Sunset Cruise on the Bay

Sunday I went out on Tim Anderson's Free Yacht. See here for more details on how he got this free yacht.

Tim is a first rate scrounger and thus an embodiment of the skinboat ethic. The skinboat ethic is that nothing should be bought that can be scrounged. It's not every skinboat builder's ethic, but it is mine and it used to be the ethic of the original skinboat builders. Not that they had a choice. They had to build their boats out of found materials. We don't. Nowadays they don't either. And so they don't. Tim taking a call.

This was a sunset cruise. Start out at about 5:30 and go till sunset at about 7:30.

The sun being close to setting, the golden gate toward the left.

I don't know anything about sailing, but it seems like the trimaran has certain assets, the main being that it is wide and so there is not much of the usual heeling over and scrambling to stay more or less upright that you get with keel boats. Given this property, there is not so much of the usual annoying scrambling about. One can settle into a spot and stay there.
Another asset of the trimaran is relatively shallow draft. One does not have to worry as much about running aground on mud flats and resting there until the tide comes in again.

Tim took a bunch of people aboard for this cruise, something like 18 and we all fit comfortably on the deck. Different people took turns at the tiller, steering the boat this way and that. Sailing is a pleasant activity, provided where one aims to go can be gotten to by a zigzag course. Our intention was to head over to Treasure Island to pick someone up, but the wind was directly off Treasure island and so the tacks were long and didn't produce much forward progress. Not much one can do about that. But anyway, we ran out of time and turned back to run before the wind toward the harbor in Emeryville.

It was nice to be out on the water and have the wind in our face. All in all an experience that is the perfect antidote to life in the city and all its discontents.