Viva la video!

Kudos to Paul for putting together this epic three-part video documentary of the trip.  Stay tuned for parts dos y tres.

A Little Love from Latitude 38

Latitude 38 ran a run-down of the Ha-Ha in this month's issue.  The Sally Lightfoot crew was featured, of course, along with the riveting recounting of the tragic sinking of the J-World boat.  Our iPhone-totin' author also got mention for his habit of using his favorite gadget to guide us into the anchorages.

Bye-Bye Baja

Looking out the window of the plane, it's sad to see the blue water and white sand of Baja getting farther and farther away. I'm going to miss this trip.

It still amazes me that things worked out as well as they did considering that I hadn't seen the boat, Paul, or Ray in person until arriving in San Diego for the start. If I could do it again and choose any boat to be on in this year's Ha-Ha, I wouldn't change a thing. Sally is such fun to sail and I couldn't ask for better guys to sail with than Ray and Paul.

It's impossible to know how much trouble we didn't get into as a result of Paul's skippering, but I suspect it's a lot. It's no accident that this trip went as well as it did. Somehow he manages to
keep on top of all that planning and responsibility and still keep his easy-going Cap'n Ron attitude.

Ray, besides being the kind of guy who can get the party started and makes friends everywhere he goes, is also someone who can save your butt in an emergency. It's what he does for a living as a fireman. If fate did have it in for us, like it did for J-World with their whale encounter, I felt better having Ray aboard.

Ray, Jen, Julie, Geneviéve, and I are headed home while Paul will sail up the Sea of Cortez with Debbie. When they get to Loreto, they'll take Sally out of the water and get her ready for chartering through spring. If you've ever wanted to charter a Corsair trimaran in the Sea of Cortez, now is your chance.

That's the end of my story, but stay tuned for more video and photos over the next few weeks. There might even be updates from Paul in the Sea of Cortez.

    -Jared

A First-Place Finish

Geneviéve and I made it back from our road trip to La Paz about 90 minutes into the awards presentation. Paul and Ray were there representing Sally and had already won the award for Best Spinnaker Disaster. Paul apparently told a heart-wrenching tale of woe to take that honor from Pipe Dream, who had destroyed a huge spinnaker during the heavy weather on the first leg. Having a crew member absent from the awards ceremony to shuttle a spinnaker to the sail loft must have won sympathy from the judges.

We also won first place in our division, which was a great way to wrap up the event. Jen, Julie, and Geneviéve were there, the sail repair was done, post-Ha-Ha crew Debbie had arrived, and there couldn't have been a better way to spend a last night in Cabo.

Road Trip to La Paz

After trying to bribe the concierge at the hotel to find a sail loft that could do a short-notice repair, I got a call back from Snug Harbor Sails in La Paz. They said they could do the repair this afternoon if we could get the sail to their loft by noon.  Geneviéve, who arrived Thursday, rented a car for us.  We threw the sails in the back and drove the two hours over sometimes-paved roads to La Paz.

Doug and Rae at Snug Harbor were great sports about bailing us out of a tight situation. If you ever find yourself in need of sail repair in Cabo, they can hook you up.

Ungratifying Ways to Spend Money

During a trip to Vegas a few years ago, my friend Richard wanted to experience the thrill of high-stakes gambling at the blackjack table.  He went to the hi-rollers' table, plunked down his $40 ante, and got dealt. He took a card, went over, and his $40 was gone.  He didn't even get a taste of the game.

I had a similar experience the other day when we hit a windless patch just two miles from the finish line in Cabo. We had been sailing 8-12 knots most of the night, so it was especially frustrating spending over an hour trying to squeeze out the final two miles. When the wind gets that light, it tends to switch directions randomly. We had something like that happen. With a fully-battened mainsail, the battens curve the sail in one direction or the other.  It never just hangs limp, even with no wind. This is generally a good thing in light air but sometimes the battens need a little help getting the sail to curve the other way if the wind is not strong enough to do it. We tried to pop the battens to the other side by pulling on the boom. No luck.  Then I tried pushing on the sail near the luff:

Yeah—bad idea. My hand broke through the Kevlar-and-Mylar sail material like a rotted-out bedsheet. Talk about ungratifying ways to spend money....

