Not the Farallones

Drying out under Pt Bonita (not the Farallones!!!)

It has become a bit of an obsession to sail out to the Farallon Islands. Its only 25-odd nautical miles from the Golden Gate, but those are 25 miles of shallow, windy, tidal waters that have become notorious (see 1982 and 2012 Farallon races). This weekend I entered in the Singlehanded Farallon Race organized by the SF Singlehanded Sailing Society. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate and the fleet sailed out into a "small craft advisory" with six-foot breaking waves and 20-25 knots pretty much on the nose. Little Cat and I made it out to just past the end of the shipping channel buoys (about 10 statute miles) before calling it a day. The boat was fine, but I was getting bounced around a lot and need to be fitter to endure the further 7-8 hours necessary to get around the islands and back. Little Cat headed back in under reefed main alone, but was still hitting 11 knots at times. The waves were on the quarter with many breaking so needed lots of concentration. We got caught once and broached broadside with me looking down into the pit between two steep short waves, but Little Cat caught herself no problem. We surfed in under the lee of Pt Bonita and anchored to have lunch and warm up in the sun. A great day with lots of lessons, including that the Tiki 21 really needs a small storm jib when sailing in waves over 20 knots - the reefed working jib is still too big and the wind pulls the bow sideways off the tops of the waves. Until next year.

Still a long way to go