First Official SSS RAID 102019
Up the Napa River
Vallejo One was fun this year. Dura Mater raised her symmetric spinnaker and slid sideways fast and close to port of Archimedes all the way between Red Rock and the Brothers. Good thing she has that new rudder, otherwise we would have slammed into Joe. Actually, that’s probably the ONLY reason we didn’t slam into Joe.
Here’s our Race Committee Boat.
I certainly haven’t forgotten that Rob MacFarlane always seems to be where we need him most. Thanks, Rob. Thanks, Kristen.
Here’s a newish member, Carol Klammer, on her Cal 34 Palapa. Carol has agreed to create a 2020 Singlehanded Transpacific Yacht Race poster for us. She is a graphic designer with impressive credentials. Really. Look her up.
Here’s Paul Sutchek on his Cal 20,
the smallest boat making an impression yet again, just after Falk Meissner killed it in the Long Pac earlier this year.
Sunday morning, while you all were floating around sideways in Potrero Reach, Dura Mater, my tiller-hog friend and I set off up the Napa River with friends literally in tow. Motorsailing, it is true, which was the result of unfortunate timing. Whose idea was it to try to go up the Napa River on an ebb, anyway? That's what happens when DM and I are accompanied by people who don't know anything about sailing. Oh well, that’s just the way it is sometimes. We were on a mission.
Have you ever noticed how singlehanders wear dorky hats?
They never look like sailors in the Gill advertisements, do they? And they do the dumbest things: Like race a laser from Richmond Yacht Club to the Vallejo Yacht Club. Beat most of the fleet, too, even after taking a dunk at the turn into Mare Island Strait. Such bad judgement. I learned after the fact that this guy told his Lovely loved one that he would be fine because Dura Mater would be his chase boat. Huh! I was miles behind the whole way. Next morning in Vallejo he was ready to keep going. Like the Energizer Bunny.
It was a really nice day to go up the Napa River, and it ended differently than the last time I went up with Chris Case and Bob Johnston on FUGU. That trip ended abruptly, stuck fast in the mud at the Brazos Railroad Bridge. This time DM and crew made it up the whole way to downtown Napa, and tied up behind the gondola.
We left Dura Mater at the public dock and walked to the Energizer Bunny’s house. We ate lunch on the deck in back of a lovely cottage. The front yard is full of old roses, the back yard with new little lemon, lime and orange trees. No attack was made upon the town, and plundering was unnecessary. It was a civilized Raid. I’ll write more about the trip itself in a future post. Yes, it is possible to motor sail all the way, by way of FIVE bridges, only one of which needs opening. Next time we’re going up on a flood and back down on an ebb. And I’ll wait for wind.
