Sailing at Warp Speed
Voyage 9, Marina del Rey, October 18, 2003
It was only 96 hours earlier that Ron and I endured sailing at speeds where it seemed like we could swim faster. But, in those hours, my divers had been by to clean the bottom. I expected a moderate boost in speed and I would not be disappointed.
After a quick setup we pushed back and started moving. As normal procedure, as soon as the boat made it half way into the channel a gave a quick burst of reverse. What I had experienced before was a slow backwards pull, but this time it was anything but slow. The boat literally shot backwards, coming precariously close to the boats slipped across from me. In fact Danny started to run from the bow to the stern to fend off before I shifted into forward to get us turned and headed out. It was obvious at this point that the cleaning had made a huge difference. We pointed into the channel and quickly came up to nearly hull speed at 6 knots, and that was at quarter throttle. In comparison, when Ron and I had gone out earlier in the week, full throttle got us maybe 2 knots. It was an amazing difference.
Once into the basin we hoisted the main, checked what little wind there was and headed out the north entrance and off to the Santa Monica buoy. It was an great afternoon, clear, smallish swell and warm. A few other boats joined us on the water, a few Catalinas, a MacGregor and a Beneteau. It was smooth sailing...
About half way to the buoy, we tacked and turned back. And after a few minutes on a broad reach we were back inside the breakwater. Once inside we seemed to loose all the wind, and we actually motored from the flag back to the slip—the first time we didn’t go wing and wing down the channel.
After a routine docking, we tied up and headed to Tony P’s for some drinks...