A perfect evening, other than the generator

Chris King · #1 (**permalink**) 10-15-2011

Last night I had a excellent boat trip.

In the San Francisco Bay Area our summers are mostly cold and foggy but we often get some nice warm weather in the fall. I was thinking we would miss out this year when we got some early rain storms but just this past week we got some really excellent weather.

My 13 year old son is taking a boat building class in Sausalito on Saturdays, so I thought this week we would take Puffin, our Alden 44, over to Angel Island and spend Friday night in Ayala Cove and then scoot over to Sausalito for a early breakfast at the Lighthouse Cafe, drop my son off at Spaulding Boat Works then my wife and I could have a leisurely sail back to Richmond.

It all went off with out a hitch. There wasn't a lot of wind friday night so we motored over and found a mooring ball to a nice Herreshoff Ketch on its way from British Columbia to points south. My wife made this excellent marinated steak dish for the grill. Warm breezes. Big moon.

The one hitch was the jerk behind us in a powerboat running his generator for hours. I hate generators with a passion. They seem explicitly designed to foul quiet anchorages.

This morning we had zipped over the the guest dock at Schoonmaker and walked over to breakfast. I ran into a great old friend that was doing a kayak race today. The wind was perfect so I could sail off the dock on the way out. I love doing that when I can. Out in the channel we were moving along next to Yucca, a 8 meter owned by a local rigger and one of the nicest looking boats on the bay. Nice easy broad reach home.

All in all a great day.

Faster · #2 (**permalink**) 10-15-2011

Nice story.... totally with you on the generator thing. Never could understand why ANY boat would be built with electric ranges..

Now if only those methanol fuel cells would come down in price....

Tempest · #3 (**permalink**) 10-15-2011

Very nice! The lighthouse...I think I remember stopping there for breakfast once...large delicious pancakes?

jimrafford · #4 (**permalink**) 10-16-2011

Completely w/ you on the generators. Very annoying. We once had a pair of power boats anchor on top of us rafted together that ran their gensets all night for their ac. Wana guess how much sleep we got that night. I will remember their club birgie forever. I have become more proactive and just move if we can. The new portable Honda gensets are adding to the problem. People are clueless how loud those things are after dark.
Jim

imagine2frolic · #5 (**permalink**) 10-16-2011

Not only is Yucca a pretty boat. She's also one of the most winning boats on the bay.

I can only imagine the generator echoing off the trees, and hillsides. Ayala will be one of my first stops when I get home......i2f

hellosailor · #6 (**permalink**) 10-16-2011

Chris, after the first hour you are allowed to slip into a wet suit, paddle over with a can of Great Stuff (insulating foam) and apply it generously to any water intake you find on the boat. Offs are it will be much quieter after that.

Everybody wants to help Santa, until they find out some of the elves also have to wrap coal. Hey, that's the help Santa REALLY needs.

FarCry · #7 (**permalink**) 10-16-2011

Not all generators are noisy. I despise the loud ones like everyone else. There are some that are so quiet you can't tell if they are running at all. The quiet ones seem to seperate the water and and air so there is no motor noise and no water spashing. Before choosing a spot for the night we are always on the lookout upwind for wind generators and the dreaded motorized ones too...

Great Stuff seems like an OK solution but I'm thinking the plastic garbage bags from the store would be easier and readily available...

PalmettoSailor · #8 (**permalink**) 10-16-2011

Lest we leave the opinion that the type a-hole that runs a generator all night is always a powerboat owner, on the club cruise I lead this summer I had a sailboat owner do the same only they were RAFTED to my boat. I don't like rafting, especially overnight, and the only reason we were in that situation was their windless broke and they couldn't get it cleared to drop the anchor on their newish upper tier production boat.

I was hot as hades, so they ran their generator and AC while we got to listen and sweat with our open ports. It was all I could do to refrain from throwing off their lines during the night.