Commander #155 'Mephisto Cat'

[Rico]

I've finally installed my little chart table!
One of the simpler projects on the boat, but one that took its time...

I knew I wanted a little 'salty' looking chart (multi-use) table, but could not find the right 'chart' to use. I got one of the channel islands and then one of San Francisco bay, but none really looked right. I finally saw this one and I knew this was the one!

It is also the chart I used to navigate my way north...

(I do not know why people look at me funny when I tell them this!)

It is a very interesting little chart I got somewhere on the web... Unfortunately, I do not have a date or author. Interestingly, the chart includes 3 scales; Dutch 'Mijl'*, Spanish 'Leguas' and English 'Miles' .

It is quite accurately labeled as far as the best known & well traveled areas (settlement ports & Islands) of the North westernmost part of what was known as 'New Spain'. Cities/towns from Colima to Cabo San lucas in the South to San Diego, Santa Barbara, & Monterey in the North ...

The islands of Catalina, San Clemente, San Martin, & the channel Islands are all well labeled, as well as some of the major landmarks: Magdalena Bay, San Quintin, Todos Santos Bay, Pt. Conception, Point Reyes, Drake's Bay (San Francisco Draco) and the Northernmost Point Blanco. But as you go North, the accuracy is lost and the 'imagined' takes over...

I guess that at that point no one had made it all the way North in the sea of Cortez to the mouth of the Colorado River, and no one had sailed North past point Blanco (Oregon) hence the assumption was that California must be an Island...

Conspicuously, San Francisco Bay is missing altogether from the chart as it must not have been discovered at the time this chart was drawn! The approximate location is shown as the mouth of an ambiguos river mouth... This would date the chart from about the early to mid 1700s.

- A bit of Wiki history: San Francisco Bay was First discovered by the Europeans on November 4, 1769 when Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portolà, unable to find the port of Monterey, California, continued north close to what is now the town of Pacifica and reached the summit of the 1,200-foot (370 m) high Sweeney Ridge, where he sighted San Francisco Bay across the peninsula.

Portola and his party did not realize this was a whole un-discovered bay thinking they had arrived at an inlet of Drake's Bay. At the time, Drake's Bay went by the name Bahia de San Francisco and thus both bodies of water became associated with the name. Eventually, the larger, more important body of water fully appropriated the name San Francisco Bay.

The first European to enter the bay is believed to have been the Spanish explorer Juan de Ayala, who passed through the Golden Gate on August 5, 1775 in his ship the San Carlos, and moored in a bay of Angel Island now known as Ayala Cove. (See Angel Island map in post #80 above).

Sorry for the digression onto history - but it is all pretty amazing that we are still visiting the same virtually unchanged (fortunately) places -by sail- that these guys visited hundreds of years ago...



Anyway, Back to the table... I disassembled the table, cleaned it up, sanded the teak and applied several coats of varnish.

I also sanded the original formica table top to remove some stains and roughen up. I have to say that had I wanted to keep the interior totally original, I could have just polished the formica and it would have been as good as new. It really cleaned up well... Instead, I roughened the surface up a bit for best adhesion and proceeded to epoxy the chart onto it!

I wanted about 1/8" of clear epoxy cover over the whole table (This meant I needed about 1/2 liter of CLEAR epoxy).

I tested the chart print for color-fastness and fortunately the ink on the print was not affected by the epoxy. I stuck the whole table in the oven to warm -up & accelerate the curing while I carefully mixed the clear hardener & resin.

As it turns out, I did not need accelerating the cure... Due to the large volume of epoxy, it went off quite fast. I used a bit of epoxy to set the print on the table and then I poured the rest on top. I poured and almost immediately after spreading the epoxy and achieving a level surface - it set. Had I taken 15 seconds longer I would have had a complete mess on my hands. Instead, it came out very nicely.

Due to an inexplicable late start to this little epoxying project, I ended-up going to bed at about 2 am...

The results are pictured below:
Picture 1: Photo of the chart.

Picture 2: The table installed and in stowed away position.

Picture 3: The table deployed.
Note the nice glow of my warm-light LED bulb under the little lamp shade.


In addition to providing a flat surface for all purposes; I am convinced that this table is good for at least one knot over the water!



*A bit more on the Dutch 'Mijl':
mijl = about 5 km

The mijl was the equivalent of one hour of walking. It was a variable measurement that differed from region to region. One commonly used measurement was the "Holland mile" (Hollandse mijl). The mijl is usually assumed to be the equivalent of the English league, which was also variable but was about three English miles or about five kilometres.