The upside is that we were only about a mile from the finish when it happened. The downsides are 1) That Paul needs this sail fixed ASAP because he's sailing up the Sea of Cortez and needs to leave on Monday; and 2) There are apparently NO sail repair services in Cabo San Lucas or San Jose del Cabo. Our best option might be sending the sail to a loft in La Paz. Hopefully they can repair it in time.

Home Stretch

Our wind held strong through the night. Now we're about four miles from the finish and it's not even daylight yet—twelve hours ahead of schedule.  I think we passed every boat in the fleet with that night of double-digit speeds.

There is still a lot to do yet, however: getting to the anchorage, securing the boat, cleaning things up, inflating the dinghy, and a list of other to-dos. We probably won't make ashore until afternoon depsite our early finish.

Night Driving

Somewhere among all the advantages of light, fast boats, there are a few cons. One that comes to mind while off-watch, skimming along at 10-15 knots in total darkness, is that boats like Sally aren't what you would call forgiving. Fast, yes; responsive, yes; fun, definitely; but they're no the kind of boat you can heave-to and sit out a storm in. Running downwind is really the only option and it takes a lot of concentration to weave through rough seas at speed. No sleeping at the helm.

There is a predictability to the waves that makes driving blind less scary, but it's still unnerving to have no visibility. Luckily the moon is rising in the next few minutes. It's a full one too—better than having headlights on the boat.

Flat & Fast

One thing you can't help but appreciate about multihulls after sailing keelboats is the lack of tippiness. Even after being on the boat for over a week, it still amazes me just how convenient that is.

Sailing today has been ideal—moderate wind, perfect weather—and we found even better wind by heading further offshore than the rest of the fleet. Most of the day was spent with the spinnaker up (the tear re-opened, so we just sailed with it, calling our reefed spinnaker) doing 8-10 knots. We BBQ'ed the mahi mahi we got from Thor and Tanya on Meshach and had a civilized dinner of fish and chips (bagel chips) in the cabin while the autohelm drove.

As we're sitting there, the daggerboard starts humming as it does when the boat hits twelve knots or so. We look at each other thinking that this would be lunacy on most boats, yet it seemed so...unalarming. Better still is that we have dishes all over the table, glasses of wine, and all kinds of stuff on a shelf on the weather side of the boat. And it stays there!

88 miles to Cabo and we will be there ahead of schedule if this keeps up.

Cabo Bound

We set sail at 6:00a this morning for Cabo—about 170 miles from here.  Weather looks good with moderate wind so we should arrive before dusk tomorrow.

Bahia Santa Maria is such a beautiful place. We'll miss being here, but we've got friends and family meeting us in Cabo that we miss even more.

We'll raise the mainsail and head out to sea just as soon as we BBQ some coffee :)

Fire and Ice

For preserving and preparing food, fire and ice are both pretty essential. When you think about it, the ability to make them is the cornerstone of civilization. As of last night, we'll have to learn to live without them.

We have no refrigeration aboard and were relying on coolers to keep things cold. It works well as long as the ice supply is replenished every two or three days. With no ice available here in Bahia Santa Maria, the coolers started getting funky. We triaged the rest of our perishables, commiting the dead to the sea and setting aside the dying for immediate use. We knew this day would come—it just came a few days earlier than expected.

The thing we didn't expect was to run out of propane. A slow leak near the tank (thankfully it's in a well-ventilated place) was the problem. Unfortunately we dicovered the leak too late to do anything about it. The tank pressure was already dropping quickly and we were running on fumes.

The loss of the main propane tank is a blow, definitely: No more galley stove, no more coffee, and no more bacon. The only fire left is the BBQ that runs on camp stove cannisters. It's not much good for making coffee or frying eggs, but Ray did manage to cook spaghetti on it last night.

We'll survive, civilized or not. We have enough cookies, candy, Clif bars, and canned food to get by without the perishables. A few days ago, we would have happily traded just one of those scary-looking waves for a problem like this.

Greetings from Bahia Santa Maria

We pulled into the anchorage at Bahia Santa Maria about an hour after crossing the finish, de-rigged the boat, and went to sleep. It's always interesting, arriving at an anchorage at night, to see how it looks in the daylight. The photo above was taken from the cockpit at first light. The big catamaran is Profligate, the Latitude 38 boat and mothership for the fleet. I was surprised to see how green the hills are after the arid landscape at Tutle Bay.

