After a fairly dispiriting few weeks involving stomach flu and (apparently) the fiercest storm in 2 years to hit the Bay Area we were finally able to get out and test the windvane. Doubts had been bouncing around in my head about it while we were stuck inside: was it actually level? did we install it correctly? and most importantly, was the vane going to be able to handle Pisces' sometimes feisty weather helm?

However the first day of testing was positive; we played around in 10kts setting the vane on different points of sail and found that it worked surprisingly well! Now I'm itching for summer conditions to test it in some normal breeze. However that will have to wait another few months, nothing I can do about that!

Now that the windvane is on and mostly functioning (we jury rigged the lines to the tiller while we figure out the best place for the blocks), we are a huge step closer to leaving. Sure there are still things to do; and the boat show in April will be an expensive one; but the boat is solid, capable, and now with the vane on has reliable self steering. These next few months are just waiting for the right season to leave and getting done what we can until it's time to go.

Lots of progress (and big purchases) on the cruising front. We bought a windvane and (another) dinghy!

Instead of exchanging gifts this year we dipped into the cruising fund and purchased a Monitor Windvane. We decided to go with the Monitor for a variety of reasons, including the fact that they had experience designing and building Monitors for Jason 35s, they are local to the Bay Area, and have a great reputation. So far it's been a great experience working with them, they've been very helpful and willing to answer all our questions.

And questions we've definitely had, as the instruction manual contains something like 20 steps, many of which involve drilling holes in the boat or cutting parts of the very expensive windvane with a hacksaw. We are a solid two days into the installation process, and it looks like we have at least 1 more to go. Right now we are waiting for the epoxy to dry on the deck so that we can finalize the mounts. This will undoubtedly be followed by more drilling, hacksawing, skinned knuckles and the occasional curse word.
(Accompanying photograph is Julia with Ron from Scanmar who drew the installation drawing and answers all our questions about installation-thanks Ron!)

We are optimistic about the windvane, as we've read a lot of good things about the Monitor. We'll definitely be writing more as we get the chance to use it and learn more about it. It also feels great to be moving forward on this because it's the first really big purchase we have made for Pisces to ready her for cruising, and also because in some ways it's the only purchase we would absolutely have to make before we leave to go cruising. Although there are certainly other things we do plan on buying (Liferaft, EPIRB, etc.) we could do without these. I think this is a really great testament to the quality of the work that Gary put into building Pisces.


The second big purchase we made was much more spontaneous than the windvane, we bought another dinghy. So, as of today we own 3 boats (thankfully two of them are under 8' in length). We have been going back and forth on the dinghy issue for a while now, wanting to stick with a hard dinghy, but finding that deck space is at a real premium on Pisces. By pure coincidence with saw an ad yesterday in the new copy of Latitude 38 for a 7' Fatty Knees Dinghy. This morning we drove up to San Rafael, took a look, measured, and found ourselves driving back over the Golden Gate bridge with a dinghy on the roof of the car. It's a beautiful little dinghy, and as you can see from the picture below it fits much better on Pisces.



All and all it's been a very exciting holiday!

We went out for the first time since the oil spill. I secretly felt a little guilty about it, due to all the warnings about how boats break up oil and make the spread worse.
However we stayed in the South Bay, didn't see any oil, and flew the asymmetric for the first time. What a fabulous sail! I love how light it is and how crinkly it sounds, and am looking forward to flying it again soon.

We had an explosion of productivity over the weekend with our various projects around the boat.
The head rebuild has progressed another major stage; we installed and mounted the toolboxes on the back wall, mounted the electrical outlet and hung a hammock for miscellany. As I write this, it doesn't sound like a big deal, but these toolboxes have taken a long time to mount. We have been thinking about, talking about, testing ways of mounting those toolboxes; realizing that idea won't work, going back to the thinking about, talking, testing, mocking up another way and so on. I was a big proponent for the hammock method (string mesh tightly across the front and back of the boxes and they will be inert). It turns out this method does not pan out in reality the way it did in my mind, primarily due to the fact that the boxes are remarkably heavy and it's difficult to get the mesh tight enough to hold ~20lbs of hammers, screwdrivers and spanners.

Our current method involves a block for support at the front of the boxes with shock cord over the top. It seems to be working great-and I am looking forward to seeing how it holds up to a test sail. The head rebuild is really starting to come together-we've been using it as a workroom for a while now.

The bookshelves are coming along nicely also; the epoxy is drying as we speak and tonight we will go see the results of our handiwork.

SPILL UPDATE
We went up to Sausalito yesterday scouting for wedding ceremony locations, and kept an eye out for the fuel spill on the Bay. I was surprised by the amount of boats out on the Bay day sailing; considering that club races are canceled, Angel Island is closed and the Coast Guard has requested that recreational mariners stay out of the water. Haven't they seen what that stuff will do to their hull? Check out the 'Lectronic Latitude article and pictures for details.
Sadly, the oil seems to be continuing to spread and affecting wildlife. There was a notice at Brisbane Marina stating that oil had been spotted only 1/2 mile north, and the nice guy who works at West Marine in South San Francisco said he had seen a bird covered in oil walking around the lot when he got in to work.

Over the weekend we took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather and headed down the coast to Half Moon Bay with two other boats; Fancy and Vitesse.

Everyone was marvelous about taking photos, and as a result there are far too many to post here, so I will settle for posting links to the various photo galleries:





Photos from Pisces
Fancy and Vitesse pics: Half Moon Bay 2007

It felt so wonderful to be out on the ocean--Pisces is such a great boat for the ocean swells. We had dolphins accompany us on both days and I saw more jellyfish in the ocean than I've ever seen in my life before. They were drifting in the current down south, so watch out for them if you're in southern CA!

We had a wonderful crew and with their help and experience we bought some trolling line and lures and trolled for salmon on the way home. Unfortunately all I managed to catch this time was jellyfish guts, but now I have the line on the boat-I am very positive about my successful future in fishing.



We were looking forward to another sailing trip this weekend; either out to the Farallones if the weather was amicable or just a quiet overnighter anchored in the Bay. Unfortunately, an incoming tanker hit a pylon of the Bay Bridge this week dumping around 58,000 gallons of tanker fuel into the Bay. The slick moves around the Bay with the tide; the last report I heard was that oil had been reported in the North Bay by the Richmond Bridge, down in the South Bay by Hunters Point, and outside the Golden Gate south to Ocean Beach and North to Bolinas.

Here are some sites for more information:
US Coast Guard
NOAA
Oiled Wildlife
Baykeeper Citizens Response

Needless to say, large parts of the Bay are closed and the weekend trip is off. Instead, we are going to see if there's anything we can do to help out with containment.

The weather has been pretty good in San Francisco the last week, the summer seems to be hanging on a bit longer. It's been a nice change to get out sailing in the lighter winds and we've been taking advantage of the opportunity to keep learning more about how Pisces sails. She's a great boat, surprisingly good in the light wind, and we love the flexibility of the cutter rig.