march_letter

Newsletter of the Triton One Design Class of San Francisco Bay

http://www.netcom.com/~suter/todsf.htmlMarch, 1998

march_letter

Spring Dinner & Tune-up race/cruise April 18

Latest Racing Schedule

march_letter(Latitude missed one!)

Tom "Cruise" Newton?

See page 3

1998 TODSF calender

National Regatta

Arbenture's Northwest Voyage

Mintaka

Classifieds

Spring Dinner & Tune-up race/cruise April 18

Sausalito Cruising Club

Happy Hour starts 4:30 Dinner at 6:00

Our annual Spring Dinner will be at the always friendly, Sausalito Cruising Club with a menu of Triton barbecued chicken, tossed green salad, pasta, potato salads and a selection of rolls and breads and dessert. All this for only $8/person. The club bar will be open for our enjoyment and, of course, there will be great deals available on Triton burgees, tee-shirts, hats, pins and Improvement Bulletins.

There is room at the dock for several Tritons and we are welcome to Cruise in and spend the night (see the "by boat" instructions below).

Ann Gilleran, our Social Chair, needs to know how many reservations to expect for dinner. So please call her with your reservations by April 14th.

Ann Gilleran, 707-257-8106 e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Directions to Sausalito Cruising Club:

By car: It's right next to Cass' Marina. Go north of downtown Sausalito on Bridgeway (the main street) to Napa St. Turn towards the bay on Napa St. There it is!

By boat: It's just beyond the end of the tune-up cruise/race. The Cruising Club's on a barge next to Cass's Marina, #65A on your chart. Get to the dock by going north of the small island by the Cruising Club. The tides are such that we should be able to easily get in Saturday afternoon and get out just about anytime up until 7:30 the next morning. If you want to stay later Sunday (but not until ~4PM which is the next time there's enough water) we'll have to sort something out (e.g. stay at Cass's). If you're interested in getting a group overnight at Cass's give me a call (Larry Suter, 510-443-8952 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

April 18 tune-up race/ cruise to the Sausalito Cruising Club

Very laid-back. Here are the rules: Meet at the Southhampton Shoal at 13:30. At 13:35, or so, Dogstar (#607) will sound a horn and we will head off for the Sausalito Cruising Club in either direction around Angel Island. The following rules will apply. If you are sailing fast, and you are out in front, then you are "racing". If you are further behind, you are "cruising". However, if a cruiser gets lucky picking a side of Angel Island and ends up in front, he/she becomes a racer. The first racer to tie up to the club buys a beer for the cruisers. While all this, if any of this, is going on, Dogstar is interested in doing some side-by-side sailing with someone, on the way over, so we can both experiment with speed.

1998 Triton Racing Season

- Ely Gilliam

The 1998 Y.R.A. season is just around the corner and much like baseball's spring training every team has had the winter to figure out what they need to change to be competetive, or what they need to do to stay on top. Along with this mix are some boats who are making their first serious effort at shuffling the standings. Rumors of new sails for many of the boats has our complacent yet paranoid fleet champion confused as to what is the right combination of medication to ease him through his day. It is a safe bet that nobody has been practicing too much and I am wondering whether the rain will let up enough to haul Bolero before the start of the season.

The O.D.C.A. schedule starts with Vallejo on May 2-3, then a double on Southampton on May 16 ( this was for some reason omitted on the Lat38 schedule, but will appear on the official race instructions), Treasure Island/Bridge on May 30,the Cityfront on June 20. Continuing on August 15 we have a double on Knox, a double on the South Bay and finish with the final race on the Cityfront on September 20th. This gives us eleven qualifying races for the season covering all the major courses on the bay with the exception of the Olympic Circle. Paul Wells tells me that he likes the circle but he is the only person I know who does. He once explained to me how the perfect geometry of the course layout enabled him to figure the shifts etc.,etc. The only thing I remember about the circle is green water over the bow and once trying to follow Ralph sailing by the lee and doing four consecutive accidental jibes as I rounded down then rounded up then down then up until I ripped my gooseneck out of the mast. This experience has something to do with its exclusion. As always there will be three throw-outs this year.