Other equivalents of the various miles in use were the French lieu marine (5,555 m), 20,000 Amsterdam feet (5,660 m) or 20,000 Rijnland feet (6,280 m). Between the introduction of the "Dutch metric system" (Nederlands metriek stelsel) in 1816 and the reforms in 1869, the word "mijl" was used to refer to a kilometre.

[Commander 147]

with a touch of class and attention to detail.

Your chart table is very nautical and looks great. Nice job.

[minksf]

I always wondered about those four islands were I sailed to Utah.

[Rico]

Thanks! -

I'm sure that the last time I saw those islands, I was driving well inland....

I've been taking advantage of the great summer we've been having. The strong summer winds are calming a bit in the San Francisco Bay... We'll be looking forward to their return, but there is plenty of sailing to be done until then. We are still looking forward to a beautiful weekend coming-up for the Fleet Week festivities...

Plans for next weekend (Oct 9 to 11) are here:
http://www.pearsonariel.org/discussi...ead.php?t=2068




Here are a few pictures of some summer 2009 sails so far:

Picture 1: A nice warm day out with a salty crew... We had a great sail in mild winds and warm temperatures. Lack of high-wind duties had the crew well into the grog by mid-day. We had planned a stop at the neighboring port's watering hole, but by the time we reached it, there was clearly no need...

Some of the crew fared better than others upon our return to the dock late in the afternoon due to the 'excesses', but it was still a lot of fun... (NOTE the off-the-shelf 'Mephisto Cat' gear...)

Picture 2: A typical gray but breezy summer day in SF at the Master Mariner's regatta in the Bay; an mazing old ship's race held since the 1800's. The best weather for sailing! (no need to worry about the sun!)

Picture 3: Camping at Angel island. We had a campsite for the 2 boatloads of landlubbing 'passengers' (only one load shown in pic.) while some of the crew planned to stay on the boat at the mooring.

We unloaded everyone's supplies, but did not manage to get too far before stopping for some refreshments. Had we known we had quite the hike to the camp site we would have spent less time 'at the dock' and would have also spent less time fighting in the dark with the raccoons for our dinner !

It is at times like this when you wonder where all the boats/people in the bay have gone to... (-no complaints though!).

Picture 4: Chased by a bigger-badder boat on a wednesday night beer-can race.

[Rico]

I decided to coat the forward hatch on the Mephisto Cat with colored gel-coat... - the renewed 'transluscent' (Clear epoxy) coated portion of the hatch was not doing so well in the sun, as you may imagine... It was good for a few months, but then it started looking as old as it did before the restoration...

I wonder how this transluscent portion did out of the factory back in the day... (You can see a 'Before' picture on Post #94)

Anyway, now has a nice thick coat of white Gel-coat on it! I'm pretty happy with it. It does not let quite as much light in, but it still lets some in. In any case, it is really not a problem as there is enough light coming in from the portlights. It certainly looks better from the outside.


News update:
Somehow I've ended-up the owner (rescuer) of another Commander...
As it turns out it is C-187 and it is in excellent shape.
More details here:
http://www.pearsonariel.org/discussi...ead.php?t=2072

[Rico]

And speaking of Gel-Coating, here is a bit about the much delayed documentation about the gel-coating work on the boat itself:

I've many pictures and trying to pick a few is hard, but here goes...

We started by taking EVERYTHING off. Everything.

C-155 was sitting naked whithout a stitch of hardware (Picture #3). My Friend Guillermo did the bulk of the fine work of the fairing necessary for the gel-coat finish to look smooth and he was also the master of the Gel-coat spraying.

I was fortunate to have his spraying skills available as evidenced by the mess I made when I tried it myself... From early-on, my spraying was limited only to spraying the Gel-coat curing film (Part-all).

After the repair and structural upgrades came the sanding. Lots of sanding. Some poking, reparing, and structural upgrades also happened at this stage, especifically at the hull / deck joint, at the stern chainplate, and at a few dings & scratches that had been collected the boat's lifetime. We also eliminated MANY screw holes of all kinds. A bunch at the companionway bulkhead and house as I deleted all bolt-thru connections. (Picture #1)

When that was all done, we sanded to a rough finish (good for a strong mechanical bond) and applied the first few coats of Gel-coat.