We paddled over to shore: Ray in the dinghy, Paul on his surfboard, and me on Paul's stand-up paddleboard. The beach here has a nice, predictable break for surfing. Paul caught a few good waves on the way in; I did the best I could on the SUP but was pretty clumsy because I've never been on an SUP before nor do I know how to surf.  With an hour or so of practice, I was standing up on the board and catching some pretty good rides.

The water is a civilized 75 degrees here, about swimming pool temperature. Sally is dry-sailed, meaning that she's stored out of the water, and doesn't have anti-fouling paint on the bottom like boats that are berthed in a marina. Marine life starts to attach itself to any surface pretty quickly, so we started the day with a morning swim to clean the hulls. Bottom cleaning is like dental hygiene in that it only takes a few minutes if you do it regularly. Wait too long, and it becomes much more of a hassle.

Finish of Leg Two

We crossed the finish line for leg two at 2:00a this morning (Monday). Now motoring into the anchorage for a good night's sleep.

Salt and Sunscreen

Spartan little Sally has no watermaker, so the only fresh water we have is our drinking water. We can't afford to be too generous with it so after a few days of living aboard, all clothing starts to get sticky with sunscreen and salt—so does our skin.

We typically stay pretty dry sailing downwind like this but every splash or bit of spray leaves its salt behind when it dries. After a few days, it adds up. It will be nice to soap it all off in BSM...and then apply a fresh coat of sunscreen.

Sail Repair and Swordfish Sightings

Today was another day of beautiful light-air sailing, so we used the downtime to repair the tear in the spinnaker. No doubt we would be using it again. Paul had a small roll of red sail tape that matched the color of the sail. Tape jobs never look perfect, but this one was pretty respectable. Having the surfboard to use as a repair bench was a big help.

Many boats motored during last night's calm and were ahead of us in the morning. By evening, we had sailed our way to the front of the pack again.

Ray saw a swordfish (or marlin, or some kind of five-foot-long fish with a spike for a nose) jumping out of the water 30 yards from the boat. I couldn't see the fish from my side of the boat, but I saw the splash and heard the subsantial thud it made hitting the water.  Luckily it jumped three more times so I could see it too before going out of sight.

Forty miles to Bahia Santa Maria now. We should arrive around 3:00a tonight.

Night

The wind slackened at night, as it usually does after the land along the coast has cooled off and the convective air currents settle down.  When I came on watch at 11:00p the wind had pretty much stopped. The headsail was flagging and the main was switching back and forth with the swell. Oh well, a good time for a blog update I guess.  I rolled up the headsail halfway so it wouldn't meet the same fate as the spinnaker and got to typing.

Paul came on deck a few minutes later, saw the wacky half-furled, wing-on-wing sailplan and asked what was up. I shrugged and said, "No wind." He said, "Let's straighten this out." He jibed, unfurled the heasail all the way, tweaked the trim, and suddenly we're moving along at five knots, most on the wind created from our own forward motion.  Impressive. Most boats I sail on do well to maintain steerageway in wind that light.

In another...let's call it learning experience, I was on watch with Ray during the night trying to place the pattern of lights off our port side. It was a mostly white light, well off the water. Could be a steaming light from another boat, but I couldn't see any other nav lights with which  to orient it. It had a twinkle of red, so it could also be the masthead tricolor of a boat with its port quarter facing us. But that didn't make sense because we were obviously on converging courses: the light was getting brighter and higher off the water. Our relative positions were changing only very slowly, so I kept a close watch on it to see how the mystery would unfold at first light. Once ther was just a hint of backlighting in the sky, I could see that there was no mast, or boat, under the light. It was Venus.

Bound for Bahia Santa Maria

The start of leg two was moved up to 11:00 so we had to hustle to get things ready, but everything turned out fine. Paul decided to start us at the back and work our way through the fleet.  It was brilliant.  Being one of the faster boats in the fleet, why start at the front and be by ourselves the whole time? By starting at the back, we got to see all the boats, take some great pictures, and show some Krishna to the rest of the fleet.

