Golden

It was something of a sprint to get through the Golden Gate in time to beat the tides. I thought we were going to have plenty of time, but then getting into and out of the fuel dock at Newport took quite a while and the seas south of there were impeding our progress.  Around the same time Kevin and I came to the conclusion that at that rate, we weren’t going to make it until 7pm.

I find it remarkable how big a difference it makes for the arrival time with small changes in boat speed.  The difference between 5 knots and 5.5 knots average boat speed doesn’t change the arrival time much when you’re cruising around Puget Sound for short distances, but the difference over two days is 24 miles or nearly five hours.  If your arrival time is important, as it usually is when timing the crossing of a river bar, then the speed of the boat is equally important, but often difficult to predict or control, especially under sail.

For the last day or so on the approach to San Fransisco, we needed to maintain 6.5 knots to get there before the slack current under the bridge around 4:30pm.  Thankfully the wind was blowing over twenty knots most of the way, so we were able to do that with various combinations of motoring and sailing. Most of time we could have made 5 knots under sail alone, but needing 6.5, we augmented the sail power with   low engine power, just above idle, which uses very little fuel.

By the time we were in sight of the bridge, it was around 3pm and we were golden (so to speak), gliding downwind in sunshine and 15 knots under sail alone.  The crew was giddy.