Link to all the images in a google album
Thanks to Jim and Jay for helping put together the 2022 Northern California Rendezvous! It was a success with 6 Westsail 32s and a boat load of folks who showed up to hang out and talk Westsail! The crew at Owl Harbor Marina were beyond helpful and friendly and helped make the event a success. It was baking hot weather and our guest speakers Margie and Larry from W32 Althea had RV issues and had to leave the area but were able to zoom in and share with us epic stories from their recent 7 year circumnavigation! Bud Taplin was on hand to share stories and advice as well as quite a few new Westsail wanna be folks in the process of looking for their dream Westsail. Hopefully they will part of the fleet next year.
The boats in attendance were:
W32 Aerides II
W32 Glorious
W32 Pelican
W32 Pygmalion
W32 Tortuga
W32 Worldwind
From the log of Tortuga:
Danielle, Sailor and I left Pier 39 Thursday morning at 0630 and began our motor sail up the Sacramento river delta.
We had a nice breeze of about 12 knots across the bay with the wind pretty much becoming calm behind Angel Island. I’ve been having an issue with what I thought was the bilge pump hose backfilling and doing a continuous cycle and could see the pump was running as we sailed across the bay. (I just replaced the bilge pump and hoses at my haul out in January) After further investigation I saw a mini waterfall coming from the cockpit drain hose that exits along the water line in the engine compartment.
Good times. Turned the engine off and put a seat cushion on top so could I could reach the leaking hose all the way aft and not burn myself on the engine. I got it to slow with some wraps of duct tape and that solved that issue for the moment.
The drain hose cracked and split where it attaches to the thru hull behind the double hose clamps. Time for a new one!
To keep things interesting the engine was running about 20-30 deg hotter than normal. The repair I did to the heat exchanger full cap with permatex wasn’t holding well anymore and was leaking coolant a bit and steaming off.
We made it to Benicia at about 1130 and pulled into the fuel dock there to meet Jay on W32 Pygmalion and Bob, former owner of W32 Satori. I took Sailor off for a quick pit stop in the grass and then we continued on. It was blazing hot hitting about 110 deg that day. So glad we have the bimini that attaches to the dodger for more shade. Earlier in the day I was running the engine at 2200 RPMs which is the top limit I run it at. After the stop over in Benicia I kept it at 1900 RPMs and that kept the engine temp normal and seemed to have eases the steaming affect. There was very little breeze and we passed under the Antioch Bridge about 1430.
We had favorable current the whole way doing about 6.5-7 knots motoring! It was pretty uneventful the rest of the voyage and was just incredibly hot. We arrived at Owl Harbor about 1600 and Jim from W32 Resolve and Ed from W32 Glorious were there to grab our dock lines. Including the stop in Benicia, the whole trip was 9 1/2 hours which is a pretty good run time from Pier 39. So as if 2 repairs to deal with wasn’t enough, things come in 3’s I guess.
The fresh water pump decided to stop working and wouldn’t shut off and kept cycling so I took that apart with Jay and we weren’t able to get it to work properly so had to install a new one.
On Friday I was able to catch a ride to the West Marine in Antioch (Thanks Jim!) and get all the needed parts etc. I also re seated the fill cap neck with a higher temp Permatex that needed to set for 24 hours.
Checking on the repair on the heat exchanger fill neck prior to leaving on Sat evening I discovered a new gremlin. The heat exchanger air vent loop was leaking at a pretty good stream. The flow was running down on the fresh water pump so that’s probably why it was so crusty and bit the dust. I tried to get it to hold with rescue tape but it was still leaking and it was really late so I went to sleep at that point. I got up super early Sunday to make another try and I was able to wrap the vent loop more with some rescue tape and it held.
We left Owl Harbor at 0700 Sunday am along with Pygmalion. It was a mellow motor with about 10 knots of breeze on the nose. We passed under the Antioch bridge at 0900. We were riding the ebb until just after Pittsburg. Its really ugly where the New York Slough meets the Sacramento river delta. The counter currents and eddies make for a swirling good time along with the change of the current direction. We really slowed down at that point to about 4.5 knots and we’re fighting the flood all the way the Vallejo. By the time we got to the Carquinez bridge at 1300 we were doing 3.5 knots. We hugged the shore on the Martinez side of the channel and got about 1.5 knots of current relief. Pygmalion has the exact same Beta 38 engine but with a 17” Maxprop as opposed the 16” Maxprop on Tortuga as well as the Dave King mod was opened up more, so Jay can motor about a knot faster than Tortuga. Thanks to Andrea and Mike from W32 Aerides II, they had reached out to the Vallejo Yacht Club and helped us get a space on their guest dock for the night. We arrived at Vallejo Yacht Club at 1500. I thought it would be best to stop there and wait to make the final part of the trip back to SF in the morning when the winds generally settle down and I knew it was cranking in the slot that day. The folks at VYC were super friendly and all checked to make sure we were all good and comfortable. After a much needed rest, Tortuga and Pygmalion departed Vallejo Yacht Club at 0615 on Monday am. We were ripping down the Napa river at 8 knots just outside the Break wall. I was hoping to have a calm and dry motor ride home, but as soon as we turned and got out in San Pablo Bay it was a wicked cauldron of a 15 knot SW breeze on the nose with a nasty fetch. Although we had the ebb in our favor, it was running up against the wind and shallow waters creating a sloppy salt sprayed ride back. We passed under the San Rafael Bridge at 0900 and finally things started to mellow out a bit. I got ready with a reefed main to get across the slot but that final stretch was most mellow part of the trip back with almost no wind. We arrived safely back at P39 at 1030. Not having sailed the boat in about 5 months due to the fact I was helping my friend get his boat ready for the Pacific Cup Race probably lead to the repair projects popping up all at once. Luckily none of them were super serious and could be fixed along the way.
All in all it was a great weekend.
Randy, Danielle & Sailor
W32 Tortuga
~~~_/)~~~