The Schooner MAYAN’s 2023 Year-end Wrap Up
The smell of turkey cooking fills the air, it’s time to look back and enjoy what MAYAN was up to during 2023, and give a hint of where she’s going in 2024.
As many of you know, your author spent a great deal of time in 2023 serving as the Commodore of St. Francis Yacht Club. The only reason for mentioning it here is that MAYAN became the Club’s flagship and spent the year berthed at the Club’s docks in San Francisco Bay. On a lovely day in late November of 2022, our longest serving crew member, Matthew Coale joined Rob Franks and Chris Hofmann, to help me bring MAYAN up from her home port in Santa Cruz, CA. For the first time, MAYAN would be more than a 10 minute drive from our home, and keeping her well maintained would require some planning. Now, on to the racing…
StFYC Interclub Regatta
In late April, the Club holds its annual Interclub Regatta. A members-only pursuit race around San Francisco Bay it is taken more seriously than one would expect. After all, bragging rights at the Club bar are pretty important. We were joined by Vice Commodore Perkins who is a tremendous sailing talent and took MAYAN’s helm for a few of the legs.
The weather was spectacularly beautiful with a good wind, clear skies, and a complex set of tidal currents that makes racing on San Francisco Bay so interested and frustraiting.
In the image above, the black lines crudely represent what the current was doing. The official tidal forecast was for a very strong ebb. What doesn’t appear in the official forecast is that it was time for a record snow pack to melt, and the run off of freshwater would be added to the ebb as it all tried to exit the Golden Gate. Not all the water would fit out the Gate, so it started to swirl around a little to the north of the Golden Gate, and a LOT to the south.
Starting in the middle of the image above at the bottom, the goal was to get out to the ebb in the middle of the bay as quickly as possible to ride it upwind against the westerly breeze. You can see our course northwest course arch toward the west as we entered the stronger ebb current. We then headed southwest again to the Blackaller windward mark. The next mark was Harding Rock buoy at the top of the image above. But, having observe the swirling of current our navigator Lance Berc and tactician Cristopher “Lewwy” Lewis agreed it would be better to head east in the favorable counter current and then reach north to the mark. We passed all but 4 of the boats ahead of us on this leg.
From Harding Rock to Fort Mason it was a beam reach, and nothing reaches like a schooner! MAYAN was in her element and passed two more boats. After rounding the Fort Mason mark, we banged the north side of the beat back to Blackaller to get the ebb flow, passing the last of our competition, and rode the counter current down to the finish at the Clubhouse.
MAYAN had exactly the conditions she needed and a crew that knew the currents; it was a wonderful day on the water.
Flagship — Doing her Duty:
Then next day, cleaned and polished, MAYAN served as the Flagship for the Opening Day of Yachting on San Francisco Bay. This is a great tradition that includes a multi-denominational blessing of the fleet, good food, good grog, and good fellowship.
For the first time in a long time, MAYAN didn’t race in the Master Mariner’s Regatta so that I could attend the St Francis Yacht Club Memorial Day Cruise at Tinsley Island. This would be a pattern for the year. Service to the Club as Commodore would require a greatly reduced racing schedule.
Cruises to Tinsley Island
One of many great features of our Club is an island purchased decades ago and developed into a destination in the warm climate of California’s central valley. A 75 nautical mile easterly cruise across the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bays, then up the San Joaquin river; sailors arrive at a magical place. Each year there are five major cruises, sailing camps for kids, and weeks of frolic away from the fog and strong winds of San Francisco Bay.
MAYAN would spend many weeks at Tinsley Island, and make the passages between the San Francisco Club house and the island four times. The passages became a great opportunity to get away from email and phone calls, spending time with new friends and long term crew members.
Because the delta and river are tidal, the trip to Tinsley can be made by riding one favorable flood tide. As a result the MAYAN record for the eastward trip to the island is 6-hrs 34-min. However, getting back requires either two floods and an ebb or two ebbs and a flood. Despite the choice of which tides to sail in being rather obvious to the inexperienced, it is made massively more complex when it becomes apparent that the strong winds of the western bays will make for a rough and slow beat to windward in an ebb tide, and the rapid currents of narrows like the Carquinez Straits can make the trip painfully slow. MAYAN record for the westward trip back to the StFYC docks is 7-hrs 42-min, accomplished in the middle of the night under power. Our prior sloop, S’AGAPO, had to give up entirely on one occasion and return to Tinsley, and stop at the Vallejo Yacht Club for a surprise visit on another. Progress was simply impossible. But, that’s what makes cruising fun, it shouldn’t ever be set to an external schedule.
Our son, John, who remains a member of the Club despite years in college on the east coast and service in the Marines over seas, first cruised here when he was about seven. Grew up to be a summer sailing instructor here, and still returns for some of the cruises from his home in Washington DC.
Now the next generation is sailing east with us. our two oldest granddaughters joined in to ring the bell calling the members to the Colors Ceremony, stood to attention as the Flag was lowered, and beside me as I received the Flag.