THESE few coats did not turn out so well, as billions of little fish-eyes stared at us from the hull...
- Utter Disaster.

These are tiny bubbles that formed within the original factory Gel-coat / resin and then show-up when the surface is abraded. They were really evident when a good coat was applied to the surface. (Super zoom Picture #2) This was not good... actually, it felt like defeat at the time.

Needless to say, we wanted no more of this, so we went deeper with the abrasives and then, using stiff plastic cards as a spatula, I went over the whole surface with a strong filler in order to avoid any more tiny surface irregularities... (While Guillermo smirked & drank beer, I might add...).

- Then we sanded ALL of THAT OFF, and that left only the tiny bits that were actually captured within the surface irregularities... Uggh! (Picture #4 shows the paste partially sanded off. (-That is about when the first sander died!) The pictures were taken at different stages - we eventually went below the waterline with the prep & the new gel-coat.


I will say that having someone - anyone - to provide a hand with a bit here & there, or even at least help drink a few beers while working makes the most daunting chore much easier. If they have some skill, then the advantage is exponential. Working by yourself is not nearly as much fun...

COLOR
I wanted a light color to avoid high temperatures in the california sun, but there were few stock colors available that seemed appealing to me.

I ended-up buying some dark gray and a bunch of white gel-coat and mixed my own colors. I ended-up with a light shade of gray for the hull and a much lighter shade of gray for the non-skid. The rest is a sort of creamy white - but not near anything like BEIGE...

More to follow shortly...

[Rico]

Here are a few more shots of the gel-coating process. There are no action shots because of the time constraints of the gel-coating. If the resin sets-up while still in the equipment it is just all bad news...

So we'd prep like crazy and then spray like mad as the days were short. Guillermo would spray while I did my best to keep hoses & ourselves away from any surface already coated.
We did several coats at each area applying a nice thick layer each time, in order to up with a nice thick shell.
After the resin was in place we raced to apply a curing compound that keeps oxigen away from the surface allowing it to harden properly and preserving a quality surface finish (we still polished afterwards!). Then came the clean-up.

We usually finished late in the day, and by the time I got around to taking pictures, it was already dark.

If I remember correctly (It is all a bit fuzzy now!) We applied several coats going roughly in this order (we did come back to do more coats on several areas):
- Port side topsides
- Sbd side topsides
- Non-skid
- White areas on deck
- Waterline stripes
- Hatch covers & other bits
- Cabin interior and any other nooks

We did several coats at each area especially at those areas that see the most wear. The waterline stripes received only two coats of the red gel coat.

Picture #1
Spraying the pretty rear end yet again... (This is the closest thing to an action shot!) We started with the transom as a test area, and tested Gel-coat a few times for color & consistency. With all the resin back there, I could get rear ended and most everything will be able to be buffed out! (Not that I'd like to try!)

Picture #2
I believe this is the second two-coat application of the white areas on the deck. The greenish tint is due to the curing compound. I got the green tint version so that we would see where we had a good coverage with the compound and did not leave any gaps. This all washes off easily with just water. It is like a thin coat of Jell-O. I love the stuff... If it is not used, the oxygen exposure prevents the exposed Gel-coat from curing properly resulting in a sticky surface that is quite hard to deal with.

Picture #3
A bit closer to the end... All colors in place. We also mixed that pretty red as the base red was a bit too 'lipstick'... (Note nicely painted outboard plug in place). The waterline stripe at the plug looks a bit weird in the picture, but it is fine in reality... an optical (Photo) illusion. (I checked after looking at this pic!).

Picture #4
Testing looks with the lazarette lid in place. Non-skid is done along with all other colors. No hardware at all is in place yet.
I took this picture when the lid was completed. At that time, I was also installing the new companionway teak and you can see the teak dust everywhere! Note also the ton of dust inside the lazarette due to a dusty Santa ana wind....

[Commander 147]

These shots really show off your pretty gray topsides. Thanks for posting them it has made me lean more toward doing the same color on Destiny.

Since I don't personally know anyone else that has done a re-gelcoat to their boat I have a few questions to better understand the process. I hope you don't mind.

1.) After the gelcoat has cured I assume you have to sand with progressively finer grit and then buff it out. Is that assumption correct?

2.) How exactly did you handle the non-skid? Do you have some kind of pattern in the new gel-coat on the non-skid?

3.) What kind of prep did you have to do to the smooth and non-skid areas prior to shooting the gelcoat?

