In the words of Alice Cooper: "Schools out forever!" Masters degree is complete and it's time for sailing! I was originally planning on heading down to Dana Point, but by the time I got things in motion, it was already mid morning. I decided launching at Queen's Way and that sailing in the general direction of Dana Point would be close enough. It just seemed like more fun spending time on the water than on the freeway.

This was going to be a single-handed weekend as Donna needed to catch up on some other things. Slowdance and I arrived at the ramp around 10:30 and we were in the water at about 11:30. There was a new sign posted at the entrance to the ramp stating that the ramp was closed during extreme low tides due to silting (mud on ramp makes it too slick). Fortunately, the lower tides are very early in the morning right now and this wouldn't be a problem.

There were quite a few ships anchored just inside the breakwater. I don't mind sharing my ocean with them, but they do mess up the wind a bit. I decided to tack out to the outside of the breakwater and head east towards Newport Beach. The weather was near perfect: High temp was around 70º F and wind was out of the south at 6-8 kts. There were a few stronger gusts in amongst the ships, which is why the jib was partially furled here.

The above picture shows the skipper's-eye view over the cabin top. Main halyard is coiled against the cabin top, easily accessible from the cockpit. One of the nice things about a boat this size is that everything is close at hand. On the front end of the boom are a couple of cleats and lines for jiffy reefing. It's possible to sit on the cabin top with your legs in the hatch opening and handle reefing. These lines can be remoted to the cockpit, but even this arrangement is not bad and helps give on a more secure feeling if it's rough out. New Port Beach is on the distant horizon.

Palos Verdes over the stern. Slowdance bubbles happily along at about 5  mph - not blindingly fast, but very comfortable. There was hardly any swell or chop.

This great tug came by pushing a rather large bow wave.

The highlight of the day was this great gaff-rigged schooner that came sailing down the breakwater headed west. I wore ship and followed for a while, taking pictures. She was about the same size and hull shape as the Ya-Wim that my family lived aboard when I was in high school - she brought back a few memories.

Here's a picture of the Ya-Wim for comparison (I need to fix the color on this). You can see the general similarity in the hull - a typical American schooner design. Originally, the Ya-Wim was gaff rigged just as the schooner in Long Beach, but was later converted to the staysail schooner rig you see here. When this was done, the mainmast was lengthened about 12 feet with the addition of an aluminum section on top. She was 65 feet on deck, 54 feet on the waterline and drew 7 feet 8 inches. She was 23 tons net and 35 tons gross. The boat was built by Berger Boats for the president of the Pullman Company (built railroad cars) in 1936. The photograph above was from around 1967 - the chap in the red shirt is myself. I'll have to put some more pictures and info about this boat on the web site one of these days. She sailed beautifully and the whole experience was a great one.

Here's another old photo from the Ya-Wim. That's me on the left and my dad at the helm. I'm not sure where this was, but it was somewhere on the Texas coast.

Here's another one with myself at the helm. We're sailing down the Intercoastal Waterway here. Note the bicycles tied to the mainmast shrouds on the port side and the Honda 90 on the starboard side.

Ya-Wim on the ways for new paint. I'm just returning from school (note books and motorcycle helmet). The boat was still home, whether it was in the water, or not. In the semitropical waters on the Texas coast, the boat had to be hauled, scraped and painted about once a year.

The deep vee bottom design on this boat made it very seaworthy. It was still fairly stiff, with 20,000 pounds of ballast in the iron keel, but sliced neatly through the chop. The hull was made of African mahogany on American oak frames. The deck was teak and all was fastened with iron fastenings.

Meanwhile, back at Long Beach...

The only wildlife I saw were pelicans and seals. Every now and then a pelican would fall out of the sky and make a large splash near the boat. I was never sure if they were fishing or crashing. It all looks the same with these guys.

I turned around just off of Sunset Beach and headed back to the ramp. The channel has shoaled up quite a bit since the last rains and you can see boat wakes breaking on them in the picture above. These are not that well marked - there are a few buoys marking them, but the shoals extend farther into the channel than the buoys do.

I pulled Slowdance back out and derigged without anything interesting happening. I wished I had paid for an extra days parking and brought a toothbrush. I could have easily made Newport by dinner time and spent the night there. Perhaps next time I will!

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