The sailing is perfect—a spinnaker run all day as we worked our way through the pack. Ray set the new trip speed record surfing a wave at 18 knots; we ate BBQ'ed steaks for dinner; and best of all, we passed Pipe Dream, the lead boat, in full Krishna costume. What a day. The only downer was that I tore the big red spinnaker by letting it drape over the point of one of the amas (AKA outriggers). Now we're back to our next biggest headsail, the maxi-reacher.

Ready for Leg Two

Today we set sail for the second leg to Bahia Santa Maria, about 240 miles. Weather is expected to be much lighter from now on. If seas are flat and the wind is moderate, we'll make excellent time. If there's no wind only the three powerboats will move, and if the seas are lumpy we'll be stuck mid-pack.

This morning will be spent putting the boat back in sailing trim: deflating and stowing the dinghy, putting the boom back on, lashing down the beanbags, etc. It's been a great few days here in Turtle Bay but I think we're all rested and ready for some more sailing.

Accommodations

"Where/how do you sleep?" is a question that comes up often. It's pretty straightforward given the three-on-three-off watch schedule. Underway, no more than two of us are asleep at any one time. One nice thing about multihulls is that two people can sleep in the side berths of the cabin at the same time without being rolled out of bed. Most of the aisle space where you would normally walk is taken up by  coolers, a generator, and tool chest, but it's not much of an inconvenience. For a relatively short trip like this, we manage pretty well without the massive volume of spares and extra equipment carried by a typical cruising boat.

Beach Party

Today was the traditional pot luck beach party at Turtle Bay.  Everyone came out of their boats and hit the beach via dinghy, panga, or whatever means they had available.  We, who had previously been anchored out in a quiet corner of the anchorage, now were right in the middle of it all.

It was a great time—a chance to meet the people in the fleet, get to know them, hear their stories, and even tour their boats, as was the case with our friends from the J-160 Pipe Dream.  Afterward they paid a reciprocal visit to Sally:

In the photo is Jeff (AKA Huggy), Stewart (AKA Canada), Paul, and Lauren, from left to right.  Good times, good people.

Heavy Weather Helming

Talking with Paul, one of the things we both like about sailing is that it can be appreciated on so many levels and from so many persectives. A person can learn the basics—enough to have a good time sailing a dinghy—in just a few hours. One can also spend a lifetime learning about different aspects of seamanship, the finer points of sailing, and the science behind what makes a boat go.

People who sail are only expert relative to each other. The more sailing experience I get, the more true that seems. There isn't any one, no matter what their level of skill, who hasn't been schooled by Mother Nature. That's where experience comes from.

It was interesting hearing different perspectives on the trip here from sailors at dinner last night. Big boat crews have a different experience and use different tactics than small boat crews; multihull crews also have different perspectives and tactics than crews of single-hulled boats. As an example, someone told us about his terrifying round-up (where the boat makes an uncontrolled 180 into the wind) after he tried surfing down the face of a wave. His advice was to never do that.

This guy was clearly sailing a heavy-displacement boat. But in a light boat, surfing waves is part of the game. In fact it's a big part of the appeal of light-displacement boats. In heavy weather, it's going to happen whether you want to or not, so you had better be prepared.  It is exhilarating, very skill-based, and not without risk. The boat quickly reaches planing speed and it's going forward fast with a lot of power in the sails. The helmsman's skill is to keep control of the boat by not rounding up into the wind or jibing accidentally, and to avoid ramming the boat into the back of a wave. Stop the boat quickly like that and the rig tends to keep going—separately.

I've learned a lot about driving a light boat in big seas on this trip thanks to Paul and Ray, Sally, and Mother Nature. It can be terrifying and exhilarating at the same time but either way, a good skill to have—and yet another thing to appreciate about sailing.

Panga Panga!

Most of our travel between Sally and shore is done via rides with locals in outboard-motored skiffs called pangas.  Except when we feel like rowing.  Then we take the inflatable pangita (like the one pictured at lower right).

The pier here in Turtle Bay makes going ashore easy.  From the pictures I've seen of dinghy landings at Bahia Santa Maria, getting ashore will be a little more interesting there.  There are still pangas for hire there, but no pier.  Pangas and pangitas have to launch from the beach which means going through the breaking surf.  Weather makes all the difference in the level of difficulty.  It will probably be calm by the time we get there, but if not, stay tuned for some good action shots ;)

A Day of Rest

After we finished making the boat a habitable recreation platform for the next few days, we took a walk into town.  Some of the other Ha-Ha'ers had gathered at Vera Cruz restaurant for a beer. We did likewise to hear the news from the rest of the fleet.  There were some surprises.