4.) How long ago was it that you did the gelcoat and how well has it held up?

5.) Have you been waxing the boat on a regular basis to keep her looking good?

[Rico]

1.) After the gelcoat has cured I assume you have to sand with progressively finer grit and then buff it out. Is that assumption correct?
-The finish is quite smooth after the initial spraying and due to the use of the curing compound there is no sticky residue on the top layer. Having said that, the gel coat spray is quite thick and in order to end-up with a glassy smooth finish, you do have to sand (1200 grit+) & then polish. It works quite nicely.

2.) How exactly did you handle the non-skid? Do you have some kind of pattern in the new gel-coat on the non-skid?
-C-155's non skid (the original texture) was in amazingly good condition so we simply cleaned these areas up using a soft wire brush in order not to damage the basket-weave texture. This only got a couple of light coats as to not drown the texture. We did this as a trial initially, but saw that it worked pretty well, so we called it good... I did not sand, or polish these areas.
It is not comparable to the sandpaper-like finish on some other boats I sail on, but I'm pretty happy even with the wet performance on the original texture. I imagine that eventually, I'll have to go with a non-skid coating on those areas, but this will be quite a few years down the line. Since I've done this I've seen many coatings used, and some are much more appealing than others. I am very happy with the results.

3.) What kind of prep did you have to do to the smooth and non-skid areas prior to shooting the gelcoat?
-See #2 above for the non-skid areas on the deck.
The boat was in very good condition structurally - there were no areas that were weak or suffering from delamination, and no major dings or impact damage. We sanded down to clean and uncompromised material. It is amazing how well the materials have held-up!
After applying a few coats on the topsides and discovering the little bubbles in the original gel coat we sanded some more and then used a filler to make sure we had a completely smooth surface.
We then sanded the filler away (except where the little bubbles captured a bit of filler ensuring that we left a rough surface and removed all dust and residue before spraying the new gel-coat.
There was a bit of a scar from a ding on the stern rail and here we had to do a bit of skin surgery (glass work) to make sure that it was solidly repaired and smooth for paint. As they say - all the work is in the prep. It is very true.

Another area that we focused on was the hull-deck joint; Since I wanted to do away with the rubrail trim pieces... In this area there was quite a bit of focus to seal the joint stoutly and then fair the surfaces so that it would look nicely finished once the Gel-coat came on. The visual transition made with the trim was made instead by the change-in-color line at about the same line as the deck joint. You may have noticed that there is a bit of an angle change at the rail as you come up from the hull curve, we followed that line for the color change.

4.) How long ago was it that you did the gelcoat and how well has it held up?
-The Gel-Coat is two and a half years old now, and it is holding-up beautifully. I've heard some horror stories around the marina about gel coat jobs that cost a fortune and then fall apart in a year. I've personally never seen any like this, and would recommend the gel-coat work thouroughly. Of course; if you do not do the work yourself, the cost to simply disassemble the hardware on the boat is outrageous! You may be able to paint around stuff, but gel coating around stuff would be a disaster.


5.) Have you been waxing the boat on a regular basis to keep her looking good?
-I gave the boat an insanely good wax job prior to launch, but I have not done so since then - been too busy sailing! I am planning on doing this soon. I am a stickler for wax on my cars and feel guilty about not doing it on the boat more often. The boat does not look like it needs it, but I'm sure it will help to reduce the potential UV damage. BTW - I really like Collonite's fleet wax. It is a great product intended for marine and aviation applications.

6.) What products did you use & How much?
-I used Valspar Coatings' Gel coat. I bought a dark gray (1ea. 5 Gal. Pail) and their nice basic white (2 ea. 5 Gal pails - I bought the second pail only AFTER I decided to re-do the interior...) and 1 qt of bright Red for the waterline stripes. I mixed my own colors using the colors mentioned (with the addition of a few drops here & there of Gel coat coloring agent to tweak the red into my desired shade)

This was enough to do all the coats we ended up doing on C-155 (probably 3 times the minimum thickness needed!!), plus all of the interior in white (VERY thick), and a bunch of odds & ends (e.g: the lead pigs & a metal grating door -not on the boat!). I figure that the second pail went mostly on the inside. We only had about 1 gallon of White & 1/2 Gallon of the hull gray, and about 1/2 qt of red left over. We used all of the light gray mixed at that time, but I've since matched a bit I needed when installing the sail track.


