October 6th, 2006: Crescent City, CA to Fort Bragg, CA
Author: Adam
We departed Crescent city in the evening to ensure that we could make the tide to cross the bar at Eureka, CA. in the event that our steering system failed and/or we found ourselves too fatigued to go further. The 57 mile passage from Crescent City to Eureka would have been around 12 hours or so but we really wanted to have Cape Mendocino behind us so it was pretty unlikely that we were going to stop there. Still, it’s best to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. So we departed from Crescent city expecting to get beat up and have to duck in to Eureka to lick our wounds and hoping that we would spend our passage reading leisurely and relaxing while the self-steering took us all the way to Sausalito.
We were just past the sea buoy out of Crescent City when the oar popped its weak link and we were again without self steering. I cursed myself for not going even tighter on the lashing but was reticent to totally remove the oar as I hadn’t yet managed to get it back on at sea and had hoped I could rig something that would work. I decided that maybe the lashing wasn’t the issue and perhaps the extra long oar I had ordered for light air work was just not ever going to be able to withstand the force of the prop wash. Since our prop is slightly offset to starboard I tried to tweak the system so that when the rudder was amidships the oar was almost completely out of the water to port. My logic being that even though this would make steering to port very slow and difficult for the vane it would mean that the oar should never pass through the turbulent propeller wash. This seemed to work for a couple hours. Again I was pleased that I had solved the problem. Of course the longest I had gone without steering was 4 hours before the oar popped off so I wasn’t going to count any chickens until at least breaking that record.
And no chickens would present themselves to be counted. After 2 hours the oar popped off and I went on deck to put us back on course and switch off the tillerpilot. I had put up the double reefed main earlier in the evening to dampen our movement in case a sea came up, but as Kris took the helm at 2am the seas remained easy. Morning came and we were 20 miles north of Cape Mendocino on a flat glassy calm sea motoring along at 5 knots. Kristina experienced her first glorious sunrise at sea. Not to say she had never seen a sunrise while at sea, just never one where the sun was actually visible. We Pacific Northwest Sailors rarely get to see the sun ;-) She got some wonderful pictures. I love sunrise at sea when it is cloudy/foggy…everything goes glassy and pink and contrasts against the silver fog and it feels like you are on another beautiful planet.
We rounded Cape Mendocino in near-flat calm seas with no wind and decided to make for Fort Bragg. I took the helm from 8am to 1pm, when Kristina took the helm and let me sleep till around sunset. When I awoke Kristina was in a very different ocean. We had a nice 6’ following sea and the ensign on the mizzen topping lift was flapping vigorously in the following breeze. I came on for my watch and rolled out the jib, let off the main and for the first time I turned off the engine and we were sailing along at 5kt with a double reefed main and full jib. I felt like this was finally our chance. We could engage the vane without any prop wash and let her sail herself. I leaned over the transom and attached the oar, gently lowering it into the water and the instant I cleated the control lines, engaging the self steering vane, the oar popped right off. The fault was clearly not engine related. So I set about steering us under sail almost dead downwind. This lasted for almost 2 hours when I noticed our speed dropped as had the seas and we were making 1.5kt under sail. I turned on the engine again rolled in the jib and it was back to the status quo. At this point the forecast was calling for a small craft advisory for strong winds and hazardous seas for our vicinity 20-60 nautical miles offshore and for 5-15kt closer in. As the coast had receded away from us to the east, we found ourselves at right around that 20 mile area. The problem was that I wasn’t willing to ease the main entirely because I had no baggy wrinkles or other such anti chafe measures to prevent the main from chafing on the shrouds. Consequently the main was sheeted in too hard and we had weather helm. If I had our vang/preventers finished I would have prevented the main off the windward by the lee and had a nice balanced downwind sail wing on wing. But since the wind was building and Kristina’s watch approached, I decided that I should bring in the main to save her having to wrestle with the helm as I had done on my watch. I woke her and she was alarmed at how much more the boat was rolling. She took her watch and I took the main down while we sailed dead downwind. Hooray for no battens!