Remember the whale we spotted?  Apparently we say the least of them.  One guy I talked to had sailed among a pod of them for a while before getting some distance from them.  The big news we heard was that the oat run by J-World, an SF Bay Area sailing school, sunk.  Word was that it was rammed by one or more angry whales until they ripped the rudder off  the boat and sunk it.  The crew was rescued by the Coast Guard, people said.  Wow, scary stuff.  [Latitude has since posted a more complete and accurate version of events]

Later we took the dinghy to the beach for a hike.  A hill overlooking the bay provided some great photo ops.

Going Ashore

After leaving the lee of Isla Cedros we had another hour of exciting sailing before crossing the finish line (at 16 knots!) for this stage.  Then we had another three hours of exciting sailing in the twilight and darkness before pulling in to the anchorage in Turtle Bay.

It looks like about a quarter of the fleet has arrived as of this morning. The anchorage is hella-windy but at least there is no swell. We had a well-deserved relaxing evening after dropping anchor and got our first full night's sleep in three days.  We're spending the morning getting stuff cleaned up and put away to make things pleasant for the next few days.  Saturday at noon, we set off for the next stop in Bahia Santa Maria.

For as racy and Spartan a boat as Sally is, she sure makes a posh platform at anchor: Lots of flat space, trampolines, and a mainsail that can be easily rolled up around the boom and stowed out of the way.  Oh yeah, and best of all—beanbags.

We're on our way into town for ice and a little shore leave, then dinner at the restaurant.

Hola from Pablo

Quick hello from Bahia de Tortuga! Nice to be in the calm (but still
windy) bay. Love, Pablo Uno

Hola from Ray

Ray says hi to his girls and can't wait to see them.

Isla Cedros

Fifteen miles to the finish in Turtle Bay. In the meantime we're using
the calm in the lee of Cedros Island to relax a bit and dry out after
the hairy conditions on the way here.

Wednesday to Turtle Bay

We decided to sail on through the night to Turtle Bay. It turned out to be a good decision because the wind and seas held steady until morning. The wind was a steady 18-22 kts and waves were big, but generally not breaking.

Morning was another matter. Winds increased to 25 kts and brought
bigger, breaking seas. In a light and small (for ocean sailing)
multihull like Sally, vertical wave faces are not what you want to

see. Paul did most of the driving, which was fine by Ray and me.

It's difficult to capture big seas in photos, but Andy from Latitude 38 did a nice job of it with this shot, taken the same day:

Watch Schedule

People often ask what we do at night on long passages like this. Do we stop for the night and anchor (or drift)?  Do we set the autohelm and sleep?  Do we have someone up at all hours of the night driving?

The last guess is the correct one.  We take rotating three hour watches that overlap an hour on both ends (e.g. Paul comes on at 1:00a to join me for the last hour of my watch; at 2:00a he has an hour by himself; at 3:00a Ray joins him for the last hour, etc.). The result is that at least one person is on watch at all times.

First Night Out

The wind faded through the night, and eventually petered out to nothing around 1:00a. It came back with a vengeance though—enough to have us reconsidering our decision to skip that intermediate shelter stop before Turtle Bay. Now it's morning, we've got two reefs in, and we still hear the occasional hum of the daggerboard when Sally starts to gain enough speed to plane.

We're pretty much by ourselves out here, surprisingly. Our new course is taking us back near shore.  Maybe that's where the rest of the fleet is sailing.

Fish On!

We've been dragging a fishing lure behind us for the past half hour and Paul got a bite just a few minutes ago. It felt big. I turned the boat downwind to slow it down a little to help Paul reel the fish in. What would it be: tuna, dorado, marlin?  Unfortunately we'll never know. This one got away.

A few minutes later a flying fish the size of a robin buzzed out of the water and went gliding over the swells like an albatross for a hundred yards. They're better flyers than I realized. It would be interesting to see a million years into the future just to see how they've evolved. They'll probably have turned into really strange-looking birds by then.

Where Is Everybody?

