1st day out on Tempest

1st day with Tempest
Current mood: Tired

Today was the first day that we took out Tempest.

As we drove down the Long Beach the outlook was bleak as grey skys didn't seem to let up and a couple of drops hit our windshield.  I'd complain but seeing as California has basically been a cinderbox this week any rain is good rain even if it interferes with our sailing.

This being only the second time out to the small harber on the leeward side of terminal island in San Pedro I got lost twice trying to get there but finally made it and Kari saw for the first time what Cheap Seat Marinas look like.  At $8.00 a foot including electricity you can hardly complain about anything, she didn't audibly, but you could tell this was below her comfort level.  After seeing that the bathrooms and showers were more spotless than any at the more expensive harbors her mood picked up about the little harbor and she thought that tempest looked even better than in her pictures.

After a quick runthrough I looked around and realizing that there wasn't an ounce of wind decided we'd motor out past the breakwater and give Jacob a chance to fish.  This also offered a good time for him to practice using the Tiller as it's easier when you're not dealing with the sails.

Once past the breakwater we drifted down towards the Long Beach Harbor entrance while Jacob fished.  He pulled 3 total Mackarel out of the water using nothing but cheap lures that came with his kiddy rod kit, ocean fishing is so easy.  We kept two so he could get a chance to eat what he caught.

As we rounded the harbor entrance I shagged on the Jib, unfortunately, quite cumberlously as I wasn't used to all the rigging and the wind really started to pick up.  Suddenly we were Close Reaching at 5.5 knots without even trying.  Kari is uncomfortable with any heal over 15 or 20 degrees so I kept the main luffing just a bit to make it a easy ride. 

Sea Launch, a multi national consortium set to launch satellites into orbit for a reasonable cost was in port and there was a treat as they had a rocket on the 25 story launch.  If you haven't seen it before in pictures, it looks like a huge oil rig platform with four legs and a large flat deck with a building on one side.  The difference is this thing is self propelled and travels some 1500 miles from long beach to the equater to launch it's rocket.  And yes that's still a lot less than using NASA.

A storm system moved in on us and we must have been getting a very consistent 20+ kts and I talked Kari through Reefing the sail on Tempest.  Bob has done such a great job on the engineering and maintenance of this boat that she was able to reef it very easily with little instruction.  This helped with the healing and we still made 6+ kts back up to the San Pedro lighthouse.

Tacking one last time Tempest turned into our harbor the wind absolutely stopped. I mean Stopped.  I have never seen water that glassy and after drifting for a few minutes we started the motor and went back in.  A great day to break in the boat with just about everything thrown at us even a bit of rain.  Can't wait to go again.  I'll leave you with this phot of Jacob looking out at the Horizon, you can almost see him planning his destiny.