147 - I'm glad that the pictures helped. If you still need more please let me know.

[Commander 147]

That was very helpful in understanding the process. From the pictures I've seen I agree with the guy that said you have the only new commander in existence.

[ebb]

Just beautiful work,
really is amazing!

I don't recall anybody on the net handling and spraying on gelcoat to the extent you guys have. Never seen it done at the yard.

It's so professional it's like you do it all the time!
If you came cold to this miracle and didn't reinvent the wheel so to speak....
REALLY IS AMAZING.

Restoration at its finest.

[Rico]

Thanks! -I'll be sure to pass along a fair share of the compliments.

I was fortunate to participate in the 2009 edition of the Baja ha-ha Rally from San Diego to Cabo (at the tip of the Baja Peninsula) at the end of October.

I am working on a bit of a write-up about the adventure... but while I finish here are a few of the pictures I took.

To keep this thread on topic I'll leave most of the details on the 'S/v Mystic - Seattle to Calais' thread in the Sailing & Events section which is focuses on this portion of the Voyage. (Link below) Please add comments there where I've posted a few more pictures and a short video taken as the conditions built showing some big swells:
http://www.pearsonariel.org/discussi...ead.php?t=2077


Here is the link to the little video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlqZpBYer2Y

Picture 1a: Arriving at Cabo. - The arch at the entrance to the cabo harbor. (This should be the last picture, but linked pictures show-up first... I'll plan better next time!)

Attached pictures:

Picture 1: Day 1; Great weather at the start this is a picture as we sailed past the Coronados (Northernmost Mexican Islands). We had our spinnaker up as the gun went off.

Picture 2: Great sunrise & nice weather after some 24hrs of 20-25 kt winds, gusts to 30kt with 15-20ft seas. This picture was taken on our approach to Bahia Santa Maria. We went far offshore chasing the wind as conditions lightened and approached our anchorage pretty much heading directly East.
One boat went to the bottom due to an impact with a whale while surfing down the face of one of these waves (all crew OK). Another got some sort of heavy line wrapped around the keel, and it dragged for some 4 hrs. Several goosenecks broke on gybes.
We were short-handed due to seasickess among the crew but fared well. We were quite tired, but had quite a bit of fun. (Not so bad with following wind & seas) We hit 11.7 knots several times while 'surfing' - in a 'Passport 40'. I imagine the Passports' hull-speed is around 6-7 Knots???
-See video on linked thread above.


Picture 3: Most of the time we had 'Perfect' sailing weather that allowed for fishing. We caught a Tuna (22") and two Dorados (Mahi-Mahi) (both at 44")
Most boats had very good luck with the fish. We made Sashimi & Ceviche, as snacks. Fish tacos, and nice fillets (Grilled /in garlic sauce/ Pan fried) for lunches and dinners.

We also caught 2 small Albacore tuna (twins at about 14"). We decided to let them go... I've seen them top 100lbs and I felt sorry for the little guys... plus we already had lots of fish at that point.

Picture 4: A relaxing sunset... The coming night was my first experience flying every stitch of sail at night. The radio often sounded with comments from people saying how this particular passage was the best sailing of their lives... Pretty darn perfect. This was taken during our last night before arriving in Cabo. During a slight calm (Warm!) we had to cool off overboard - 80 miles offshore! Shorts and T-shirts were our cold weather gear for the night.

[Rico]

Unlike the coambings, the Mephisto Cat's companionway teak was not in great shape... It did not look horribly bad for 40 year-old wood, but it had remained unprotected for quite a few years and was showing some threatening cracks.
The side companionway board rails, the hatch rails, and the piece at the bottom (that typically serves as a step) also showed significant wear. If one piece had to come off - It all had to come off...

Replacing the wood felt as the most daunting process even though there is not that much of it... I'm comfortable working with wood and would have liked to do the fine work myself, but I did not have access to the right woodworking tools, and I also thought that the teak would cost a bundle. Fortunately, I found a shop that had some nice leftover scrap pieces and I bought enough to complete a new companionway and traveler base. (just BARELY enough as it turned out!)

I asked a carpenter who had done some nice work for my parents to replicate each of the pieces -generously- as I planned to do the fine fitting as I installed the new wood in place... This is not the most efficient way of creating a new companionway (or anything) and the resulting fit was not factory perfect, but it turned out MUCH better that I thought it would. This method also made the installation take much longer than it should have...




Picture 1
Dry-run install & fine fitting of the teak companionway pieces before applying any varnish.

