This has been the windiest spring I can remember. In years past, we have a few days of these horrendously windy episodes, with wind topping 50 knots, scattered throughout the late spring, but we have never had a spring like this.
For the last two weeks the wind has picked up to 40 plus knots every afternoon, day after day. Usually, when the sun goes down, the wind takes a break. But not this year. All through the night our boat lurches and shudders against her dock lines as the hurricane rages on.
We store a stack of inexpensive plastic patio chairs on the flying bridge. Usually they are very well mannered and only require a quick flip of a cloth to remove the accumulated dust prior to being put into service. These damn chairs have been stomping and bouncing against their imposed bondage. They sound like a dancing pony show as the ceaseless wind continues to roar through the Daly City Gap. We have tried moving the chairs, but being made of light plastic, they continue to stomp their feet. Last night I was wishing they would just finally blow away for good. Let our guests sit on the deck! I don’t care! Anything for a peaceful nights sleep....
Our slip is cross wind, as are almost all of the slips in Oyster Cove. Whoever designed and planned our marina must have had a severe sadistic streak because not only are the slips situated in a crosswind configuration, but the fairways are extremely narrow, making exiting the marina on a windy day a challenge, to put it politely. The wind catches the stern the moment it slides out of the slip, forcing the bow in the opposite direction. Luckily our neighbors on the upwind side are spending the summer in Alaska and are not around to witness our near catastrophic collisions with their shrouds. We haven’t hit them yet, but not for want of trying.
The adventure is not over at that point. Oh no, we still have to maneuver the stern around in the narrow fair way. I have seen many people just give up trying to turn the bow into the wind and exit the fairway in reverse, or worse, give up entirely. Mary Buckman has one of the very few downwind slips in our marina. Getting out of the slip on a windy day is no problem for Mary, but coming back in the afternoon was always a nightmare before she came up with this clever solution.
Her boat, Shantung, is a Cheoy Lee Clipper Ketch and has a full keel. Full keel boats don’t stop on a dime and Mary was always fearful of spearing her neighbor, who is situated cross wind, broadside with her bow sprit as she came screaming into her slip. Her solution was to rig huge hawser-like lines across her slip in an ‘X’ before she leaves for a sail. The lines work to grab and hold the bow like a cradle before it can be carried by the wind up and over the foreward end of the dock. We like to say that in Oyster Cove the boating ain’t for weenies.
On the bright side, there are only five more months until the end of the windy season....