In addition to the Y.R.A. season there will be the Perpetual Trophy Race/Plastic Classic on July 18 followed by what is always one of the best parties of the year at the Bay View Boat Club. If you don't race (and you should),at least come for the party. There is the second half opener on August 1-2, and, of course, a kind of cruise/tune-up race to the spring dinner on April 18 that was described on the page before this.

Cruising:

So this year we're going to make it work. In addition to the Spring Dinner and the Plastic Classic, both of which are treated by many of us as cruise destinations, Tom "Cruise" Newton has been heard talking about organizing a couple of Triton Cruises this year. One of Tom's proposals is a July 4th cruise to Vallejo where we would raft up in the channel for the annual fireworks. Since this cruise would be easier for some (e.g. the Vallejo Gang of Three) than others, Tom's also proposed to level the playing field with a weekend cruise, sometime in September/October to Pt. Reyes, leaving early in the morning from Horseshoe Cove near the gate. At the April dinner we'll try to firm plans up.

1998 TODSF Calendar

April 18 Spring Dinner & Tune-up race/cruise at the Sausalito Cruising Club

May 2,3 Vallejo Race

May 16 Two races on the Southampton Course

May 30 Race at Treasure Island/Bridge

June 20 Race on Cityfront

July 4th Weekend, Cruise to Vallejo, fireworks raft-up

July 18 Cruise/laid-back race: Plastic Classic Regatta, Party at the Bay View Boat Club

Second Half Opener on August 1-2

August 15 Double race on the Knox course,

August 29, Double race on the South Bay

Early September or October: Cruise to Pt. Reyes.

September 20, Final race of the season on Cityfront

First Weekend in October, 28th National Regatta, Annapolis, Maryland

November 1 Fall Dinner, San Francisco Yacht Club, Tiburon

28th Annual Triton National Regatta

Dave Hoyt, Commodore of the Chesapeake Bay Triton Fleet, reports that they are trying to put together a National Regatta this year to be held near Annapolis, Maryland. They have picked the first weekend in October (Saturday and Sunday are the 3rd and 4th). Stay tuned for more details later in the spring.

The End of a Chapter

- Laura Petersen

Well---- It seems appropriate to begin this with a sigh of finality. Forgive me for the melodrama but the 10 months that my husband and I have shared aboard our Triton has been one of the most rewarding chapters in our lives. The emotions, from white-knuckled fear to a cozy contentment, we deliberately sought out when, last June, we sold our house, our cars, quit our jobs and moved aboard. Since then we have met many great people, seen many beautiful sights and filled our mental memory box with priceless goodies.

We had our Triton for about two years but neither Karl nor I had done any offshore cruising. So, in order to begin our adventure without a misadventure, we decided to have our boat trucked from Sacramento to Seattle's Shilshole Marina, Many people have asked me about the cost, that distance was $950. We were able to ride in the truck with the driver and climb up into the boat for sleeping, so actually our sailing trip began on a freeway. We chose to go North because the country appealed more to us. We never regretted that decision for a moment.

I can not adequately describe the sailing delights in the Pacific Northwest. Inland waterways, quiet anchorages, clean water. We saw our first bald eagle on July 4th. He was so beautiful, I thought my heart would burst. We cruised the San Juans, the Canadian Gulf Islands and up to Desolation Sound. There, at 50 degrees Latitude, the sea water was 72 degrees and the days were averaging about 85 degrees. It was still pleasant and daylight until 10 PM. There are many fresh water lakes that require only a short hike for a nice warm bath. We took the trip up to Princess Louisa Inlet, where they have counted as many as 800 waterfalls in the Spring. The scenery is so awe-inspiring, I can only say it is a joy fulfilled being surrounded by it all.

During the summer, we ate out of the sea 2/3 of the time. The biggest decision facing you any day was whether to go over to that beach for clams, that beach covered with oysters, drop the crab trap or drop a fish hook. I tell you the pressures were fierce!

When we arrived in Victoria, I was surprised to note that we had covered 900 miles, just piddling about from cove to cove. Victoria has such a festival feeling, flowers everywhere. We tied up right in downtown, across from the empress Hotel. We dressed up properly and went to tea. Don't do this if you are a serious dieter! Victoria's Provincial Museum is the most interesting museum that I've ever seen. Well worth a full day. We visited our good friends, Ed and Isabel Wade of Victoria and San Francisco, who have Triton #366. As Ed was born and raised in Victoria, he knows all the things to see and as Karl and I are born tourists, he had a rapt audience.

