag flying knows that play and pretend are not only the province of children. Next is a more attractive one, to my eye, that at first had me thinking she was a new fishing boat. The brightwork on the stern railing, unlikely on a work boat, convinced me she is a pleasure boat. Last is 60' MARDO, obviously of wood, rebuilt in 2009 according to google. She looks like a '20s boat to me. Very easy to look at anchored just beyond my bow anchor's buoy. The older hull shapes seemingly threw less wake, by my too-frequent observations. I suspect that sea-kindliness was valued over hull volume in their design. As for some of the mega-yacht owners, several hundred years ago the Protestant Calvinists believed that material success indicated membership in the 10 thousand who were sure to be resurrected at the end of days. Maybe they were right.

[David Patterson]

A couple of dawn shots, one a composite via some app or other, while the other shows pre-dawn mountain shadows across the water. [I like the light golden on my sailcover, and reflecting upward from the mooring buoy.] Aside from more frequent and stronger fronts, the peaceful time of the cruising year has returned. The conventional and more crowded cruising season is well past. Though I'm a bit too cruise-weary right now to really take advantage, fall cruising on the Salish Sea can be exquisite. Often, winter as well, though I have no first hand experience of December or January yet. I'm off the boat visiting family then.

[Dmitche4]

David,

As usual the photos are gorgeous, I also enjoyed the narrative, thanks for keeping up the posts.

David