She awoke me at dawn as she was exhausted and needed to come off the watch. We were only about 6 miles out from Fort Bragg and the tide was flooding as planned. I asked her if she didn’t just want to stay up for another 2 hours and then crash in port and she indicated she didn’t have another couple hours left in her. We REALLY need self steering. She went below and passed out like a sack of potatoes. I don’t know how potato sacks pass out, pretty hard I guess. I made the approach and picked up the sea buoy on radar first then visually. I woke her when we were at the buoy about an hour later and we piloted the entry together as we always do. One person on the helm the other on the chart/binoculars; two sets of eyes is always better than one.
We putted our way through the narrow sea channel, surrounded by a veritable briar patch of kelp beds and rocks on either side. If we went off course into one of those kelp beds and fouled the prop the gentle swell would carry us inexorably onto the rocks. Consequently, I would say that aside from strong westerly weather, this entry could almost certainly be easily made on any tide as long as visibility is good. Once inside the tiny bar entry that is scarcely big enough to accommodate Estrella’s beam twice, we saw the first sectored light I have seen since sailing in England. Judging from the depth sounder, it is necessary.
After passing under the highway 1 bridge we found ourselves in the tiny narrow and winding Noyo river, which I think would be better described as “Noyo Creek.” Many wharves in various states of disrepair lined the shores in front of steeply wooded hilly terrain. Nestled next to the creaking docks were commercial fishing boats of all kinds, each like the wharves, in various states of repair. It made for a very Indiana Jones type feeling. I kept expecting to see the little Asian kid fly over in a biplane with Indy.
After rounding another corner we found the coast guard station. It was rather incongruous to see this heavily wooded creek with all these wharves occupied by not one but TWO 47’ motor lifeboats crawling with coasties. Just past the station was the marina. We pulled in thinking that we would just take a slip on the transient dock (according to Charlie’s Charts), but quickly noticed a sign that read “All slips must be assigned.” I put Estrella in reverse and slowly started backing out and called the office. I was assigned a slip way down on D dock when a 50’ fishing boat on the end tie nearest the entrance blew by us and told us we could use his slip as he would be gone for 3 days. We thought we had a free slip since he pays for his slip and just let us have it. Sadly it was not meant to be and the office came to collect their moorage and gave us a song and dance about how they could put a 50’ transient in this permanent resident’s slip while he was gone. This is obviously hooey since I’m sure he doesn’t get a rebate and I’m sure he doesn’t tell them when he is coming back. I imagine if he came back and found some 50’ pleasure boat in his slip there would be hell to pay. Still the rate is reasonable ($20/day), the facilities are acceptable and we are more than glad to help keep the marina in business. The lady at the office is required to collect from her transient guests regardless of her permanent customer’s misplaced generosity.
We originally planned to leave after resting for the night, as the forecast was for strong northerlies in two days but we were both quite tired so we decided to have our mail forwarded here and to spend the weekend. Anyway, we had heard that Fort Bragg was a town not to be missed. When we settled down we noticed, much to our dismay, that the tillerpilot had burned up overnight. I suspect a fuse failure is to blame but despite my attempts I am not able to procure a replacement tillerpilot here till next Wednesday and we don’t intend to be here that long. I know there is one on the shelf in the Sausalito West Marine so we will pick one up when we get there.
I spent our first day here listening to the weather forecast and working on the oar’s weak link. Ironically, now that the tillerpilot is dead I am certain I have licked this weak link issue. I managed to tighten the oar’s shock cord lashing to the point where I needed to pry it out with a screw driver to attach it to the vane. I mean I hit the damn thing on its end with the dinghy and the mounting tube shuddered a bit but the oar didn’t even threaten to come off. I don’t know how “weak” the link is now and hope if I hit something it will pop off without breaking something important but I am confident that it won’t come off easily this time.
We have really enjoyed Fort Bragg so far and are glad that we’re hanging out here for awhile. We hope to depart on Monday for either Drake’s bay or Sausalito. Drake’s is around 20 hours away and Sausalito is about 25 hours away. All will depend on our happiness with the passage and weather conditions. I hope we get a sailing wind and can sail using the vane. Crossed fingers.
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