LETTERS
RIGGING UPGRADES
⇑⇓ GOD'S WARNING SYSTEM
GREG CLAUSEN
I wanted to sail [during a windy weekend in midMay], but nature said no! This photo was taken while I was safe in my slip. I wondered why people were not checking their lines like I was. Greg Clausen Free Spirit, Beneteau Oceanis 390 Umm, maybe we should see what movies are playing? Tiburon
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Page 32 •
Latitude 38
(510) 521-7027
• July, 2018
⇑⇓ THE FUTILITY OF PERFECTION I have been sailing and "messing around with boats" for over 50 years, and I've learned that we will make mistakes. Most of the time, they don't kill us. Often, we think we're competent until we do something that slaps us upside the head and reminds us how fallible we are. I worked many years in the aviation industry where there's little room for error, so I consider myself quite meticulous with a great ability to pay attention to detail. However, on my boat, I may have been a little lax. I had removed the wheel steering cable to lube it and replace critical components. Upon reassembling, unknown to me, I reversed the chain on the sprocket. Fast forward six months. I have decided to move my boat to a new marina across the Bay, and it is a beautiful day, so I invite my girlfriend to accompany me. I foolishly back out of the slip without checking which way the rudder is turning and find, much to my dismay, that the rudder is going the opposite way from which it should go. So in reverse, and when I hope the bow will swing to port, it swings to starboard and vice versa. I am in a very narrow channel and don't have a lot of time to figure this out. But once I realize what's happening, I decide that I've steered a boat with a tiller for many years, so I will pretend that this wheel is a tiller. My girlfriend has very little sailing experience but is very intuitive and realizes something is awry. She realizes that maybe the dufus behind the wheel doesn't knows what he's doing. When we return to a slip that's empty, I open the binnacle and reverse the chain on the sprocket and then the rudder moves as it should. This time I check it. And then we a have a beautiful sail across the Bay, arriving at the marina at sundown, with nature doing what it does best, putting the sun to bed. Had I not messed up the chain connection, we would have been too early for the sunset. As Shakespeare said, "All's well that ends well." Tim Rogers CAVU, C&C 40 CAVU San Francisco Bay ⇑⇓ DELTA CRUISING DESTINATIONS We enjoyed seeing you again and participating in the Delta Doo Dah X Kickoff Party. After listening to the presentation on where to go in the Delta I realized that there isn't a current guide for DDD'ers about the what-and-where information. I looked at your website on Delta Events and the reference to the commercial Delta Chambers site but really didn't see a lot of sailing and anchoring information. What's your feeling for Active Captain and its database of the Delta? I haven't really explored it since the change of ownership and integration with Garmin. You can check out Active Captain at www.activecaptain.com/livemap. The website gives you access to the maps, but you have to join to