After provisioning the boat and buying a couple of safety items, which by the way, cost twice as much as trucking back to Sacramento would have been, we sailed out to Neah Bay, Wash., just in the shadow of Cape Flattery. As we sat in this Bay, with about two dozen other boats, waiting for the perfect weather to hurtle ourselves like

lemmings into the sea, all of my inadequacies bubbled to the surface. I was scared to death but so excited, I could hardly wait! (Don't they put people like that away?)

August 31st, clutching a copy of the weather report gathered from the Coast Guard, the top line stating: Warnings: None; we took the plunge. First Mistake: We started off into a light southerly. "No problem, we have sailed to weather a lot, it's a snap!" Second Mistake: "we are going way out-- away from the ground swells and the coastal weather. Everyone says that's the way to do it." For 24 hours we beat into an increasing southerly, getting set further out. After dawn, the wind and waves really picked up and sort of spontaneously, Karl and I decided that it wasn't really such a fun spot to be. We motored 12 hours due East, figuring that land had to be there somewhere. We caught sign of the Grey's Harbor sea buoy 36 hours after we left Neah Bay. It is about 90 land miles south of Cape Flattery. The Coast Guard had been very helpful, lending us moral support on the radio then escorting us across the bar when we got to the sea buoy. Pointing up to the gale warning flag, and waving my "Warnings: None" weather report, I asked what happened. Much chuckling, they said, "Well, our weather comes up pretty quick around here." We stayed in Grey's Harbor several days waiting for the storm to subside during which time we chatted with some fishermen. They all seemed to agree with the same technique-- "Go way out? Never! We fish this coast with one foot on the shore!" From then on the Petersens took a different approach to cruising and it has worked out just great for us. We harbor hop. Most of the hops as far down as San Francisco were overnighters, but we would wait for decent weather, make the hop staying up together, visiting and snacking. Then in each port we would rest up and see the local sights before going on. We made nine stops to San Francisco and enjoyed our trip immensely. We had only one other horrifying hop and that was due to an exceptionally brisk following sea during which we averaged 10 knots due to wind and wave travel. We had planned to stop at Crescent City but it flew by us 9 hours ahead of schedule. As we didn't feel like tackling a strange harbor in the dark nor were we too keen on turning abeam of these tremendous waves, we decided to continue on the 90 miles to Humbolt Bay (Eureka). During this trip, we had in stages, reduced sails to zero. Then, one wave broke over us, filling the cockpit and unsnapping the side windows of the dodger. Thus, with bare poles and a reefed dodger, the boat maintained a steady 4 knots. Unfortunately, because of the high seas, when we reached Humbolt Bay, there were 6 foot breakers across the bar entrance, rendering it impassable. An unbelievably concerned Coast Guard crew came out in a 42 foot cutter and escorted us 18 miles north to Trinidad Head anchorage. Against the waves and wind, it took 6 hours to make the 18 miles. When we finally tied up to a buoy at 2 AM we had been up for 40 hours.

The remainder of the trip to San Francisco was uneventful. But, coming in under the Gate, my reserve was shattered and I giggled and sobbed, quite out of control.

We visited Paul and Ruth Brent, Triton # 76, who treated us to a lovely "Welcome Home" dinner at Corinthian Yacht Club. We sailed around the Bay area and up into the Delta for six weeks visiting friends and family. I told my Mother an Father that we weren't quite finished yet, that we wanted to sail down to the Mexican border. Well, friends, a grimmer pair you have never seen.. I do believe that I'm pushing them very close to the breaking point.

We left San Francisco mid- November and arrived in San Diego on ....

(Continued next newsletter)

Classifieds:

I need an original (1960) main halyard winch and mounting bracket. These are the bronze units into which the winch handle is inserted through the side.

Allen N. Hilburn (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), KAHOLEE, Triton #158

7836 Pioneer Trail NE, Albuquerque, NM 87109

Triton class spinnaker for sail. Alex Cheng (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), HULAKAI #376

650-851-2200