One of our favorite times at Tinsley Island is when the heat of the day has passed, the island is quiet, and good friends retire to each other’s boats to tell the sort of tall tales sailors tell. For decades under many owners, MAYAN has hosted these evenings from the in the Bahamas, Virgin Islands, Tahiti, Hawaii, and California. Without doubt, it is the mission John G. Alden had in mind when he designed her.
Rolex Big Boat Series
After all that cruising, we shifted MAYAN back into “Race Mode” for a day of practice sailing and then headed out for Big Boat. The crew did a fantastic job, but the skipper (me) let the side down a few times bringing MAYAN in for third in Class, coming close behind GESTURE, who followed YUCCA for 1st place in Class.
It was clear that our lack of race days on the water took their toll on our score. We were pleased to be only one point out of second and two out of first.
The beautiful S&S 59' sloop GESTURE, recently rebuilt by Jeff Rutherford and sailed beautifully by Alex Merhan and his crew was great competition. They sailed her extraordinarily well and were a joy to watch.
As always, YUCCA was quick and well sailed. These were her conditions with the lightest wind conditions we’ve seen in years at Big Boat. With the passing of YUCCA’s prior owner, Hank Easom, the new owner, Michael Zolezzi, had been hesitant to join the fray. But, there was no lack of speed and skill showing on the water.
Each year, we’ve improved the participation in the Rolex Big Boat — Classic Class, and for 2023 the quality was amazing. As always, HURRICA V was in beautiful condition with the finest fit and finish both above and below decks.
We were thrilled to see OCEAN QUEEN V back at Rolex Big Boat Series. She was one of the founding members of the Classic Class and has found a new home after Staff Commodore Hines’ passing.
Ever Improving
Late last year we discovered that the load was simply too high on the jib sheet winches. Only the youngest and strongest could haul in the jib in wind speed above 18k, a regular occurrence on San Francisco Bay and MAYAN’s sweet spot for racing. We had also notice a bit of water leaking around some of the bolts that retain the winch and turning block.
Upon removing the winches we were disapointed to see that the loads had bent the two most heavily loaded bolts and concluded that more engineering was needed. After much discussion and a review of John G. Aldens original plans for the rig, we reverted to the original 2:1 jib sheet design. This obviously resulted in half the load on the winch and turning blocks, must most importantly it also resulted in a lighter work load on the trimming team.
As we’ve said elsewhere, the MAYAN trimmers are extremely active. Over the years we’ve learned that the fastest way to sail MAYAN is to keep her going in nearly a straight line while the sails are re-trimmed to the changes in direction and velocity of the wind. What this means is that the sheets are never belayed and are being eased and hauled in about once every minute or so. After a day of racing the center of each trimming winch is polished bright bronze color, while the rest of the winch retains is blue-brown weathered bronze color.
Making the trimmer team’s job easier is critical to winning races as without the 2:1 sheets on the jib a grinder was only good for about 30 minutes on the winch handle before needing to be swapped out. Equally important to sailing MAYAN well is to get every other sail moving in and out in unision all along the boat. When our Wind Talker (Almost always Nadine Franczyk) calls a puff’s arrival, it’s great to hear the mainsail, gaff foresail, and jib all easing out at once. MAYAN accelerates quickly and if Nadine says the puff or shift will hold, Beau will slowly start to bring MAYAN up to the new apparent wind direction. When Nadine calls out that the puff is fading, the sound of pawls in winches fills MAYAN as the sheets are trimmed in.
Here’s how it works, for those who are new to the concept of a “Velocity Lifts” and “Velocity Headers”.
Velocity Lifts: In the picture below, the top row shows what happens to the Apparant Wind Angle (AWA) when the Apparant Wind Speed (AWS) changes from 15 knots to to 20 knots. (This is a common occurance on San Francisco Bay in the spring and summer, and is call a Velocity Lift.) As you can see, if MAYAN holds the same course while the wind velocity increases, the AWA goes from MAYAN’s “on the wind” setting of 45° to an AWA of 62°. At 62° MAYAN is tight reaching and will rapidly accelerate from about 7.5 knots of boats speed, her normal upwind speed in 15 knots of wind, to as much as 8.5 to 9.0 knots. This has an amazing effect on her Velocity Made Good (VMG) to the windward mark.
Of course, if the AWS were to hold, then MAYAN would gently change course to take advantage of the increased velocity. But, most of the time the puff is only about 1 or 2 minutes long and it will then revert back to its original speed. Turning to the new AWA takes at least 30–45 second, and if the puff goes away MAYAN will be caught sailing too close to the wind and slow down dramatically. It’s far better to just ease the sheets and go fast that to burn speed turning MAYAN with her rudder.
For those of you who are dinghy sailors, this is the heavy boat version of “Ease, Hike, Trim” describe here. We find it facinating that the same principles apply to every boat from a Laser to a J-Class sloop.