-I made sure to remove the beer bottles from view, but forgot about the bottle caps!-

You can see that the companioway BOARDS were in VERY nice shape. They are also made of teak, and although weathered a bit they seem unafected by age. Over time, they have developed a great texture. I made sure to NOT sand this away...

A few pieces are missing in this picture. The bottom plate (under the step piece) really adds lots for looks.

Picture 2
All the new pieces getting a little sun after a few coats of varnish -after they've all been trimmed, drilled, and fitted. The boat still on the hard at this point. It all seems so long ago...

It is right about then that I started thinking that tearing into the interior and putting in a nice coat of Gel-coat all over the interior would be a good idea... A project in its own right! Should have started with that!

Picture 3
Almost a full view of the finished product sortly after the initial 'mastless' splash, and the post-splash installation of the mast, coambings, deck hardware, traveler & base, etc. I'll have to take a picture of the full companionway... shiny wood certainly adds a ton of 'looks' to any boat...

This picture is before the first sail - note the missing winch base on the port side, nav lights, scupper plates, etc. There is also no boom yet.

... There are some more companionway pictures in the next post(s).

[Commander 147]

you have one of the best looking commanders out there. My goal is to make Destiny look as good as Mephisto Cat. I remember the first time I saw your companionway after it was redone. I thought to myself back then "I can't wait until mine looks that good"

So your companionway boards were teak huh? Mine look original and were all mahogany just like the combing boards. I wonder if Pearson made a change somewhere along the way but your boat is only 8 hulls away from mine. Now I have to wonder if maybe mine were replaced somewhere along the way??????

[Rico]

Thanks Jerry!
- Yes; The Mephisto Cat's (C-155) brightwork is ALL teak. I imagine teh Mahogany on C-147 must be original as the upgrade would have been VERY expensive... But who knows. It seems that Pearson offered different trim options for the interior layout, Interior fixtures, deck equipment, and I/b or O/b motors... Perhaps the choice of wood used was also an option?

C-187 had all Mahogany brightwork, which looked like it was the original brightwork... - and it will be getting all new Mahogany during refurbishment. It was hard to find THAT material as it was...
- I cannot imagine what a 1'-2" x 3/4" x 10'-6" teak board would cost - even if you could find it!!

Finally sailing after the 2010 very WET season!
The Official season opening race on the bay is in two weeks... Last year we had a very mild winter and it was not hard at all to sail right through. We even some 80 degree days in February and did quite a bit of sailing around the bay even before opening day.

This year, on the other hand, is has been VERY wet, and it was not until this past weekend that I managed to get a full weekend-sail in nice weather -after enough dry days to complete a few projects -in addition to 'spring cleaning'...
- As we all do; I do still have a long list of pending upgrades & little projects.

I had a sailor friend in town, and not only did we manage a sail down to Sausalito; but he also helped with a couple little boat projects. What a pleasure it is to have a bit of help now & then!! - At least to help dirink the beer!

We took off in light winds (about 10kt) on the ebb tide in bright sunshine, but it slowly picked-up as we got closer to the central Bay. We were entertained by some large ship trafffic while in San Pablo Bay. By the time we reached Richmond, we had 10-15kt winds with a few puffs and we could see a few other sailboats.

We reached Sausalito and had a few other friends meet us for a beer at the slip before we headed off to dinner at one of the cafes. We spent a great night on the boat, and after a good breakfast on-shore we went sailing again. We spent a bit of time in the central Bay and then headed back home riding a nice strong flood. We lost the wind for a while, but then a light westerly set-in and we swiched to the mighty 180% genoa and sailed wing - on - wing.

Picture 1: Great sailing in mild conditions... A bit of wind - plus the ebb tide pushing us along... The ebb tide pulls a lot of river sediment along making the water murky.

Picture 2: Another shot right after lunch and a beer...

Picture 3: Having a rest after stowing the boat away for the night.

Picture 4: These racers did not stand a chance against the lightning fast Mephisto Cat!!! (-relatively lightning fast!)... We flew past all of them before they took off towards Angel island. It was fun watching these little sailors cruise along in the little dinghies - and we did make sure to stay well clear.

- I wish I'd gotten into sailing that early! These sailing kids are doing drills, rounding markers and enjoying some excellent sailing in Raccoon straights; An area that is well respected by sailors in much larger boats!

Picture 5: On a Strarboard tack