Wow—this gentle SoCal breeze is just the thing to separate a light multihull like Sally from the rest of the fleet. After three hours of sailing, we've slipped past all the other boats. Now we're discussing whether to duck into San Quintin as the Poobah recommends and sit out the front that's moving in from the north, or continue on to Turtle Bay.

The reason we're tempted to continue is that at this pace, we'll likely to make it to Turtle Bay before the front does.  We'll see.  Ducking into an unfamiliar anchorage with 200 other boats brings a whole 'nuther set of problems.

Surfin' Safari

We haven't been able to get the latest weather news to know how long this beautiful weather will last but it's been a great afternoon of powered-up sailing.  Nice, rolling swells and plenty of wind have the boat surfing down waves and humming like a hive of bees.

And We're Off!

Going down the coast to M-E-X-I-C-O.  C-U.

Radio Check-In

Sally Lightfoot checking in with three Hare Krishnas on board.

Paul, Peaceful at the helm

Preparing to Cast Off

Just a few hours left before our start now and we're ready. It will
take us about three days to make it to Turtle Bay. By Tuesday some
stronger winds should be heading down the coast, chasing us along. The
forecast says 20 kts from the north and that sounds like a blessing.
Sally will fly in those conditions. The front is supposed to dissipate
by Thursday, returning us to the regularly-scheduled weather.

Since we didn't win an award at the costume party yesterday, we're
going to step it up a bit for the starting line. Keep an eye on the
San Diego newspapers today. That's all I'm saying...for now.

Larger than life

These two should get a special award for most cumbersome costume. They stuck it out for the whole time though, even in the San Diego sun.

Cosume Party: Jellyfish

This was brillant. You have to see it in motion to really appreciate
it.

Costume Party: Vive!

These two even brought a poodle.

Costume Party: Where's Waldo?

Costume Party: Classic Sailor Uniforms

Hare Krishna, Hare Hare

We didn't even place in the costume contest. Can you believe it?

Last Day Ashore

Tomorrow morning is the start so this will be our last day ashore—
and a busy one too. There is the costume party (of course there will
be pictures from that), topping off the boat with fuel and provisions,
the skippers meeting, and a few last-minute boat maintenance projects
to take care of.

Anna, who crewed on the trip from Ventura to San Diego, took her leave
after dinner last night. Good luck Anna, whether you decide to keep on
sailing from here or head home for a while. We'll keep an eye out for
you in Turtle Bay, just in case you end up catching a ride down the
coast.

Seawater and Organs

Oyster shots at the Brigantine:

Bird on the Wire

Sorry Anna, the pun was too good to pass up :)

Nice job getting that Baja Ha-Ha burgee up!

Ain't She Sweet

Just met up with Paul, Ray, and Anna at the marina. The boat looks
great.

The Boat

It's funny how things sometimes come together in the most unexpected ways.

At the beginning of last summer, I took a leave of absence from work because I had, well, a lot of non-work things I wanted to do: remodel a rental house in Washington, take my annual commercial fishing trip to Alaska, trips to Hong Kong and Germany, and work on my sailing skills. I figured six months would do. That would have me going back to work in November, which would be ideal. They weather would be getting colder, the days shorter, and best of all—it would give me time to sail in the Baja Ha-Ha.

Well, it was a great summer. I did just about everything I set out to do when fall arrived, but with a few setbacks. The first was getting into a little altercation with a Volvo while riding my bike home from the Sailing Club in Berkeley. Bicyclists never win in collisions with cars, and I was no different. The car escaped with no visible damage; meanwhile I had a separated shoulder. Volvos are indeed solid cars. While I was home convalescing with my arm in a sling, Kevin, my boss calls to tell me I'm out of a job. The company had closed its office in Alameda and my job with it. Great.

Fall got better after that, thankfully. When not looking for work, I traveled more, swam a lot, did some triathlons, and continued to work on my sailing. Fall turned into winter, winter to spring, then summer came around again. The big event of the summer was a sailing trip from Hawaii. When October came, I was ready for the Baja Ha-Ha again, much more so than last year with all the recent sailing experience.

Through the match-making skills of Donna at the local sailing magazine Latitude 38, Sally Lightfoot (a Corsair 31 like the one pictured) has an enthusiastic new crew member for the Ha-Ha this year.

I'll do my best to bring you the latest and most lurid events from the Ha-Ha over the coming weeks....

-Jared