Velocity Headers: The opposite, is also true. In the lower two examples above, the AWS is shown changing from 10 knots to 5 knots. In this case the AWA changes from 45° to 31° just becuse the windspeed dropped. That leaves MAYAN sailing too close to the wind and she needs to turn downwind. Because it’s slow to turn MAYAN, the trimmers need to over-trip the sail to help her turn and then ease as she appoaches the correct AWA. This takes practice, but as the MAYAN crew has developed it has become quite skilled at this manuver. It’s important to keep in mind that there are many occasions when the lull is temporary and the best strategy is to avoid turning at all.
Each of these maneuvers adds up to many boat-lengths of distance made good towards the finish line, one of the keys to MAYAN’s ever improving performance. The person on the helm has to always keep in mind that the rudder is a handbrake, and gently encourage MAYAN onto the correct course.
StFYC Jessica Cup
Following our imperfect performance in the Rolex Big Boat Series, we felt better prepared and more determined than ever to do well in the Jessica Cup. As is the tradition, a large group of classic yachts get together for two races in one day starting and finishing in front of the St. Francis YC windows. When the current and wind favor the shoreline, the bar empties out to shout encouragement and “helpful comments” to the boats as they shout for “Sea Room”, jostle for position, and hunt for upwind lanes.
For the Jessica Cup, there are specialized classes for pure gaff rigged vessels that are more heavily weighted towards reaching. The marconi rigged vessels tend to be more weighted towards the natural windward/leeward shape inficted by the prevailing winds and shape of San Francisco Bay. MAYAN, having a marconi mainsail, gets to sail the more schooner-hostile windward/leeward courses. (Exaggerating of course, but it certainly keeps our team focused on upwind performance.)
Unlike the Rolex Big Boat Series, that is sailed under the ORR-Ez handicap, the Jessica Cup is sailed under a modified PHRF. MAYAN struggles with PHRF, as she has performed extremely well due to her terrific crew and that has “modified” her handicap.
Race 1
The crew got us to the starting line with pace but the wind was lighter than MAYAN needs. We were well back by the first windward mark. KAY of GÖTEBORG held us off during the beat and the run to Harding Rock, where we finally got by them. Then, as we attempted to extend our lead on the tight reach, MAYAN’s strongest point of sail, we came across an incoming container ship. Once we had sailed around the darned thing, we had been pushed back to 4th place on handicap and didn’t have time on the final beat to improve our position.
Race 2
Your author screwed up the start and literally ran over the poor innocent red ball serving as the north starting mark. There was much hilarity in the StFYC bar as the members remarked (correctly) that I had agressively pushed poor WATER WITCH off the line and underestimated the ebb tide. Fortunately, nothing was damaged by my pride.
On the first beat we set a new record for doing a penalty turn, and clawed our way back to 2nd boat around the windward mark. Starting at the north end of the line was the correct strategy, hitting the red ball was not. As always, the crew carried the day and we managed to early a 2nd place for the race on corrected time, creating a three way tie for 2nd. Having the best score of the losers, we came 2nd in the regatta to KAY of GÖTEBORG and her great skipper Neil Gibbs.
MAYAN waits patiently
Serving as the Flag Ship for StFYC is primarily a job of sitting at the dock looking pretty. The duties of the Commodore are such that, oddly enough, there isn’t a lot of time for sailing. In mid-January MAYAN will sail south to her home port of Santa Cruz and some well deserved pampering as we work through the list of FixIts that accumulates each year.
As I’m certain you can imagine, it takes a small army of volunteer crew, or a chest full of treasure, to keep MAYAN in the condition she’s in. Fortunately, she has wanted for nothing and keeps getting betters. It’s impossible to thank our small army individually, but you’ll know them when you see them. Each year, my amazing wife Stacey produces the annual “shirt” for the crew of Rolex Big Boat Series bearing the MAYAN logo, and sporting the “color” of the year. After running through eye-watering orange, Bahamian turquoise, royal blue, and flag red, next years’ shirt is already stowed away ready for 2024. The year’s color is always a surprise.
For Stacey and me, it’s wonderful to see boats along the coast populated with MAYAN shirts and hats. To all of you who’ve earned a shirt — Thank you!
MAYAN’s Plans for 2024
The first part of the year will be spent on maintenance. Varnish and some paint are in need of some attention. Then, Stacey and I will be out of the country for a month “getting away from it all.” After than, and in addition to our typical brace of races, she’ll try a few longer handicap races. We’ve been pushing MAYAN around buoys with each leg being about 15-minutes long. While entertaining and more than a little frenetic, we long for open blue water where we can stretch her legs and let her take off. Said another way, close quarters maneuvers were not on Alden’s brief for this design.
In 2024, the over arching goals of getting family and friends out on the water on a classic schooner, letting them feel what it’s like to sail blue water on a boat designed to be at sea, and the excitement of racing the old girl will be paramount.
